En av dagarna i Sarajevo besökte jag Muzej ratnog djetinjstva (War Childhood Museum). Museet öppnades i januari 2017 och tanken bakom det är visa hur kriget upplevdes av dem som var barn då det pågick. I samlingarna ingår en rad vardagliga ting som leksaker, dagböcker, kläder, förpackningar och fotografier. Till varje föremål finns en text eller en ljudfil som berättar om personen bakom det. Museets grundare heter Jasminko Halilović.
Medan jag gick runt tog jag ganska många bilder för att inte glömma och för att bättre kunna berätta. Här är några av dem:
Eftersom texten är svårläst på bilden har jag skrivit av den engelska versionen här:
My sister Nina
At the beginning of the war, when grenades started ruining our city and when we were all running to basements, Nina wished to start writing a war diary. She wanted to have a real diary, complete with a lock and key, but my parents couldn’t find one because all of the bookstores had closed. For this reason, Nina gave up on the idea of keeping a diary until 1995, when mum brought her a notebook from work.
”Damn you, why are you killing our souls, which exist only to love? To love peace, to love play, to love happiness… But then again I won’t curse you because you are also the fathers of children who love peace and happiness…”
She was wounded on August 27. 1995, one day after competing in a dance contest. She passed away at a hospital a few days later. My sister Nina (Nirvana) Zeljković, was only 12 years old. She was one of the last children killed during the siege of Sarajevo.
Texten på den här bilden är också svår att läsa, så jag skriver av den också:
My brother’s beret
My dad worked in the police department. During the war, he began wearing a green beret, with a Fleur-de-lis emblem on it, together with a camouflage military vest. The green beret with the emblem was the symbol of the first defense forces, and all members of the defense forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina wore it. Soon afterward, dad brought the same berets for my brother and me. Da also got my brother a children’s military vest, and he took a photo of him in his ”uniform”. My brother would ”play war” with his friends in the backyard of the building where we were living at that time.They made paper accreditations which identified them as members of the ”Children’s Police”. They imitated their fathers and the other soldiers they would see around the neighborhood.
My brother, Haris Jamaković, died in that very backyard, where we used to play, on June 27, 1995, and I was severely wounded. Many years have passed since those events. I didn’t know that my dad had held onto my brother’s beret until he decided to give it to the War Childhood Museum.
