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in-the war. His mother, Dzevahira, sits beside him.
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o recognize the danger and evil that
persecutes another. ”
on a Jewish Holocaust Memorial In Boston.
--- Staci McKee/DN~*~
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some money, go to Germany and get married.
“I would listen to everything she would tell
me,” Smajlovic says with a wry smile. “But
for a drink, I would not ask 'Could I?’ or
'May I?’”
Dreams are all Smajlovic has, but they are
day dreams. He says he doesn’t sleep any
more.
“I cry and I smoke cigarettes,” he said.
“When I drink enough, then I could sleep.”
One family’s smuggle
On the second floor of the Enver Siljak
refugee camp, three women sit on the north
end of a long hallway.
The three all are gathered near their north
facing windows. All are well into their 80s.
All wear scarves over their heads. All wear
colorful dresses and warm shirts.
Dzcvahira Hodzic and Begija and Rabija
Golabovic sit and chat and knit and pray to
Allah together. They have become friends and
family since coming to the camp more than
five years ago.
The three sit on their beds in their comer
of the tiny room. On the other side, a woman
sleeps.
For their age, they are filled with energy.
They laugh and talk, passing the time in the
shelter.
Talk this day is about the American
military presence in the area. The three are
thankful the Americans sent troops.
“Nobody would have survived if American
soldiers not come,” Begija Golabovic says.
“The soldiers will help us.
“When we hear American soldiers come to
Srebrenica, we will be glad.”
&
The three were taken from their homes by
Serbs in and around Srebrenica and turned
over to the BiH, the Bosnian Army. The BiH
then brought them here.
“The day they took (our village), they (the
Serbs) took 50 men to die school and cut their
neck,” says Dzevahira Hodzic, the feistiest of
the three.
“It was a dirty war.”
Hodzic says she is very angry with
Slobodan Milosevic, the leader of the Serbs.
Hodzic, and the U.N. war crimes tribunal,
blame him for the war in Bosnia and the
slaughter of thousands of Muslims.
“Until Slobodan Milosevic goes to prison
or someone kills him, there will not be peace
in Bosnia,” she says. Hodzic says she heard
Milosevic on the radio one night say it would
not be Yugoslavia but Serbo-slavia.
“I don’t know. Everything is politicians,”
she says, getting nods from her friends behind
her.
“If the politicians say...” she says, trailing
off with a shrug and a toothless smile.
“I want them to make free our prisoners,”
Hodzic says.
And there is good reason.
Her son, Halid, was a prisoner of the Serbs
and is now living in the shelter. He is blind in
one eye from torture and suffered massive
internal injuries during beatings.
Before the war, Hodzic says, life was good.
“My son was with me, everything worked
OK,” she says.
Now, she says she has everything.
“I make Saleh (pray to Allah). I have
everything,” she says. “I have food. I am not
hungry.
“What I need is peace.”
As she finishes her thought, Halid Hodzic
walks into the room. The barrel-chested man
with a thick mustache and a broad smile sits
next to his mother on a bed.
His mother tells him that she was talking
about Slobodan Milosevic and the war
prisoners, and his smile disappears.
Halid Hodzic says it is very difficult to talk
about the camp. Doctors give him anti
depressants to help him deal with his experi
ence.
Hodzic says the first thing he remembers
about the camp was when the Serbs put
firecrackers in his eyes and his mouth to make
him form the three-finger sign of Serbian
victory.
They then made him sing Chetnik songs.
He was blinded in one eye and could not
eat afterward because his mouth was burned.
After the firecrackers, they beat him with a
pipe.
“Four times in the head, one time in the
stomach,” Hodzic says.
When he recovered, they took him to a
room with 43 young men standing in a row.
One of the men standing in the row was his
son-in-law.
Serbian soldiers took out knives and cut
the young men’s throats, killing them.
“I remember the blood,” Hodzic whispers,
tears streaming down his face.
The torture continued.
For two and a half hours each day, he had
to stand by a wall and sing the Chetnik songs
or be beaten. He also had to do 50 push-ups,
of which he could do only three.
4 •
After several weeks in Srebrenica, the
Serbians moved him to Pale, where the
beatings continued.
Serbian soldiers would tie his hands up ant
hit him with thick electrical cable four times
in the head, once in the stomach.
He was only in Pale for three days, but he
was forced to watch as Serbs beat two other
men until they were deaf and mute.
“Every moment you wait for them to kill
you,” Hodzic says. “I was in praise I could see
the sun, and every moment I waited for them
to kill me.”
He pauses to weep.
“In my village, everything was good
before the war,” he says, wiping tears from his
eyes. “Unfortunately this happened.
“I was working in a shop in the village.
There was no man that I wouldn’t help.”
Hodzic begins to cry again. With a deep
breath, he continues.
“Their lives were cut off,” he says of the
young men killed by the Serbs. “I remember
the young people that died.
“I saw 43 bodies and for me, there is no
problem. They were young. They just started
their lives. I have lived mine.”
He was released in a prisoner exchange 45
days after he was made a prisoner of war.
Hodzic says he could not talk about his
ordeal any longer, except to add what he did
after his release.
He came to Tuzla to find his mother.
Hodzic says all he wanted was to see her,
drink a cup of coffee and smoke a cigar.
He got all three of his wishes.
“You can’t imagine that feeling.”
