One of the most famous books to emerge out of the horror of the fighting in and around Sarajevo was the diary of an eleven-year-old girl caught up in the mayhem. In some respects the parallels with Anne Frank’s diary, set in occupied Europe during World War Two are striking. Zlata Filipovic was a typical example of a Sarajevo child, trying to cope with the extraordinary pressures that living in a city under siege has on its inhabitants. Her diary, which she later addressed as ‘Mimmy’, provides an illuminating perspective on how the war affected the lives of ordinary people far removed from the high politics of the warring factions and the United Nations. As such, it is a heart-rending account of how the citizens of Sarajevo desperately tried to survive and retain their humanity while the politicians, domestic and international, callously prevaricated over ending the war decisively.
The diary starts in the autumn of 1991, and conveys an impression of a happy childhood in the cosmopolitan city of Sarajevo.
Sunday, 6 October 1991
I’m watching the American Top 20 on MTV. I don’t remember a thing, who’s in what place.
I feel great because I’ve just eaten a ‘Four Seasons’ PIZZA with ham, cheese, ketchup and mushrooms. It was yummy. Daddy bought it for me at Galija’s (the pizzeria around the corner). Maybe that’s why I didn’t remember who took what place – I was too busy enjoying my pizza.
Like most children of her age, Zlata’s life revolves around her school grades and having fun with her friends, as well as being spoilt by her family. At weekends, Zlata’s family would go to their home in the countryside (about 15km outside of Sarajevo) called Crnotina, with a big orchard of fruit trees whose crops Zlata’s grandma would turn into strudels. The outbreak of fighting in other parts of the former Yugoslavia, however, began slowly to impinge on Zlata’s life, as recorded in her diary, especially with the attack on Dubrovnik – a place that Zlata’s parents, Alica and Malik, knew very well. Malik was a police reservist and the first time he was recalled for duty was a moment of great anxiety at home, with Zlata’s mother in tears at the prospect of Malik getting hurt.
In the spring of 1992, violence and tension were beginning to manifest themselves in Sarajevo, but in a very sporadic way. Zlata recalls the day when the UN soldiers arrived:
Tuesday, 24 March 1992
There’s no more trouble in Sarajevo. But there is in other parts of B-H: Bosanski Brod, Derventa, Modrica. Terrible reports and pictures are coming in from all over. Mummy and Daddy won’t let me watch TV when the news is on, but you can’t hide all the bad things that are happening from us children. People are worried and sad again. The blue helmets (actually, they’re blue berets) have arrived in Sarajevo. We’re safer now. And the ‘kids’ [Zlata’s term for the warring sides] have retreated from the scene.
Zlata’s hope that peace would prevail with the arrival of the UN was a false one, and the violence soon returned with a savagery that Zlata struggled to comprehend.
Monday, 6 April 1992
Dear Mimmy,
Yesterday the people in front of the parliament tried peacefully to cross the Vrbanja bridge. But they were shot at. Who? How? Why? A girl, a medical student from Dubrovnik, was KILLED. Her blood spilled onto the bridge. In her final moments all she said was: ‘Is this Sarajevo?’ HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE!
NO ONE AND NOTHING HERE IS NORMAL!
It is often hard to understand how quickly a perfectly normal existence can be torn apart by the application of battlefield weapons, such as mortars and artillery, to the civilian environment. Overnight, Zlata’s world was turned upside down, as the shelling of Sarajevo became a daily occurrence. Her beloved school was shut down briefly as the hills around Sarajevo became firing points for snipers, mortars and heavy artillery, making life for those who lived in the city extremely dangerous. Even Zlata’s parents could not go to work as it was not safe to travel.
Monday, 20 April 1992
Dear Mimmy,
War is no joke, it seems. It destroys, kills, burns, separates, brings unhappiness. Terrible shells fell today on Bascarsija, the old town centre. Terrible explosions. We went down into the cellar, the cold, dark, revolting cellar. And ours isn’t even all that safe. Mummy, Daddy and I just stood there, holding on to each other in a corner which looked safe.
Many people tried to get out of the city at this time, and Zlata’s parents considered leaving as well, but their entire family was in Sarajevo so it was a difficult decision to make. Ultimately, they stayed. As the siege tightened around the city, electricity and water became scarce commodities. This forced people to make use of candles and oil lamps. Water had to be carried laboriously up to apartments from water collection points in each neighbourhood. The shortage of fuel forced many people to resort to old wood-burning stoves, and soon the famous trees of Sarajevo were cut down so that the citizens could survive the bitter Balkan winter. Food also became a major problem, not because of its shortage, but rather due to its cost. Prices soared and merchants would eventually demand deutschmarks for basic foodstuffs: an egg would cost 5 DM and a packet of coffee as much as 120 DM. As always in such crisis environments, hardship on this scale for ordinary people meant a time of great opportunity for criminal gangs and smugglers. For Zlata and her family, the arrival of UN humanitarian aid was a very important factor in their struggle to survive on a daily basis.
Tuesday, 14 July 1992
Dear Mimmy,
On 8 July we got a UN package. Humanitarian aid. Inside were 6 tins of beef, 5 tins of fish, 2 boxes of cheese, 3 kilos of detergent, 5 bars of soap, 2 kilos of sugar and 5 litres of cooking oil. All in all, a super package. But Daddy had to stand in the queue for four hours to get it.
The summer of 1992 was a difficult existence in Sarajevo. Random shells would pick off Zlata’s school friends as they stood outside their apartment buildings or in the streets. Children who should be looking forward to the long summer holidays now began to wonder if they would survive to see the next day. The future was put on hold while terror raged all around them. Snipers would fire opportunistic shots through windows to kill, wound, or simply terrorise. These killers, armed with high-powered hunting rifles and telescopic sights, could see their victims very clearly before firing a fatal shot. It was a very personal method of killing, and begs the question of what was motivating people to shoot children as well as the elderly along with anyone else that passed into view. The piano room in Zlata’s house was considered a ‘dangerous’ room because it was exposed to hostile fire. In fact, all the windows in their home would be broken during the course of the fighting. Living with a sniper became just a daily occurrence. Zlata’s family named the person who was taking pot-shots at their neighbourhood ‘Jovo’. It was simply a surreal world in which snipers became part of the ‘normal’ landscape.
Sarajevo was placed under siege by the Bosnian Serb forces on the outlying hills, a strategy that was organised by the Bosnian Serb leadership in the nearby resort of Pale. From this high ground, Bosnian Serb forces fired sniper rifles, heavy machine guns, mortars and heavy artillery at the unfortunate Bosniacs trapped in the city. The 10km and 20km circles around the city show the range of medium calibre and heavy calibre mortars and guns. The most notorious of these firing incidents were the infamous Markale Market massacres that occurred in 1994 and 1995, killing over 100 people. Getting out of Sarajevo was immensely difficult at this stage, and everyone – whether UN forces or civilians – had to cross two Bosnian Serb checkpoints (S1 and S2) on the main road out of the city towards Kiseljak. UN artillery units of the Rapid Reaction Force, based on Mount Igman, neutralised Bosnian Serb artillery positions during Operation Deliberate Force in 1995.
The politics of the situation did not escape Zlata’s sharp pen.
Tuesday, 4 May 1993
I’ve been thinking about politics again. No matter how stupid, ugly and unreasonable I think this division of people into Serbs, Croats and Muslims is, these stupid politics are making it happen. We’re all waiting for something, hoping for something, but there’s nothing. Even the Vance-Owen peace plan looks as though it’s going to fall through. Now these maps are being drawn up, separating people and nobody asks them a thing. Those ‘kids’ really are playing around with us. Ordinary people don’t want this division, because it won’t make anybody happy – not the Serbs, not the Croats, not the Muslims. But who asks ordinary people? Politics asks only its own people.
Your Zlata
This is perhaps one of the most perceptive insights into the failure of the international community to get to grips with the real issues in Bosnia-Hercegovina, instead of accepting the terms of those ‘criminals’ who had caused the fighting in the first place. Ironically, it would take an eleven-year-old girl to point out the obvious facts that international politicians did not want to acknowledge. From Zlata’s perspective, nobody was asking the victims of the aggression what they wanted, and this notion captured the helplessness that ordinary people in Bosnia-Hercegovina felt in the face of these impersonal forces that were deciding their future.
Apparently trivial issues became major problems for Zlata, especially when their pet bird Cicko ran out of food and, of course, refused alternative wartime rations like cooked rice and peas. Eventually bird food was found from neighbours, and Cicko’s crisis was resolved. Both Zlata’s pets, Cicko and Cici the cat, would die during the fighting. The loss of both good friends was a sore blow to the family, as they represented more than just animals but rather symbols of normality, of a better life in a crazy world.
The existence of Zlata’s diary became known to the many international journalists in Sarajevo, after her teachers at the local community centre arranged for it to be published. The diary was released to the global audience on 17 July 1993. Overnight, Zlata became an international media star and as a result of this attention she and her family were flown out of war-torn Sarajevo to Paris on 23 December 1993.
Her diary recalls her excitement at arriving in Paris:
Dear Mimmy,
PARIS. There’s electricity, there’s water, there’s gas. There’s, there’s … life, Mimmy. Yes, life, bright lights, traffic, people and food.
Zlata finally found normality outside of the city of Sarajevo, which would continue to suffer the horrors and degradation of war for nearly another two years. In this respect Zlata was one of the lucky ones, and her diary provides the world with a chilling reminder of how, when nations go to war, it is ordinary people and children who end up being the real victims.
Zlata Filipovic, 1995. Zlata’s Diary – A Child’s Life in Sarajevo. London, Puffin Books.