Dobar dan!
Here it is: My Sarajevan blog post ;-) I finally had the chance to edit it since I was moving this weekend. Enjoy!
I have to confess: I was struggling with this post & I still am. Here's the problem: I've got soooo much to say about our stay in Sarajevo (08/07/-08/11), I just can't say everything I want to. At least not the way I want to. There are a billion things in my head I want to get out but I don't think that I would ever find the right words. Besides that I don't feel like I can talk about certain things because they are too painful. So painful that I will never be able to speak about them, never be able to know them - thankfully. Also I don't want to ramble too much since I believe that if I do the magic surrounding this holiday might slowly fade away. I will keep most of it in my heart & leave it there. Therefore I won't say much more and try to let the pictures speak for themselves - even though I will also try to explain some of it or at least quote others. Others who had more words for certain things than I had.
All I can say is: I LOVE Sarajevo. I will come back. I have to come back. My mom and me experienced a lot but not nearly enough. Even though we were running around for 4 days, non-stop, we couldn't manage to see EVERY thing. Sarajevo needs your/our time and it DESERVES it.
In my eyes 'Europe's Jerusalem' is a city you have to visit at least ONCE in your life, no matter who you are or where you are coming from.
That is all.
Much love to the people.
Yours,
Lea.
The Avaz Twist Tower... View from our hotel.
Some of the war's "leftovers" next to our hotel.
The Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque...
... and again.
One of my outfits. I was wearing a dress from H&M and a belt from Italy.
>> Sarajevo
unveiled a memorial bearing the names of 521 Bosniak, Serb, Croat,
Roma, and Jewish children, ranging in age from 1 day to 14 years old,
killed by Serb Army in the brutal 44-month siege of Sarajevo - the
longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. The
siege of Sarajevo lasted from April 5, 1992 to February 29, 1996.<<
>> Memorial
to Murdered Sarajevo children during the siege of the city 1992 – 1995,
in which more than 1.300 children lost their life, was erected on 9th May 2009 (day of victory over fascism), and is the masterpiece of Mensud Kečo, famous Sarajevo sculptor.
The noon time (9th May 2009), alarming sirens marked the time of memorial official presentation to Sarajevo citizens.
Memorial
is made of bronze ring which is made of bombshell cases and other kinds
of weapons. Bombshell cases were collected after war, melted and were
poured into ring. On the ring were imprinted children footsteps, which
were imprinted fellow friends of children killed in the war.
Two separate glass sculptures in the middle represent mother which is trying to protect its child. <<
'Welcome to Sarajevo'...
The 'Kazandžiluk', the alley of copper smiths.
The best jewellers in the world.
And the dirt...
It was hot... don't judge. Over the dress I showed you before I just put a little vest made out of lace from Vero Moda.
Another memorial...
Taking the 'Jewish Tour'... The guide was amazing so was Aida - the women we met there. She is from Sarajevo & moved to Australia a long time ago. She comes back every once in a while and always takes tourist tours. Beautiful people.
The St.Joseph Church at Marijin Dvor.
The old Evangelical church & now the 'Academy of Arts'
The place where the Markale massacres took place.The red plate in the back lists the names of the victims.
>> The
Markale massacres were two massacres committed by the Army of Republika
Srpska on civilians during the Siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian War.
They occurred at the Markale (marketplace) located in the historical
core of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The
first happened on February 5, 1994 when 68 people were killed and 144
more were wounded. The second occurred on August 28, 1995 when a mortar
shell killed 37 people and wounded another 90. This latter attack was
the stated reason for NATO air strikes against the Bosnian Serb forces
that would eventually lead to the Dayton Peace Accords and the end of
the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The
question of whether the shells responsible for the massacres came from
Bosnian government army (ARBiH) or Republika Srpska forces (Vojska
Republike Srpske) positions has been the subject of a prolonged
controversy.
First Massacre
The
first massacre occurred between 12:10 and 12:15 PM, when a 120
millimeter mortar shell landed in the center of the crowded marketplace.
Rescue workers and United Nations (UN) personnel rushed to help the
numerous civilian casualties, while footage of the event soon made news
reports across the world. Controversy over the event started when an
initial UNPROFOR report claimed that the shell was fired from Bosnian
government positions. General Michael Rose, the British head of
UNPROFOR, revealed in his memoirs that three days after the blast he
told General Jovan Divjak, the deputy commander of ARBiH forces, that
the shell had been fired from Bosnian positions.
However,
a later and more in depth UNPROFOR report noted a calculation error in
the original findings. With the error fixed, the United Nations
concluded that it was impossible to determine which side had fired the
shell. However, in January 2003, the ICTY Trial Chamber in the trial
against Stanislav Galić, a Serb general in the siege of Sarajevo,
concluded that the massacre was committed by Serb forces around
Sarajevo. General Galić was sentenced to life imprisonment for the
crimes against humanity during the Siege of Sarajevo.
On
that day were killed: Senad Arnautović, Ibrahim Babić, Mehmed Baručija,
Ćamil Begić, Emir Begović, Vahida Bešić, Gordana Bogdanović, Vaskrsije
Bojinović, Muhamed Borovina, Faruk Brkanić, Sakib Bulbul, Jelena Čavriz,
Almasa Čehajić, Zlatko Čosić, Alija Čukojević, Verica Ćilimdžić, Smilja
Delić, Ifet Drugovac, Dževad Durmo, Fatima Durmo, Kemal Džebo, Ismet
Fazlić, Vejsil Ferhatbegović, Dževdet Fetahović, Muhamed Fetahović,
Ahmed Fočo, Majda Ganović, Isma Gibović, Rasema Hasanović, Alija Hurko,
Mirsada Ibrulj, Mustafa Imanić, Rasema Jažić, Razija Junuzović, Hasija
Karavdić, Mladen Klačar, Marija Knežević, Selma Kovač, lbro Krajčin,
Sejda Kunić, Jozo Kvesić, Numo Lakača, Ruža Malović, Jadranka Minić,
Safer Musić, Nura Odžak, Mejra Orman, Hajrija Oručević, Seid Prozorac,
Smajo Rahić, Igor Rehar, Rizvo Sabit, Zahida Sablja, Nedžad Salihović,
Hajrija Smajić, Emina Srnja, Džemo Subašić, Šaćir Suljević, Hasib
Šabanović, Ahmed Šehbajraktarević, Bejto Škrijelj, Junuz Švrakić, Pašaga
Tihić, Munib Torlaković, Ruždija Trbić, Džemil Zečić, Muhamed Zubović i
Senad Žunić.
Second Massacre
The
second massacre occurred in August of the following year at about 11:00
AM, with five shells being fired but a smaller number of casualties.
Serb authorities, as they did following the 1994 incident, denied all
responsibility and accused the Bosnian government of bombarding its own
people to incite international outrage and possible intervention. A 1999
report to the United Nations General Assembly, UNPROFOR considered the
evidence clear: a confidential report from shortly after the event
concluded that all five rounds had been fired by the Army of Republika
Srpska. As soon as technical and weather conditions allowed, and the
safety of UN personnel traveling through Serb territory was secured,
Operation Deliberate Force commenced.
However,
Russian colonel Andrei Demurenko asserted that UNPROFOR's research was
flawed, as it began from the conclusion that the shells were fired from
Serbian positions and didn't test any other hypothesis; and that he,
immediately visiting supposed mortar locations found that neither of
them could be used to fire the shells. He concludes that Serbian forces
were falsely blamed for the attack in order to give justification for
NATO attacks on Serbs.
David
Harland, former head of UN Civil Affairs in Bosnia, claimed at the
trial of General Dragomir Milošević in ICTY that he was responsible for
the creation of the myth that UNPROFOR was unable to determine who had
fired the mortar shells that caused the Markale 2 massacre. The myth
that has survived for more than ten years, Harland said was created
because of a “neutral statement” made by General Rupert Smith, the
UNPROFOR commander.
On
the day when the second attack on Markale happened, General Smith
stated “it is unclear who fired the shells, although at that time he
already had the technical report of UNPROFOR intelligence section,
determining beyond reasonable doubt that they were fired from VRS
positions at Lukavica”. Harland’s responsibility lies in the fact that
he himself advised General Smith to make “a neutral statement in order
not to alarm the Serbs who would be alerted to the impending NATO air
strikes against their positions had he pointed a finger at them”.
That
would have jeopardized the safety of UN troops in the territory under
VRS control or on positions where they might have been vulnerable to
retaliatory attacks by Serb forces. In 2007, a Serb general, Dragomir
Milošević, former commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, was found
guilty of the shelling and sniper terror campaign against Sarajevo and
its citizens from August 1994 to late 1995. Milošević was sentenced to
33 years in prison. The Trial Chamber concluded that the Markale town
market was hit on August 28, 1995 by a 120 mm mortar shell fired from
the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps positions.
Trial
In
January 2004, prosecutors in the trial against Stanislav Galić, a Serb
general in the siege of Sarajevo, introduced into evidence a report
including the testimony of ammunition expert Berko Zečević. Working with
two colleagues, Zečević's investigation revealed a total of six
possible locations from which the shell in the first Markale massacre
could have been fired, of which five were under VRS and one under ARBiH
control.
The
ARBiH site in question was visible to UNPROFOR observers at the time,
who reported that no shell was fired from that position.
Zečević
further reported that certain components of the projectile could only
have been produced in one of two places, both of which were under the
control of the Army of Republika Srpska.
The
court would eventually find Galić guilty beyond reasonable doubt of all
five shellings prosecutors had charged him with, including Markale.
Although widely reported by the international media, the Helsinki
Committee for Human Rights noted that the verdict was ignored in Serbia
itself. <<
The Eternal flame ("Vječna vatra"), the memorial to the military and civilian victims of the WWII. The only time it wasn't burning was during the war.
Our second tourist guide - an impressive man - trying to show me what material a 'Sarajevo Rose' is filled with. He survived the siege of Sarajevo, the fragment of a shell that's still in his knee. In 1994 he was able to go to Germany, then Switzerland and came back to 'his city' years after the war.
This 'rose' was nearby the Cathedral.
>> A Sarajevo Rose is
a concrete scar caused by a mortar shell's explosion that was later
filled with red resin. Mortar rounds landing on concrete create a unique
fragmentation pattern that looks almost floral in arrangement.
Because Sarajevo was a site of intense urban warfare and suffered
thousands of shell explosions during the war, the marked concrete
patterns are a unique feature to the city.
Aggressor deployed about 300 tanks, over
100 mortars and a large number of soldiers and snipers on the hills
surrounding Sarajevo. The siege lasted for 1425 days (43 months) – being
longest one in modern history, and the cty’s only link to the world at
the time was the Sarajevo Tunnel.
Over 470,000 grenades fell on Sarajevo on those days, or 330 per day.
During the siege, about 35,000 buildings were destroyed, including
hospitals, maternity units, schools, museums, libraries, mosques,
churches, etc. About 50,000 Sarajevo citizens were wounded. 10,650
civilians were killed, among which 1,601 were children.
Grenades falling on the city were
leaving characteristic scars on the pavement, in shape of flowers. After
the aggression these scars were painted red. These unique marks of
death and heroic defense of Sarajevo were named Sarajevo roses.
They are unavoidable part of history
of this city, a stately monument for dead people of Sarajevo, engraved
deeply in hearts of the people of Sarajevo. They are there where someone
was stopped in a line for water, children running to school or just
playing light-heartedly. During the siege we were divided into those who
grow these roses by their lives and those who survived and watered the
roses with their tears. And that was the only difference.
Not long after the war we witnessed removal of Sarajevo Roses, which is unfortunately being passed over in silence... <<
The guide showing me the memorial for the people killed by shells as they were standing in line to get bread. That very moment he was pointing at his aunt's name.
Where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated.
Lunch... Dress: H&M. Earrings: Sarajevo.
In front of the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque.
The new synagogue.
The famous "Sebilj" fountain in the centre of Baščaršija square. Many say it is the heart of the city.
Fountain of the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque by night.
The Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque by night...
Outside & inside the "Gazi Husrev-bey's bezistan". It is one of the preserved bezistans in Sarajevo. It still serves its old purpose: trading.
Ruins of the Tašlihan.
>> Well-known historian Dr. Ćiro Truhelka
in his book, "Gazi Husrev-beys life and time" among other things for
Tašlihan says the following:
" Tašlihan
and Bezistan have always faithfully shared the fate of Sarajevo. In the
good and old times, there used to be golden well, from whom flowed the
prosperity and wealth for Sarajevo people, which was so famous, so that
the old travel-writers could not admire enough, and in the dark days
when – except the plague – the biggest Sarajevo enemy, fire, ravaged the
city, Bezistan and Tašlihan, suffered together." <<
The "Cathedral Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos", the largest Serbian Orthodox church in Sarajevo and one of the largest in the Balkans.
