Belgrade woman at the exhibition 'Besieged Sarajevo': This is terribly moving

BELGRADE, (Patria) - The exhibition features photographs and authentic artifacts from the period of the armed siege of the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war from 1992 to 1995.

The organizers of the exhibition – the Humanitarian Law Center from Belgrade and the Historical Museum of BiH – hope that the facts about the longest armed siege of a European city after World War II will reach a wider public in Serbia.

- It is important to organize such exhibitions dedicated to inhuman, unnatural events, to that constant return to a kind of slavery. That must stop. People should start looking each other in the eye, and there should be no more tears like mine – says Zora Čavić Ilić for Radio Free Europe.

Among the exhibits that Čavić and other visitors to the exhibition „Besieged Sarajevo“ had the opportunity to see are the blue woolen sweater of Nermin Divović, a boy whose life was taken by a sniper shot in one of Sarajevo's streets. Then there are artifacts of everyday life in Sarajevo: so-called war stoves, improvised stoves that citizens of the war-isolated city made by hand, mostly from used food cans from humanitarian aid convoys.

Part of the exhibition also includes rich photo documentation, which recorded the most poignant events during the three-and-a-half-year siege, such as the two massacres at Markale market or the massacre in Vasa Miskina Street.

The focus of the exhibition, which has been part of the permanent exhibition of the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2003, is the life of an ordinary person during the siege of Sarajevo, says Elma Hašimbegović, director of the Historical Museum of BiH:

- The goal of the exhibition is to show the daily life of Sarajevo citizens during the 1,335 days of the siege. It consists of materials depicting everyday life, documents, as well as objects for everyday use, without suspecting that they would one day become museum exhibits.

Among the exhibits displayed in Belgrade is an artifact that has only recently become part of the collection of the Historical Museum of BiH.

- It is an original banner with the inscription ’Don’t let them kill us’, from one of the most significant events held in 1993, which shows the strength and persistence of Sarajevo citizens to organize a Miss election in impossible conditions – explains Elma Hašimbegović.

Today, 28 years after the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which paramilitary formations from Serbia also participated, there is not much talk in Serbian society about the siege of Sarajevo, in which 11,500 people were killed.

- One of the main motives for presenting this exhibition in Belgrade is the ignorance of a part of Serbian society about the events during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina – said Budimir Ivanišević from the Humanitarian Law Center:

- I will illustrate this with the results of a public opinion survey that the Humanitarian Law Center conducted a little over a year ago, and one of the questions was ’Do you know which city was under siege for four years?’ Twenty-three percent of respondents answered that it was Sarajevo. That is the reality we live in Serbia. That was one of the main motives for us to decide to organize this exhibition in Belgrade together with the Historical Museum of BiH. So, that people hear, see, and become interested, above all, in the human tragedy that the city experienced during the 44 months of the siege – said Ivanišević.

Exhibition visitor, Belgrade resident Branka Panić, does not believe that most Serbian citizens are unaware of the siege.

- I think they know, they just can't face it. And the propaganda that nothing happened and that we did not participate in the war is so great that most of the population has accepted it. I forgive those who do it because they consider it unacceptable, so they use a human defense mechanism, but I was a witness, the support was enormous. We sent off all the paramilitary forces with flowers – says Branka Panić, reminding that only one not so large group of Belgrade residents in the nineties clearly and unequivocally expressed their opposition to the war.

Belgrade residents Bojan Lazić and Biljana Vasović came to the exhibition opening and say they know well about the siege of Sarajevo. However, they note that it is important for others, especially younger fellow citizens, to get information about it:

- Since I deal with these topics through activism, I am familiar with it. The most tragic thing is that my peers have not heard of it at all, let alone formed an opinion about it – says Bojan.

- Everyone is now going towards the narrative of forgetting the past, of moving on. Of course, it is very important to build the future together, but we cannot do that if we do not resolve some things from the past. It is necessary for reconciliation – believes Biljana Vasović.

Whether they are aware of the war events of the nineties or know nothing about them, Milutin Petrović, acting director of „Parobrod“, invited citizens to come and visit the exhibition, which he describes as moving and difficult to watch:

- I would invite people who are watching this on screen to come and see it, because there is one impression when you say ’Besieged Sarajevo exhibition at Parobrod’, and a completely different one when you encounter those artifacts. This exhibition is very deep, and encountering these things is dramatic and serious. I would recommend everyone who has a problem with this exhibition to come and see it.

The exhibition will be open until October 6, and as part of the accompanying events, a public lecture on the siege of Sarajevo will be held on September 27, and the film „Siege“ by French director and war correspondent Remi Ourdan will be shown on October 4.