 |
It was 1992 and Bosnia was burning, however war had not yet reached my town of Sipovo which was some 40 kilometers away from Jajce, a city once filled with beauties being engulfed in war. Upon witnessing these events, Muslims from my town started to migrate out of the town for fear of their lives. Amongst them were all of my relatives, they all began packing up, and were transported by buses or tractors into possible safe zones in and around Bosnia. My family was amongst the few who stayed, if not the only Muslim family left in the whole town with respect towards our relatives and friends. My family and I soon found our selves stuck, war had almost reached our city. The people around us were becoming more consumed by hatred towards Muslims. We Muslims were running out of simple goods, and the situation was not going well for us at all. At the same time and a little soon afterwards a letter was sent to our house demanding that all Muslim men above the age of eighteen or so must go to the frontline, however not to fight, but worst; to do forced labor in support of the Serbian armed military forces who were already engaged in war with the Croats at the front line near Kupres, a small city on plains surrounded by mountains in western part of Bosnia. No sooner, my father was packing up and heading for Kupres by force. The Serbs had stripped the Muslims forcefully of their weapons prior to this call, and thus had eliminated any chance for the possibility of resistance which they feared. The order from the Serbian army was sent to all of the Muslims. They were smart about it, as they did not want local Serbs to slave for them on the frontline, so instead they chose Muslim men. The choice was simple, one either obeys this order, and leave for Kupres on Serbian military trucks packed with Muslims picked up from here and there, or simply get killed. My father had no choice, so he left for Kupres shortly afterwards. That day when I saw my father leave was a day that I was very much saddened as I did not want to see him go. However, he did go, my father waved goodbye to us while heading for an uncertain future. The times had passed, and I would not see him for another three months.
Life on the Frontline
|
.
|
It was nearly winter, and my father was still not back. Than all of a sudden few months had passed when to my surprise a man showed up on our door steps. He had partially torn clothing and winter rags, having grown a grayish beard. When I looked at him I felt scared, however my mother approached him and hugged him, and only then was I able to recognize that it was my father. He had looked like a beggar coming from the streets. He had lost a lot of weight as if coming from a concentration camp. However he did not come from a concentration camp, instead he came from the frontlines where he saw horrible things which he narrated to my mum, which I overheard at times. He and other Muslim men were forced to pick up dead bodies and body parts of fallen Serb soldiers. After picking them up in large quantities, they carried the remains through the lines of fire and into Serbian military hospitals. Wounded soldiers, dismembered service men, and their bodies; arms, legs, intestines, heads, you name it, he and the likes of him carried and dealt with. This was the type of work that was done by them. If the frontline was calm, they were ordered to work on hay fields under the hot burning sun. They stacked up hay for local Serbian inhabitants of the town for the benefit of their livestock, which the Serbs would contribute later to their Serbian soldiers.
All of this work, nearly all day, with no pay, and little or no food and drink given. However tasks soon were to be lightened on my father. My dad was a barber, because of this skill the burden of work at times was reduced against him. He knew some of the Serb soldiers, and he use to give them hair cuts on the frontline, thus sparing him of the harsh labor out in the field. My father did not charge them for giving them hair cuts, not that he would due to the fear, however the Serbian soldiers and officers highly appreciated his efforts and his ability to get along with them and cooperate with them. As a result of his good attitude and his cooperative measures, they released him from his work and let him go home for a short period of time to see his family. This is how he and some of his other Muslim friends came home; due to their steadfastness in patience and cooperation. Otherwise it was impossible to be discharged from the harsh labor. My father told us that Muslim men were beaten, abused and times even shot at, simply because of their inability to be patient and maintain a good attitude. At times a Muslim man would simply shout out simple words in protest to the forced labor, then a Serb guard would order him to be beaten and harassed for several hours. A great deal of Muslim men did not come back, including a neighbor of ours, they said him and his mentally disturbed son were both picked up for forced labor, sent to the front and afterwards they were both shot.
Behaving Like Criminals
It put a smile on my face to see my dad return from such horrible times. However, upon returning and settling down a bit, he began to keep silent and went ‘underground’ for several weeks and months so as to keep away from possibly being sent again to the front. He secretly moved to Banjaluka, a city where he had some Muslim relatives and friends. There he and his other Muslim friend stayed in ‘hideout’. This method proved very successful, because while doing this, they were at the same time organizing a way out for our families to migrate out of the troubled town, and out of Bosnia and into the Diaspora. While my father and some other Muslims had gone into ‘hideout’, several Muslim men who refused to do the same had stayed behind unable or not wanting to migrate, they were as a result all killed. For example our close neighbor Kasim, a close friend of my dad, was shot to death. Kasim was a mathematician in the local middle school. After the ethnic hatred began, he was soon expelled from the school, for simply being a Muslim, even though he and his family never practiced the religion. Because of his Muslim name, he was killed, there was no other reason. I remember that time very well, Kasim lived in the third house positioned left of ours. A little time passed and soon three masked Serbian men knocked at his house door around midnight. They called him out “teacher”, he probably though it was a friendly face, upon opening the door, the masked men strapped with silencer pistols shot him in the head instantly killing him on the spot. Afterwards they went inside and shot his wife several times in her legs, but not killing her. It was only when locals heard these skirmishes and cries, that the criminals left the scene of the horrible crime in a hurry. I saw Kasim’s body being carried out on a stretcher the next morning. Events like these started to become all too frequent. Another Muslim down the block was also shot, after shooting him they dragged him, and dumped his body into a big dirty pond of mud.
|
.
|
Reflecting upon all of this, it seemed almost as if we were the last Muslim family left on the Serb hit list. We were scared, and the times were getting darker and darker for us. However, due to my dad hiding out, the Serb criminals usually did not pick on wives and their small kids who were left behind for reasons known (so they thought). Hence we were spared, I personally believe God had protected us, and for this I became all too grateful.
Soon afterwards, a young Serb man along with his wife settled in the floor above us in our house, and he was soon to rob our house belongings stationed in the roof above his floor. Even though we had given him and his wife a place to stay for a relatively cheap rent, despite that he proved himself to be anything but cooperative and nice. To make matters worst, he was a local police officer, and started to organize several officers from his department who would silently storm our house at midnight, and rob our belongings that were found in the roof top of our house. My family and I noticed their footsteps that night through our blurry glass steel door. We could see them, but they could not see us. We saw them strapped with rifles and guns; they were ready to kill at any moments notice. However, they did not, instead they choose to rob and loot for they found out we were well off. They stole anything from couches to chairs, electronic devices, including my dad’s motorcycle and other belongings, amongst them beautiful canvas painting pictures that we discovered later hanging on the walls of other families that we at time visited while still in our town. We knew what was going on, the crooked police officer and his friends sold our possessions to local Serb and non-Serb families in the town, we could do nothing about it. My dad tried to nicely confront him about this issue and supposedly he “felt sorry”, despite this, in return the police officer threatened us with a hand grenade, however it did not explode. It did not go beyond this, the criminal police officer moved out upon discovering the fact that he could not rely upon us any longer. We had nothing left to give him. Later we heard that he went to the frontline to confront the Croatian and Muslim forces - he never returned.
Burning and Rampaging
We believe that our family was amongst those whom God saved, other Muslim families had it worst. A village across our town one night was burnt to the ground. Some of the organized anti-Muslim Serb criminals stormed the village whilst being lightly armed, thereafter they lit it afire. They burnt an old Muslim man to death inside his farm barn house along with his livestock, which he was desperately guarding without a weapon. That night one could plainly look at the plains and mountains where the village was positioned and see huge burning fires far off in the dark night. For several days to follow, my grandfathers’ villages both from my mums and dads side were also burnt down, its inhabitants were mostly Muslims and the mosque therein was destroyed - burnt to the ground and left in rubbles.
We could not bare it any more, all of our family members in our town had moved out of the troubled region, we always thought it would never get that bad, but the more we allowed ourselves to believe this, in reality the more it got worse for us.
Our once Muslim town soon became a Serb town, and we were amongst the last families left therein. The situation was horrible for us. We knew that if we had stayed any longer that we would surely be killed. Our grandparents’ villages were burnt, our possessions and goods stolen, we had little or nothing left but ourselves, and some humanitarian aid which was given to us via the Red Cross, which came several times to our house, but never came again. They spoke English, we could not understand anything. Besides that, the Muslim ‘Merhamet’ organization which my father and some of the Muslims were leading in our town was abandoned, as the situation was getting worst. We had no choice but to move out, and so we slowly started packing.
That day we had organized ourselves and packed up all of our necessities, a local Serb who was at least fair in his dealings with some of the people decided to haul us out of the town into the safety zone for a huge amount of money. From the safety zone in Bosnia, we would then travel with a bus to Croatia, and from Croatia we would arrive to a safe refugee camp in Hungary. It would all go according to plan and thank God it did. However that day, that one last day when we were packing up was perhaps amongst the worst days in my entire life. I was approximately eight years old at that time, and my brother was nine when we packed up all of our needs in the car. Upon having our things packed, we then began to enter the car for some reason feeling rather tired, not wanting to leave, but we had to for there simply was no other choice. We slowly boarded the car, and my mom began to cry, and so did my brother and I while tears ran down our young faces. A little afterwards, I unbelievably noticed my dad wept too in the front seat of the car. That was the first time in my entire life that I ever saw my dad weep, and it hurt me deep inside to see that. Despite all of the hardships, it had come to this very sad moment. It seemed our house was weeping along with us, but we had to go, we had to migrate, for living was better than dying; even these two matters were hard to distinguish throughout that once-upon-a difficult past. And so the car drove off slowly as the dust settled behind us, falling down upon our calm trail of tears.
|
