SARAJEVO IS NO MORE by Hamza Baksic Mr Baksic is a journalist for a daily "Oslobodjenje." The paper with 60 years of tradition, it was published every day throughout the war in Bosnia between 1992- 1995, regardless of shortages of the paper, ink chemicals, electricity, staff, etc., while coping with all other problems that followed the siege of Sarajevo. If you like to comment on the content, you may forward an e-mail directly to Mr. Baksic at [email protected] Translated by Igor Knezevic ________________________________________________________________ 1 PROLOGUE This book is a record of a nightmarish struggle for survival in besieged Sarajevo. Since the autumn of 1991 I had been getting the impression that my journalistic scribblings had begun to stink of history. With the passage of days and weeks, history began to penetrate into our homes, to kick people out of their houses, to kill and wound. I hadn’t been successful in understanding events, meetings, statements, but they remained recorded (as the war was drawing closer, the notes were resembling a diary). Then, Sarajevo was attacked. I noted down days and events, only to succumb for a day or two. Time, the calendar, in the siege was meaningless. The day passes in expectation of the next one, supposedly better. Why should time or date matter in a city in which human life meant nothing? Keeping a diary is, however, like an addiction. Diary notes always come back to haunt the one who tries to record them. For me and for many Sarajevans who are not writers by trade, were drawn to keeping a diary by the abyss of free time, and the vertigo, which we felt facing it. We were separated from the past by explosions and the future was not visible. Only in besieged Sarajevo did I fully understand the meaning of the message in the Nazi inscription above the entrance to a concentration camp: Arbeit macht frei. Freedom through work. Within a shelled system of values, one notes down what in that moment seems important. So in a day during which thirty people were killed, it seemed to me that the most significant event was the arrival of the water truck in front of my house. The day after the most important thing was to find a pen to write with and some paper. The next day a candle and some oil to fill a jar and to keep a cotton thread alight. Then it was a kilo of flour. In such a diary nothing should be changed in retrospect. Not the dates in mixed- up papers several times removed to the shelter and brought back to the flat again, not the facts, not the impressions. The diary was started by a certain Hamza Baksic, a confused fiftysomething who, fortunately, understood Dante’s message that those who enter should leave all hope behind. That’s how one gets through hell easier. The diary was finished by a man who inherited only an identity card, a family and surviving friends from that pre-war one. Those surviving friends also only retained their name and surname. 2 We no longer exist. We are all dead. There is no Sarajevo any longer either, a city about which the world was so concerned only to abandon it to shells for forty months. If one day someone feels any shame because of all that happened, that might only happen because shame is a part of civic decency. That shame will not rebuild destroyed Bosnian towns and villages, it will not resurrect the dead, will not give back a pride to raped women, nor will it make us, the survivors, any less dead. Only once we—who have lived through the days of the Sarajevo siege—are buried, will the layer of coagulated blood begin to peel off the pavements of the city once called Sarajevo. The Sarajevo of my generation. Three of my friends were dismembered so that it was hard to identify their bodies. This book is dedicated to the memory of their symbolic death. Where Sarajevo once was, December, 1995 Hamza Baksic 3 Preface to the North American e-book issue On May 2, 1992, Sarajevo was encircled by the forces of Bosnian Serbs and the JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army), and the siege was finally lifted on February 29, 1996. According to known data, the siege was the longest in the history of mankind. For 1,395 days, sarajevans had lived in appalling conditions and fear while being shelled and shot at, and while living the most of time without things that we all consider the basic: running water—or any water for that matter—electricity, gas, food, heat... As a reminder, when we in North America have a 24-hour blackout, we talk about it for weeks. Now, try to imagine individual dwellings or apartment buildings without the heat and running water: no shower or toilet flushing, no laundry washing, no warmth when is cold, no cooking on a stove, no reading in the evenings or listening to radio or TV, no elevators, no Internet… and so on. During that period, about 12,000 of Sarajevans died by the sniper’s bullet or by shelling. Among the dead, 1,600 were children. They were Moslems, Croats, Serbs… bullets and mortars do not discriminate. 4 Using search engines, you may find many sites describing the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is just one of those links that you may follow: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Siege_of_Sarajevo While I’m a Sarajevan, at the time of war I was living in Canada. However, my family and many friends had to endure four cold winters in—as they put it—the largest concentration camp ever conceived. I am very proud that Mr. Hamza Baksic, a decent man and a good friend, provided me with the opportunity to marginally adapt this material that was already translated. It is a translation of his original book “Sarajeva vise nema.”(Sarajevo is no longer). Mr. Baksic wants more people to better understand the aspects of life in times of wars. For this reason, this e–book is distributed free of charge. I wish also to thank an unknown author who made the map of Sarajevo indicating the Bosnian Serbs positions during the encirclement of Sarajevo, so that the reader can better understand the circumstances. Branislav Bujic Aurora, Canada 5 st 31 December 1991 A thick, New Year's issue of “Oslobodjenje”1. Fear and hope wrestle in most of the articles. Behind each letter lurks misery like quicksand. Alija Izetbegovic declares that Serbs in Bosnia have no reason to go to war. He also says Bosnia is one big secret. I ran into neighbour Ilija Guzina in the supermarket. He’s now a local TV star and always on the move; he’s in the caucus of the Serbian Democratic Party, and well informed. Another neighbour Ramiz and I ask almost at unison: “Ilija, are we going to have a war, what do you think…?” Ilija and I have known each other for far too long to lie to one another. “If there is war everywhere, it’ll be here as well.” says Ilija. And war is everywhere. Bosnia resists. The people are anxious and it seems to me that they would take arms to fight those who would go to war. We have seen Vukovar12, we have seen people in black chetnik3 uniforms flying the flag with the skull, walking the streets destroyed by JNA4 tanks and artillery. Still, I cannot believe that the whole JNA is like that, that so much has changed since the time when I served. Is someone mobilising reserve forces creating a new army with the aim of paralyzing the JNA as it used to be? Azra and I are alone for New Year’s Eve. Our daughter is going out with her friends. We’ve given up the idea of going to Azra’s brother Sead’s in Grbavica5. It’s my fault: I am unable to drink when everybody else does. Especially this year. What is it that awaits me, what should I hope for? But I do hope: I hope that things won’t get worse. I’m tired. I didn’t go to the Adriatic coast last summer. I can’t sunbathe in front of the house of a man whose son might be on the front line, on the Serb or the Croat side. I haven’t been outside Sarajevo for some time. In fact the last time was back in October when my uncle Enver Baksic died in Zenica6. He was a metal worker, and from a dirty occupation he carried on with the habit of bathing several times a day into his retirement. The washing machine was going through its cycle in the bathroom at the same time and the hot water scalded him. There were complications. Enver fought hard. He was a strong person. 1 The daily paper. 2 City in eastern Croatia, flattened by the Yugoslav People’s Army in 1991 3 Formed during the Second World War from the remnants of the old Royal Yugoslav Army. Initially the Serb national defence forces in time of Nazi occupation of the country. Soon turned to collaborating with the Nazis. Resurrected in the 1990s as irregular Serb nationalist units attached to the Yugoslav People’s Army, fighting for a Greater Serbia. 4 Yugoslav People's Army, the armed forces of the former Yugoslavia, in the 1990s placed itself at the disposal of Slobodan Milosevic and the cause of Serb nationalism 5 Suburb of Sarajevo controlled by Serbs throughout the war, 1992-1995 6 Industrial city in central Bosnia 6 In 1941, when the chetniks were slaughtering the Baksics in Ljubinje7, some victims had a choice: would they rather have their throat cut or jump into a deep cave.