2/4 “We were having dinner when all of a sudden we heard that the Serbian military had invaded Srebrenica. I was only ten years old, but I understood very well that something terrible was happening. We quickly packed some stuff and left. I took my schoolbag, and inside I put a notebook and my little Duplo toy, Sabe. Together with thousands of people, we started walking towards a safer village. When we arrived, the Bosnian men, including my father, had to go to the frontline. I remember we were sitting down when my father put me on his lap. He wasn’t an emotional man, but, at that moment, he started to cry. He said: ‘Bina, war is a big man who is trying to eat us. This time, to not be eaten, we are going to have to part ways.’ He told me that we would meet in front of the shopping mall in Tuzla, the safe zone. My father noticed my backpack. He said it would be too heavy for me to carry it, and that it would be better to leave it. He asked me what was inside. I told him that I had brought a notebook so he would have paper to roll his cigarettes. When I said that, he started crying so loud that the sound echoed through the woods.”

1/4 “My parents tried to have children for seven years. From the moment I was born, my father and I were inseparable. I remember he would always come home after work and lie down on the couch. I would sit next to him and feel his pulse. He explained that people have vessels and that when you stop feeling their heartbeat, they are no longer alive. It was the first time I learned about death. I was almost seven when the war started in 1992. We ran away from our hometown and stayed with my grandparents near Srebrenica. Those years were tough. There was little food, and our family was poor. My father was in the military. He would often go to the frontline. Sometimes he would be away for weeks, but he would always come back with some food. One day he came home and he said: Sabina, I have a surprise for you. What do you think it is? I asked if it was chocolate. He said: ‘it’s even sweeter than chocolate,’ and he gave me a little Duplo man. I could have never imagined having a real toy. I would play with tiny pieces of wood, for which my grandmother would knit small sweaters. All the children in the village were jealous of my toy. I namedhimSabe, aftermyfather’snickname

2/2 ”When we arrived at the safe territory, we lived in a school for a while. Later we moved here to Tinja. In the beginning, we lived with four other families. I started going to school for the first time. I remember seeing other children with their fathers and wondering if my father would ever come back. At school, I never said that I didn’t have a father anymore. I always kept hope, and I would tell the kids in school that he would come back one day. I remember children in school telling me that I was a liar and that my father was dead. It upset me so much that one day I went to school and told everyone my father had returned. I was so convincing that even the teacher believed me, and had to call my mom to check. We never had the chance to take a family portrait. My mother was still pregnant when she had to say goodbye to my father, so my sister never got to meet him. Originally this was a photo of my mother, my sister, and me. We added our father with photoshop so that we would have one family photo with the four of us. In 2010, we got confirmation that they had found his body. Every year, I go to his grave to say a prayer. I know it’s not rational, but to this day, I feel guilty. Sometimes I think he should have tried to escape through the woods. It was as if he wanted to spend his last moments with us.”

1/2 ”My father had heard that men and women got separated at the UN base. All the male family members tried to escape through the woods. Still, my father didn’t want to leave my mother alone. My mother was pregnant at the time, and I was only three years old. Together, we arrived at the UN base in Potočari. My mother tried to convince my father to dress up like a woman so they wouldn’t capture him. He refused to do that. When the buses, for evacuating women and children, arrived they wouldn’t let my father get on. He was hoping that the soldiers would show him some compassion as he was carrying me. But they told him to go and stand with the other men, and to give me to anyone else or they would kill me. He gave me to my mom, who was standing nearby, and told her to take good care of us and that they would see each other soon.”

(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. After washing the sheets, she would carefully iron and fold them and then put them back into the plastic cover. We still had hope until we received a phone call from the Missing Persons Institute in 2002. They had found a body in the forest and, based on our DNA, it was a match. My mother and I had to come to the mortuary to identify. When we arrived, a staff member suggested it might be better if my mother didn’t go inside, so I went in by myself. They had found all her bones and, on a table, there was a red piece of cloth and some leather fabric. The doctor asked me if those were the clothes Enesa was wearing the day she left Srebrenica. I told him that I couldn’t know because I hadn’t seen Enesa in years. I went outside and asked my mother what Enesa wore the day she left. My mother said: ‘A red dress and a leather jacket.’ I said: ‘Mom, It’s Enesa’. She started crying. Until the last moment, my mother had remained hopeful. “