The Project on Genocide, Psychiatry and Witnessing
Excerpt

When History is a Nightmare: Lives and Memories of Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Author: Stevan Weine; Rutgers University Press, 1999

Excerpt:

When there was a group of Bosnian survivors that I met with on Saturdays in a Queens school, I sometimes came with my wife and two daughters. They would play together with the Bosnian children while I sat with the adults in our small group. Afterwards all the families had a pizza lunch in the school cafeteria. I’ll never forget the time when I walk into the cafeteria carrying my infant daughter in one arm and her blue diaper bag on my shoulder. When Z. sees us he starts screaming at the other Bosnians, See, that’s what they do! That’s what Serbs do! The next hour is spent trying to help him to contain the torrent that has so suddenly erupted. The story comes out in bursts and fragments, but with some support, he is able to tell me about the morning when he was on a forced march with his sister and her baby and they came to a Serb checkpoint at a bridge. You had to throw all your belonging over the bridge into a net. He tells the soldiers, We need diapers for the baby.

The soldiers grab the baby and throw her into the river. When the child’s mother tries to jump in after her, she is shot dead. As he paces, shouts, and kicks the air for a tense hour, the school cafeteria is that bridge. Eventually he calms down and says, I saw your child, and the memories came alive.