‘‘I was dreaming that they were after me and wanted to kill me…” – This could be a statement by someone who survived the horrors of a war, someone plagued by trauma that is never forgotten, someone whose experience is etched into the deepest part of their consciousness. My name is Mirela. I live and work in Srebrenica. Unfortunately, these are my dreams. I was born two years after the war, in a family in which PTSP was omnipresent. My trauma is the result of events that happened before I was even born. How is that possible? How is it possible to miss someone you do not know? How is it possible that someone is killed just because they have a different name or belong to a different ethnic or religious group? And there is an endless range of ”how is it possible” questions…
One of the most difficult things I had to learn was how to manage my own sorrow and other persons’ sorrow. I remember that, when I was going home from school, I would frequently be late for the bus at 12:20 from Vogošća. However, for my mother, it was not merely being late. Her first thought would not be that I missed the bus, but rather that a terrible, horrendous thing happened. I did not understand her back then. I did not know why she was panicking if I did not respond immediately to a call. When you are young and you are unable to understand the whole history of yourself, your family and the surroundings, but you wish to live just as all other children, you do not understand certain reactions and fears of your parents. You do not understand why they are so overprotective and you think that they do not trust you. Actually, it was a matter of lack of trust, but not in me, rather the society we live in.
While I was growing up in the shadows of the war, I was unable to fully understand the gravity of the burden my parents carried. It was only later on, when I learned that two children were snatched from the hands of my mother and later on brutally killed, that I understood her fear. They were only 15 and 17 years old. I did not know much about my killed brothers back then. We were not allowed to ask, nobody talked about it in front of us. I put the story together like a puzzle, from pieces I heard, but it never made sense. I remember that we did not listen to music for a long time. We did not laugh aloud. Every smile was heavy, if there were any. The house was filled with silence, but it was not peaceful. On the contrary, it was a tense silence.
My older brother’s friends would frequently recognise me. They would tell me that we looked alike. Sometimes this made me happy, and sometimes it made me sad, because I did not know what kind of pain it caused to my parents. We did not have any photos of them, at least not in visible places. My parents would frequently mention that the older brother had enrolled to a secondary school of economics, and the younger one had still been attending a primary school, it seems. They had ambitions, dreams and wishes typical of boys, which were interrupted in the most brutal way.
I did not understand the term transgenerational trauma for quite some time. I did not know that my parents were traumatised. This was not discussed and my parents, like many others, refused to accept or ask for psychological assistance. War topics, different situations faced by my parents and memories of family members and neighbours were discussed, but we never spoke of how this impacted us in the present. That was a ”normal” situation, so normal that I do not remember a morning coffee with my parents during which my father would not mention that ‘‘he was chased by Serb soldiers” all night long. It is difficult to live with trauma, and it takes a lot of time and effort to understand that you live with a trauma. It is even more difficult to raise a child and try to continue your life in a new place, far away from the home you were forced out of, without your family members that were killed, in a society that does not accept you, because you are from ”some far-away Eastern Bosnia”. The latter is a separate topic that I might write about some other time.
Whenever I have a chance, I speak about the strength of my parents. Their strength also became my strength. They started a new life in spite of everything. To be more precise, they started a new life three times, at least as far as I know – the first time, before the war in Srebrenica, the second time as refugees in Vogošća, and the third time when they came back to Srebrenica. Every time, they started from scratch, and in spite of everything, they made sure we had a dignified life. A small example of my father’s ”resistance” against all tragedies and injustice he experienced is the fact that he enrolled into an English language course when he was 41 years old. He did this after he had spent almost 60 days hiding among rocks and in caves of the Drina river canyon on the brink of death. When he finally reached the free territory on September 12th 1995, he learned that his sons had been killed. Every time I pronounce these words, I am shaken, sad and angry. I cannot even imagine how my parents feel. After he learned this, something a common person cannot even imagine in their worst nightmares, my father gave us love and safety. He educated us, raised us so we would know who we are, taught us to be decent persons and has supported us ever since. Only a strong and courageous man like my father would be able to continue living in spite of such horrors.
It is impossible for a normal person to remain indifferent when family members are facing any problems, injustice or suffering. Unfortunately, transgenerational trauma is a fact and nobody asks you whether you want it or not. It manifests itself in different forms. I am not blaming my parents for it, but I wish to channel it and eventually overcome it. I have invested a lot of my adult life in overcoming the roots of that trauma. I am contributing on a daily basis to the fight against the denial of genocide and other crimes, against the narratives that evoke them and for a future in which this trauma will be stopped by a peaceful and healthy environment. I would like to honour everyone who was killed in Srebrenica and do my best to preserve the memory of them, so that they are not just figures and that their lives will be remembered and recorded in history. This has not just been a historic event, it is part of my identity, part of me. No matter how much time passes, no matter how much the world changes, I will always carry this story with me. I wish it also to be free from the powers of evil that took their lives. The very same powers also affected my life. I face them every day, both at work and in private life. I believe that I am looking straight into their eyes, without blinking, because this is how I was raised.
Mirela Osmanović is a lawyer. Following her graduation, she started her professional career at the Srebrenica Memorial Center, where she gained experience while focusing on strengthening remembrance. During her work in the framework of different projects, she focused on the fight against oblivion. After the time spent working at the Memorial Center, she continued her professional development at the International University of Sarajevo, where she started studying international relations. At the moment, she is an external collaborator of the Srebrenica Memorial Center and works as an assistant for international cooperation. In this role, she is actively supporting the Memorial Center in engaging with international partners, and, as a result of this, she is further promoting the culture of remembrance and building of a permanent peace, which is her life calling.
