Hadis Medenčević

"When the Bosnian Serb army conquered the town, a curfew was imposed. We could only go out between 8 and 11 a.m., after that the city was deserted, except for the army. One day I went out at that time, looking for some information, something that would just give me some hope. I remember there was a group of soldiers standing there, they had red berets on their heads, and it turned out to be some kind of special commando. I happened to be standing there when their commander came in. He said, 'You have 10 minutes to clear the whole town, to get people off the streets'. They started shooting. I'm not saying they were shooting at people, but some fell down. I don't know if they were hit or if they just tripped, but it was terrible. Fortunately, I ran away quickly and hid behind a building. God knows what would have happened if I had stayed there."

"During the war, something called evacuation developed. The Croatian army took control of the territory with a Serb population. They were fleeing the same terrible regime and actions to save their lives, and the only place they could flee to was Bosnia. Or rather, they could go to the parts that were controlled by the Bosnian Serb army. The Croats, on the other hand, could go from Bosnia to Croatia. To be clear, it wasn't that you bought a train ticket or a bus ticket, not a fly could escape from there. It had to be organised, and worst of all, it was under the auspices of the International Red Cross, because it was downright human trafficking. Getting on that list always meant a fat bribe to local dignitaries, officers and even those in the civilian leadership. After six months we managed to get on the dream list, on the bus that was to take us to the Croatian border. My girlfriend's mother never wanted to talk about it, but it must have cost a lot of gold; nobody had any money. On the border with Croatia - and I should point out we're talking a war zone, everything was smashed, bombed - we were on a bridge and people were being exchanged. We were standing on the Bosnian side, and then we heard officers, there was a civilian there, arguing. We heard one of them say, 'How come? We brought you a busload of civilians and you only brought us 10-15 women and old men and three coffins!? We're going to turn right around and go back!' It was terrible for us, not to mention it was 40 degrees outside, it was like a sauna on that bus. I was soaked to the skin. Then somehow they let us go. As we walked towards each other afterwards, I had to ask myself: what was the value of life, what was my value that day? Two grandmothers and one corpse, or two grandfathers and one grandmother? How much did they collect for me?"