Second paragraph of third section:
My “before the war” is in those photographs. Photographs in front of the tree to celebrate the last prewar New Year, photographs with favourite toys, photographs from kindergarten…
When I went back to Bosnia in 2019, my very last stop was the War Childhood Museum, which had been recommended by a couple of people. This book is essentially a collection of very short reminiscences gathered via Twitter (back in the olden days) from people who were children during the siege of Sarajevo, answering the question ‘Šta je za tebe djetinjstvo u ratu?’ – ‘What was war childhood for you?’ This is topped by the author’s own story of his childhood in the besieged city, and tailed by some photographs of toys and other artefacts donated to the museum, and the story of how the museum was set up.
It’s grim stuff. You can fit a lot of pathos into 140 characters, and there must be more than two thousand tweets archived here. Some of the children’s experiences are very Bosnia-specific – for instance, the horrible tinned meat supplied as humanitarian aid, some of which was rumoured to be left over from the Vietnam War twenty years earlier.
But a lot of it is universal for children in conflict zones – the violent deaths of siblings, schoolfriends and parents; the shortage of entertainment and safe places to play; the rarity of sweets, candy and chocolate; the smells.
At the time I bought the book, conflict was raging in Syria; since then we’ve had Ukraine and Gaza, not to mention the less reported wars in Africa. Whatever view one may have of the politics behind these situations, it’s important to be reminded of the real human horror of living under fire and constant threat of death, and that ordinary people cannot and must not be blamed when their home becomes a war zone.
A sobering read. You can get it here.
