Like, lot of people were religious. For me it was normal. There was some Serbs in there, but I was never taught to distinguish. Like, I used to go, one of my good friends was Serbian. I didn’t know until the war really that he was Serbian. We just practised different things, but I was never told “You are Muslim, you are Serb.” You know, we just practised our things. I even went – when the Ramadan ends, we usually, kids go door to door to knock, knock at neighbours’ house and they will give you a present. So I would go to Serbian houses, and all of them knew, so they all gave us presents, you know. But so it was never – I have never felt that, until the war, I have never felt any religious differences between people.

I was never taught to say, “Oh, this person a different religion.” My grandmother was extremely religious, and her best friend was Orthodox Christian, extremely religious, and they were best friends. And you know these are very tolerant people, and most of those people were that kind of religious. They have acceptance with everybody else, and you, they never taught me anything bad about anybody.

So in war times, you get, you come to that feeling of sorrow, and because you have no feelings anymore, you’re so used to hearing people dying, that you become numb to it. Violence just became a norm, you know, hearing that this shell fell and killed 25 people. You just didn’t feel anything. It’s, it’s just, you just kind of say, “Oh thank god it wasn’t me.” Because I think when you get to that point of, of survival, like people just look for themself, you know. You are number one priority. It’s you and your family first and then everybody else. And it’s kind of sad that you can push people to that point, when you think about it. It’s sad that, that, you know, that we can, we can be, I don’t know, selfish in some way or another.

So basically, like on daily basis, you will see shelling, shooting, do you know. I remember, because we had to move away from my town to the hills above, which is called Cerska, like in Pobjeda, Cerska is just like, moving up. So we went there with nothing, we left everything at home. Serbs were shelling our region at that time, so people always tried to find higher ground, because higher the ground is, much harder to shoot than if you are sitting down.

One of the nights, we find out – when we moved up – Serbs brought a big truck of 32 people to the front of our town, to show us what they are capable of. They took them out and they executed them while people watching it from, from the hill. So I, that’s the first time I’ve seen – three people survived, three guys survived. I remember one of them was shot in the stomach, I saw, then one was shot in the arm, and the other one was uninjured. They all came up there and they told us how they executed this whole village not far away from us. That’s when I realized, now it’s getting, do you know – now I’m seeing things than, rather than hearing on TV.

So we walked from 5 a.m. to – I don’t know, I’m trying to remember – til about 8 p.m. or 7 p.m. at night, from Pobudje to Potočari, which is about 18 kilometres, like if you want to say, aerial. But it’s probably about 25 to 30 kilometres, do you know, you’re going up and down the hills

I remember asking my mom as we went through – it was all snow – we went through all these burned homes, every single one is burned, wherever you went, you know. So we were walking, and then every time I’ll ask how far, like “Are we there?” And it’s like, “Oh, just around the corner.” “Are we there?” After a while I just stopped talking. I’m like there’s no – I don’t know if she’s telling me the truth, I have no idea how long we have to walk. And then when she told me that we’re in Potočari, I just collapsed. I was so tired, you know. At that time I was twelve and a half, and you thinking about, you carrying probably 40 pounds on you and you can barely walk. So that took a lot out of me, and then I realized, like, more effects of the war: people are freezing, people were cold. You just saw people like old people – especially I think it took more toll on old people – doing that kind of a march.

And one night there was a, like, concert. Somebody made a concert and there was a lot of kids, people. And generally speaking, I never – I realized that during the war, number one thing you don’t do, don’t gather. Like, gathering is, it’s extremely dangerous, do you know, because you’re putting yourself as a target, because if somebody wants to do something, they can do a lot of damage. So I was sitting there, I don’t know, I was watching a little bit, then I was like, “You know, I don’t feel comfortable.” So as I was walking, I maybe walked for two minutes or minute and a half, I just heard big bang. I think it was one explosion, and I just run, do you know, you just, generally when you hear that, you just run. Next day when I came back, there was maybe like 40 or 50 people who died there, and a lot of kids, and like, because they throw the shell right in that region and they killed a lot of people.

Then some soldiers came in, like, you know, wearing bandanas, all these kind of like insignias. They came in, I don’t know, I, I didn’t – initially I was scared, I didn’t want to go close. Later on when I got a little bit of more confidence, I walked up, I wanted to see, do you know – like, people are panicking around you. So I went up there and then as I was walking up there, I was, I was not that far away from that famous, when Mladic comes forward.

And then when he said “Ratko Mladic,” then I got really scared because you heard the name. I never, because in Bosnia we didn’t have access to electricity, that – some people had made from generators, but I never watched news. I heard it on radio, so you hear names, Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadžić, but I don’t associate them. Then suddenly I realize, wow, this is the guy, one of the generals. So he came forward and he was all, “Ah nobody’s going to touch you, nobody’s going to do,” and people being scared will say “Oh yeah thank you so much,” because, like people are asking “Why are you saying thank you?” When you are scared and when your life is on line, you will say whatever you can just to get out, do you know. So, everybody was saying “thank you, thank you.” He’s like “Oh don’t worry. We’re going to take care, you’re safe now.” But once the video stopped, he came forward and is like… he goes, “Well, you know what, I’m going to send you to your Muslim president who doesn’t want you here. He left you to us to decide what we want to do with you. We should just kill you. And then, like but, what’s the use of it, do you know? We’re going to send you over there, and we’re going to get you anyway.”

At the same time there was this lady that we lived with, with her other son, which was one year younger than me. She came forward with her daughter, her other two sons went over, over the forest because they were too old, they were seventeen. So we went forward and, I don’t know, sometimes, I always say to people, war is very weird things. And a lot of times, like, when you think about what happens, I always think, it’s luck, or is it opportunity? Like, by some miracle, when we walk over there, the lady that that we lived [with], over there in [unclear], she recognized this Serbian guy who was soldier, and he looked at us and he just basically said “Who is this?” She pretended that my mom is her sister. So he said to us like “You know what, it’s like, this place, this place won’t be safe.” So he said, “Okay but don’t look at me.” So he said, “Just follow me. I’m going to show you the way you should be.” So he stood on the side, he’s just, “I’m going to be walking, walk with me.” And then as we started walking, Serbs were looking at us, those soldiers, but maybe they thought that he was taking us away. So I don’t, I don’t know how it works, so basically nobody said anything. We walked through, and then he just pointed us, go to the truck.

We went in and, I just, I went in the corner, hide myself under the blanket and tried to minimize my appearance at all. Uh, we were sitting there, I don’t know, maybe 15, 20 minutes. I was just begging, like, “Just start truck, I just want to go”, because you don’t want to be sitting there. And couple of times some Serbian – we called them Serbian radicals because usually the radicals had big beards, I think it seems to be most common. So a couple of times they would come in and they’d just say, “I’m just checking, is there any men here?” So they would climb on the truck and they would check. So it was much harder to check when you are in a truck, because you can hide. In a bus when you get in, you can’t hide anywhere, you’re sitting in seat.

So anyway, we went through, just above Vlasenica where my cousin is from. They stopped because we were approaching to the federational or Bosnian‐controlled area. They told us to get out, so now we all get out, and there were still soldiers every five feet. From both sides, there were soldiers, and then they will still pick out people. So I realize, I’m like, “Well I could be in danger.” So what I did, I put the bag on me and I kind of tried to bend my knees a little bit lower to make myself smaller.

And I kept walking and I saw some people still, some old men getting pulled over at that time, because they mostly cleaned out most of them. But they would pull girls aside, they will pull men aside, or whatever they wanted. So I just prayed. I just went forward. I kept going, going like those, I don’t know how long, for maybe like a kilometre. I don’t know how many, how long we walked; I don’t have recollection of it. So we walked and suddenly there was no soldiers. So then we go through this – there’s this, like, tunnel, and I was like, “I don’t know, where we going? Is there, is there an exit in the tunnel? I don’t know.” So we kept walking and my mom, I told my mom like, “Don’t say anything, don’t say anything to anybody, don’t turn around, just keep walking.” So all of us, all of these people are just walking, and then eventually when we went through that tunnel, there was another set of soldiers standing there, and they had different insignia. So now my mom is like, “Are these ours?” I’m like, “Don’t say anything, because it could be theirs, theirs dressed up as ours, just try to get you to say something or whatever.” So as we were walking, maybe 20, 30 feet, she recognized actually one of the guy, and that’s when she started crying. And then I was like “Okay, who is this?” And it’s like “Oh, it’s, it’s this guy,” and then I realized that we finally have crossed the line across that, from Serbian side to the Bosnian side.

And unfortunately for next year or so, every night I would have same dream: that I’m in Srebrenica and I have to get out. So every night, and that’s… I still now have problems sleeping. I’m afraid to fall asleep because for that time, I didn’t want to fall asleep because, like, I have nightmares. And probably for good year, every night, the same dream. And every night I will tell myself, “Oh my god I have to go through this again.” And doesn’t matter that I know, I’ll fall asleep and every night that was same dream: I’m at Srebrenica. I have to repeat the same step in order to survive.