On Friday, August 26th, we went out to visit the “Tunnel of Hope,” the primary connection between Sarajevo and the outside world during the 1992-1996 siege by Bosnian Serb forces in the hills surrounding the city. The United Nations occupied the airport, during this period, but would not take sides in what they considered to be a civil war, and did not allow supplies to pass through the airport aboveground. So the Sarajevans dug a tunnel under the airport, leading to a trail up to the only one of the surrounding mountains held by Bosnian government forces.
When we got back to town and broke up for the afternoon. Mary Joy and I, and Lynne, another member of the group, went to find the brewery, which had been one of the few sources of water during the siege. We visited the small museum, and then had a beer in the brewery’s bar-restaurant. Mary Joy had noticed the Franciscan church down the block, so we had to visit that, too. The windows and paintings were obviously new, presumably to replace others destroyed by Serb shelling.
Mary Joy and I had lunch at a recommended burek restaurant staffed by women wearing headscarves (while having an interesting conversation with a local man—I hope to come back to this later—In fact, I hope to write a fairly lengthy post about my experiences and feelings relating to Sarajevo, at the end of this trip’s posts).
Then we went to the Gallery 11/07/9, a museum relating to the execution-murder of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb military forces. Their website explains them as follows:
“Gallery 11/07/95 is the first memorial gallery in Bosnia and Herzegovina – an exhibition space aiming to preserve the memory of the Srebrenica tragedy and the 8372 persons who perished in the massacres. The permanent exhibition provides documentary scenes of what was left of Srebrenica in the wake of this genocide. Through a wide range of multimedia content – images, maps, audio and video materials, the Gallery offers documentary and artistic interpretation of the events that took place in this small town in Eastern Bosnia during the month of July 1995.”
It is a very powerful experience.
Before dinner, the group heard a local woman talk about her experiences. She had worked for foreign aid groups and was very downbeat and cynical about the situation in her country. Seeing governments and large organizations as corrupt and ineffective, she brought up our own upcoming election (which generally astounds and frightens Europeans), and told us not to vote. She was encouraged by how response to a local disaster had been organized by private individuals over the internet, but was angry at and dismissive of politicians.
That evening, we did a home visit for dinner, dividing into two groups, going to different apartments in the same high-rise. The family that our group ate with consisted of a couple, their daughter and son and the husband’s mother, who did the cooking. The husband and son were away. This (very secular) Muslim family was in one particular way very much like an American family: both children were heavily involved in competitive sports, on traveling teams—the daughter in rhythmic gymnastics, the son in soccer. I gather that this is not normal for Bosnian families and required economic sacrifices on the part of the parents. The wife worked in a restaurant, seven days a week. I don’t remember hearing what the husband did. The daughter did some cartwheels, etc., for us.
The meal was good, and during it the wife talked about the war, during which she was a child, with a child’s ability to adapt to extraordinary circumstances until they became the new ordinary.
When we got back to town and broke up for the afternoon. Mary Joy and I, and Lynne, another member of the group, went to find the brewery, which had been one of the few sources of water during the siege. We visited the small museum, and then had a beer in the brewery’s bar-restaurant. Mary Joy had noticed the Franciscan church down the block, so we had to visit that, too. The windows and paintings were obviously new, presumably to replace others destroyed by Serb shelling.
Mary Joy and I had lunch at a recommended burek restaurant staffed by women wearing headscarves (while having an interesting conversation with a local man—I hope to come back to this later—In fact, I hope to write a fairly lengthy post about my experiences and feelings relating to Sarajevo, at the end of this trip’s posts).
Then we went to the Gallery 11/07/9, a museum relating to the execution-murder of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb military forces. Their website explains them as follows:
“Gallery 11/07/95 is the first memorial gallery in Bosnia and Herzegovina – an exhibition space aiming to preserve the memory of the Srebrenica tragedy and the 8372 persons who perished in the massacres. The permanent exhibition provides documentary scenes of what was left of Srebrenica in the wake of this genocide. Through a wide range of multimedia content – images, maps, audio and video materials, the Gallery offers documentary and artistic interpretation of the events that took place in this small town in Eastern Bosnia during the month of July 1995.”
It is a very powerful experience.
Before dinner, the group heard a local woman talk about her experiences. She had worked for foreign aid groups and was very downbeat and cynical about the situation in her country. Seeing governments and large organizations as corrupt and ineffective, she brought up our own upcoming election (which generally astounds and frightens Europeans), and told us not to vote. She was encouraged by how response to a local disaster had been organized by private individuals over the internet, but was angry at and dismissive of politicians.
That evening, we did a home visit for dinner, dividing into two groups, going to different apartments in the same high-rise. The family that our group ate with consisted of a couple, their daughter and son and the husband’s mother, who did the cooking. The husband and son were away. This (very secular) Muslim family was in one particular way very much like an American family: both children were heavily involved in competitive sports, on traveling teams—the daughter in rhythmic gymnastics, the son in soccer. I gather that this is not normal for Bosnian families and required economic sacrifices on the part of the parents. The wife worked in a restaurant, seven days a week. I don’t remember hearing what the husband did. The daughter did some cartwheels, etc., for us.
The meal was good, and during it the wife talked about the war, during which she was a child, with a child’s ability to adapt to extraordinary circumstances until they became the new ordinary.
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