2/3 ”If it had been up to me, I would have stayed with my grandmother. However, nobody asked us what we wanted. There were many children in the orphanage. We were divided into “families” of 20 kids. Luckily my siblings and I got to stay together. Every group had two social workers. One of the social workers for my group was named Mirsada. She treated us like we were her children. Whenever I was sad, I would lock myself up in my room and cry. Mirsada always noticed my absence, and would immediately come to me in my room and hold me tight. She knew our story and how much we were missing our grandmother and parents. When my sister turned eighteen, she became the first of us to leave the orphanage. She went to live with my grandmother. When I turned eighteen, I moved in with them. That’s when my grandmother gave me this ring. It belonged to my mother. My grandmother hid it in her pocket and managed to bring it from Srebrenica. It is one of the only things I have that belonged to my mother.”

More stories?

By buying this book you are directly contributing to the continuation of Humans of Amsterdam.

See more

(4/4) "Years later, we found out, through a reconstruction based on stories from different people, that Sadif was seen carrying Enesa through the forest while she was already dead. People had told him to leave her body behind. Sadif had told them that he wouldn’t...

(3/4) "Years went by without any information about what happened to Enesa and Sadif. My mom had put the set of bed sheets in a plastic cover under her bed. Once in a while, she would take them out of the cover to wash them. Sometimes she would sew a flower on it....

(2/4) ''Days went by and we didn’t hear from Enesa and Sadif. Every day new refugees came in from Srebrenica. My mother and I would go to the refugee camps and ask people if they had seen Enesa and Sadif. We would show them pictures but nobody recognized them. Every...