2/6 ”When the Bosnian Serb Army took over some checkpoints near us, the Dutch soldiers immediately left their checkpoint and left us behind in the refugee camp. I remember feeling extremely disappointed. We thought they would protect us, but they didn’t. My mother and my three younger sisters went to the Dutch UN base in Potocari. My father and I decided to try to walk to Tuzla, a city 100 kilometers further, which was the safe zone. We ran away from the camp and went to the forest. There was complete chaos in the forest, and I lost sight of my father. I found myself in a mass of random strangers. I was crying and running, calling my father’s name. After that, I never saw him again. I joined a convoy of thousands of people, mostly men. Many of them were carrying wounded people. I was in the back. Trees surrounded us so we couldn’t see where we were going. It was a horrific scene. After two days of walking, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we heard a voice through a megaphone. The voice ordered us to surrender and to come out of the forest. They said that we wouldn’t be killed. They also mentioned the Geneva convention. I didn’t know what they meant, but I remember learning about it in school. From that moment, I knew the Serbian soldiers had found us, and I feared for my life.”

1/6 ”Our house and village got destroyed at the very beginning of the war. We escaped from the Serb soldiers in time, but we had nowhere to go. We wandered through many different villages, and we would sometimes stay in the woods. The area was already under the control of the Bosnian Serb forces, so we had no other choice but to go to Srebrenica in March 1993. When we arrived, there were so many refugees. We found a small garage next to a school in which to live. I remember that year as a constant search for food and water. It felt like a concentration camp without wire. Still, from a young boy’s perspective, there were some interesting elements. My friends and I were impressed by the UN soldiers. We would ask them questions about cars, soccer, and their rifles—things that interested me as a 15-year-old boy. We would often go to their base during lunchtime. Sometimes, when the soldiers had some leftovers from their lunch, they would give them to us. After a year, we left the school and went to live in a refugee camp built by the Swedish government. We stayed there for one year. It might sound strange but this was the best period of my life. The camp was next to the river, so we had clean running water. I used every moment I could to go swimming. My friends and I would sometimes play soccer with the Dutch soldiers. That year Ajax played in the Champions League, going on to win the competition, and that was exciting for all of us. We talked a lot about soccer. One of the soldiers gave me a poster of one of the players. At the time, I had no idea who he was, but I put it up in my bedroom. Later, when I was able to watch TV again, I found out it was Jari Litmanen.”

“My father was often hired to work on construction projects in Germany and Croatia. He would be away for weeks, but every time he came back, he would bring presents. Whenever he returned, we would walk a few kilometers so we could meet him halfway to welcome him home. One time, he brought a VCR recorder from Germany. Nobody else in the village had a video player so we were the only ones who could watch cartoons and films. My friends and family would come to our house to watch movies. The adults would watch music videos of traditional Balkan bands. Whenever they finished, my friends and I watched cartoons such as Tom & Jerry and Popeye. Around our village, there were many Bosnian-Serbs. They were our neighbors and friends. I was twelve when I slowly started to realize what was happening. The war came on our last day of school. It was the third of April 1992. There were drunk soldiers around the school, misbehaving. I never realized there was a difference between my friends and me until one day when I watched an old Yugoslavian Partisan film with my friend Slavisa. There was this scene where the Partisans fought against some other army. When the scene ended, the Partisans won. Out of excitement, I said to Slavisa: ‘We won! Our army won!’ Slavisa looked uncomfortable and blushed. I didn’t understand why, and we continued watching the movie. A week later, Slavisa’s father was doing some construction in our house. His mother came over and said that Slavisa, who was sixteen at the time, had joined the Serb Nationalist Army and was sent to a battlefield in Croatia. I realized now why Slavisa blushed during the scene. It was the first time I realized there was a difference between us. I thought about the drunk soldiers near my school, how they misbehaved, and how Slavisa now belonged to them.”

4/4 “After the war, we moved to Tuzla. We didn’t hear anything from my father. In 1997, two years after the war, we received a call from the Missing Persons Institute. They had found my father. Back then, they had not started using DNA identification, so they would still invite family members to identify clothes or possessions. My mother was so broken that she could not go. Later, the Red Cross came by our house and again asked if we could identify the body. My mother recognized the car because it wasn’t the first time she had identified a family member. She panicked and ran up to the woods. They left us alone and said that whenever we were ready, we could come by to identify. Ten days before my graduation, I got a phone call asking if I could come to identify the body. I was seventeen at the time. Even though I was still a minor, I decided it was time. I told my mother it would be good to do it now. We would finally have a place to lay my father to rest. I went to the identification center with my mother. They told me that it seemed he had been killed in an ambush. Before entering the room, they explained that there were two tables. On one table were his bones and on the other his clothes. They told me to focus on the table where his clothes were laid out. When I entered the room, I immediately recognized his trousers. The first thing I did was reach into his pocket. There it was, covered in dirt, my Duplo toy, ‘Sabe’. After that, my world collapsed. I didn’t want to go to my graduation anymore. Teachers and students asked me to come, but I couldn’t. I had very long hair, but it started to fall out from stress. I stayed in my room for six months. I refused any help. I refused to visit a psychologist. Instead, I became my own psychologist. I started writing letters to my father. With every letter I wrote, I began to feel better. I collected all the letters and, with the help of my family and friends, I published a book called “To My Srebrenica Hero”. When I finished the book, I put it next to his grave, so when people visit the Srebrenica Memorial Center, they will know about my father and how much I love him.”

3/4 “There were thousands of people surrounding us as we began saying our goodbyes. By the time I gave my father a final hug, everyone was gone, and it was just me, my father, mother, and my two little sisters. Someone shouted that we had to leave, or we would get killed. We left my father behind, and while walking away from him, I looked back in his direction so I could see him a bit longer. My father stood there with my small backpack in his hands. As I was looking back towards him, I fell over a piece of wood. I started crying, and my father came running up to me and said: ‘If you fall even when I’m watching you, how will you survive without me?’ My mother and sisters had already walked on a bit farther. I asked my father if I could please come with him. He told me I couldn’t, but he promised we would see each other again. My mother then came back and pulled my hand. I got up and walked off with my mother and sisters. Suddenly, I heard my father’s voice again. He yelled: ‘Bina, you forgot your toy!’. I ran towards him, and while he wanted to hand over Sabe, I told him that he should keep Sabe safe. I knew that if I left the toy with him, my father would have to keep his promise and bring Sabe back to me. I put Sabe in the pocket of his trousers, and we started walking away. When we got to a meadow, I heard someone calling my name. In the distance, on the hill, I saw my father. He waved with his shirt and screamed: ‘We’ll see each other in Tuzla, I love you!’.”