Until April sixth, nineteen ninety-two, our world was simple. It was filled with laughter, snowball fights, and the smell of my mother’s cooking. We were children, wild and free, running barefoot through summers and bundled tight through winters. But that day, everything changed.

We heard sirens first. Then gunfire.

The sound was sharp, unfamiliar, and terrifying. It echoed through the hills of Mramor, bouncing off the walls of our homes and into our hearts. We froze. No one knew what to do. The adults whispered. The children watched.

I remember standing in our yard, looking toward Tuzla. Smoke was rising in the distance. My mother pulled us inside, her face pale but calm. She didn’t cry or scream. She just moved quickly, gathering blankets, locking doors, and checking the radio.

That night, we slept in our clothes. The suitcase by the door was no longer a precaution, it was a lifeline. My father didn’t speak much. He paced. He listened. He prepared.

The next morning, the streets were quiet. No laughter. No footsteps. Only the distant hum of tanks and the occasional crack of gunfire. School was closed. Shops were shuttered. The world had stopped spinning.

We were no longer just children. We were witnesses.

The war had arrived.

The First Days of War

We lived in the beautiful village of Mramor, which means marble. It was a name that once felt poetic, strong and serene. But in the spring of 1992, that serenity shattered. The war crept in slowly, then exploded all at once.

One day we were playing in the fields, and the next, we were crouching in basements, listening for the whistle of incoming shells.

I was twelve years old. My sister was fifteen. My little brother was five.

I don’t remember feeling fear, not the kind that paralyzes. Maybe it was because I was a child, or maybe that’s just how I’m made. I don’t fear humans. I only fear God. And I consider that a blessing.

Even when life tested me in ways I could never have imagined, I survived. I’ve lived through things that could fill an entire book...and maybe one day I will.

But through it all, I never feared for myself. I feared for others. My silence in moments of danger wasn’t weakness; it was protection. I didn’t react to defend myself because I was always thinking of someone else. My sister, my brother, my mother, my people.

The war taught me many things, but above all, it taught me the strength of quiet courage.

The kind that doesn’t scream or fight back with fists, but stands firm in the face of chaos.

The kind that holds a child’s hand while the world burns outside.

The Silence of Waiting

My father was sent behind enemy lines for two weeks. The army schedule was two weeks on the line, two weeks home. We did not know where he was going, or if he would come back. Each day felt like a question with no answer. My mother stayed calm, but I saw the way she folded his clothes and left them untouched. She did not move them. She did not speak about him. She just waited.

I memorized the sound of every engine that passed. I prayed that one of them would bring him home.

When he came home once, he told us about going to the corn field between the Serb and Bosnian army lines. He wanted to bring corn home for us. He tried to be quiet, but he bumped into a Serb soldier doing the same. They froze, looked at each other in fear, nodded silently, and continued collecting corn. That poor man probably had his own starving family waiting at home.

The next day, my father walked fourteen miles one way, carrying 110 pounds of corn back. He left early in the morning and returned near midnight. He did not want to be in the war, probably neither did the other man, but they had no choice.

Politicians started wars; people had to live through the worst.

After a year, my father was released from the army. The company he worked for before the war, TTU, was converting into a weapons manufacturer and called him back. We were happy. At least he was home every night.

Dangerous Journeys

My mother was Catholic, born and raised in Dalmacija, Croatia. She married my father, who was Muslim, and they raised us celebrating both Eid and Christmas, coloring eggs for Easter. We never discussed religious differences.

During the war, she traveled to Croatia to bring food, often hiding in United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) trucks. Under the flour and rice, there were weapons. The journey was always dangerous. Roads were patrolled, checkpoints unpredictable, and one wrong move could mean disaster.

One time, she was traveling with UNPROFOR, along with my aunt, her son, and my brother. They had been on the road for hours, tense and alert. They stopped to rest in a small town. The sun was beating down, the air thick with dust, and every sound made them flinch. Nearby, a group of Ustasa men sat drinking beer. My aunt leaned close to my mother and whispered, “Go ask for some beer, they are yours. They won’t do anything.”

My mother’s heart pounded, her palms sweaty, but she nodded and approached cautiously. The men laughed at the sight of her and the children. They handed over a few bottles, shaking their heads and smirking. My aunt’s son and my brother were very thirsty, so they drank eagerly, their small hands trembling.

Every step of that journey was measured, careful. My mother had to remain calm, appear ordinary, while carrying the weight of fear and responsibility for all of us. The weapons hidden beneath the flour and rice reminded her how close danger always was.

One wrong look, one wrong word, and everything could explode.

Despite the fear, they pressed on. Every sip of water or beer, every bit of food brought home, felt like a small victory. Survival was a constant act of courage, quiet and uncelebrated, yet essential.

Emptying Schools

Before the war, people in Bosnia identified mostly by religion and family, not as “Bosnians.” Muslims, who later came to be called Bosniaks, were Muslims tied to local traditions and their faith. Orthodox Christians identified as Serbs, and Catholics as Croats, even if they were born and raised in Bosnia.

In villages, these groups had lived side by side for generations, respecting each other’s traditions, celebrating each other’s holidays, and sharing daily life, without much thought to national labels.

As the war settled into daily life, the world we knew kept shrinking. My school became emptier with each passing week. Many of my classmates were “Serb,” and they began leaving Bosnia. I still don’t fully understand why. Nobody had ever bothered them, but they packed their bags and disappeared, one family after another. The classrooms that had once echoed with laughter and arguments grew silent. My friends, the ones I had played with in the snow and shared secrets were gone.

1993: Hunger and Scarcity

As time passed, 1993 became the hardest year for us. Croatia closed its borders, and the flow of food stopped. Suddenly, even the most basic things, flour, oil, and sugar, became rare and painfully expensive. We could not afford them. There were days when we did not eat anything at all. But we stayed quiet. We tried to help our mother in every way we could. Hunger was heavy, but love held us together.

My mother kept a small suitcase by the door. It was carefully packed with crackers, a blanket, and a change of clothes, just enough to carry if we had to run. We did not know where we would go, only that we might have to leave everything behind. That suitcase became part of our hallway, a quiet reminder that safety was never guaranteed.

One weekend, my aunt came from Srebrenik. She was a high school teacher and often visited our grandmother. That day, she arrived with a strange look in her eyes. She leaned in and said softly, "Tomorrow our army is going to attack Ozren."

Ozren was the mountain where Serb forces had placed their artillery. From there, they shelled Tuzla and our village with terrifying ease. We were exposed and vulnerable. From our home, we could see their statue, the one they called "Kraljica", which means Queen. It stood tall and proud, a symbol of their

control.

How my aunt knew about the attack, I will never understand. That kind of information was supposed to be secret. I believe someone who trusted her, someone who cared for her deeply, warned her to be ready.

The next morning, I stood on our porch, staring at the mountain. The fighting had begun. I listened to the sounds of gunfire and explosions. My eyes stayed fixed on the Queen. I told myself that if everything went quiet and the statue was still standing, it meant we had to run. But if the Queen fell, it meant we were safe.

Then it happened.

The statue collapsed.

I started jumping and shouting, "Kraljica is down! Kraljica is down! We are safe!"

I will never forget that moment. The joy that filled my chest was like sunlight breaking through a storm. For the first time in days, I felt hope.

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SHADOWS THAT WOULDN’T FADE