Anonymous., 50
Osijek, Croatia
“When we feel frustration from Americans or from different nations here towards the refugees, I think that everybody needs to know that we, as refugees, wouldn’t be here if the war wouldn’t happen in our country. We would all enjoy actually staying and living in our country and and and being a part of what was familiar to us, where we grew up, where our parents live, where our families live instead of trying to flee the country, leave it, legally, not legally, doesn’t matter which way, in order to make a living.”
Interview originally conducted in English.
To start, can you please tell me a little bit about yourself as well.
Sure, my name is [Anonymous], and I was born in Osijek, in Croatia, which is northern part of Croatia. At age of 18, I moved to Rijeka, which is close to the Italy, where I studied dental school. During the war, pretty much from 91 to 96, that’s when I attended dental school, and in 97, I decided to move to United States as refugee. I was 27 when I moved to the United States.
And you mentioned how you went to dental school during the war so could you tell me a little bit about your experiences of being a student during war time?
I started dental school in 1989, and the war started pretty much around the summer. I believe it was the summer of 1991 so it was during the second year of my dental school. We kind of heard about the problems that were rising in the country itself. It was more like a civil war. At the time, there were 6 states that were making country Yugoslavia. The military was pretty much ran by the Serbia, so during the uprising and during the government’s deciding to split and separate each state into the independent country in the seek of democracy, that’s when the war started that summer.
We first learned that military stations, which each city had one, were taken over. All the tanks and ammunition they had was taken over by Serbian army which was organized way before anyone else was aware of the war and before it was even starting. A lot of damage was done initially when the Serbian military was actually leaving Croatia, leaving for Slovenia. Slovenia was lucky enough to have closed the borders, and then coming through Croatia, there was a lot of damage that was done, a lot of uprising, and I believe that once they pretty much made it to Serbia - and they were pretty well equipped comparing to Bosnia or Croatia - that’s when the war started.
Did you have any students from your dental faculty who went to fight in the war?
The thing is that I was in Rijeka, which was very close to Italy. It was 45 minutes away from the border so that part of the country was actually, surprisingly, not affected as much with the war because with the concern that if they bring it to that area, and somehow [it] affects the border between Croatia and Italy, Italy would become involved. Certain parts of Croatia were actually not affected, and I think it’s pretty much that the only part that they attacked [the Southern part of the coast]. The northern part of the coastal area was not affected so I was lucky enough. We did have a couple of military accidents, whatever they’re calling it. I think that’s called the air wall so when the planes were coming extremely close, that’s when we will have sirens come off because they were scared there would be bombings. But really there was never any destruction or any real kind of war events that were happening in the city where I was staying.
Did Rijeka receive any refugees during that time?
There was a lot of refugees, but I think the refugees were mainly coming from Bosnia. I think that Croatia was still holding off pretty good, even though the war was happening. But as Bosnia got affected more and more, and there were more war crimes in Bosnia than there were in Croatia, that’s where a lot of refugees were coming from. There were only a certain parts of Croatia that were extremely affected by the war which is where my hometown was. That’s when Vukovar happened, and genocide in Vukovar, and the borderline between Serbia and Croatia. More going inwards, going into Croatia, we didn’t have as much of genocide or as much of destruction as Bosnia had.
In Rijeka, did they have any refugee camps that you saw?
Not like you would expect during the wars or civil wars. I know there was an area in the town that was actually dedicated. It was almost like a little mobile homes section where they would kinda bring the families that were looking for the refuge. And then Zagreb, which is the capital, they had the refugee centers. It wasn’t like they had a land or something that was set up with the tents or anything like that. It was more that they were trying to place them in the dorms kinda situations that was organized by the government to help the families that were seeking for the refuge. Most of the families somehow managed to be sent to Germany, so Croatia camps were more like temporary camps. Then a lot of people ended up in Germany, and from there, they were distributed elsewhere.
Were you also able to travel between cities?
You can try to travel, but for example, me being born in Osijek-and the war was pretty intense in Osijek because Vukovar was only 30 minutes away. Vukovar was the city that actually fell, and it was completely demolished. Osijek was the next one, and there was the plan for the Serbian military to take over. It was right across the river. It was destroyed pretty badly.
They attacked the theatres. They attacked the news stations. They attacked the cathedral.
There was a lot of sniper activities. The people who served actually stayed in the city so they were the ones who were holding the sniper activities during the day.
A lot of bombings [happened] during the rush hour so people would still try to live normally, go to the farmers market, go to the work, the bus stops, stuff like that. That part was destroyed pretty intensely so my dad would not allow me to come and visit.
My sister at that time had a son. He was 6 months old. My sister’s husband had a family in in Germany so my dad actually- it was interesting because he drove her through the border to Hungary, and from there, she was trying to get a bus from Germany. [My dad] was actually still in age where he could be active as military, and he had to ask a permit to go take my sister with a 6 month old baby across the border because nobody who was in the age of being active could actually leave the country.
They allowed him to go and then come back. They give you a little pass for a certain time and you have to return. So that’s what he did. He didn’t let me come to visit because our hometown was attacked pretty bad. I did meet up with my dad a couple of times in the capital. Again, he would have to get the permit to leave so he would come with the train and I would come. And finally, I think it was close to the end of the war... it still wasn’t over, but I believe it was ‘94 when we thought it was calming down so he said, “okay you can come and visit.”
When did the war begin for you? Was there a specific moment when you realized it was happening?
Like I said, I was in Rijeka, which was not affected. I think it was the summer of ‘91 where the Serbs, I think the military left Croatia. That’s when actually the bombing started across the river. The first towns that were attacked were the ones that were right by the border, which were Vukovar and that northern part of Croatia, and then again my hometown. Hearing that, we all thought, “okay, in two, three months it’s gonna be over.” We were all trying to ride it out but it was pretty much the summer of 91, I believe.
My friend visiting from Vukovar during the war
Also, can you talk a little bit about your experiences in Osijek or when you were visiting your friends?
Finally, my dad allowed me to come and visit. I guess not wanting to believe, not being exposed to it as much because I didn’t live day in day out in a city that was affected by the war, I came to visit. The thing was that our building where we lived in the downtown area, literally in the town square. It was 5 story building with a flat rooftop. It was a condo building, and my dad, when I was coming, told me pretty much that we had the bomb in the ceiling. We were on the top floor.
Each condo had a little storage area assigned so you can keep your tools, so when the war started, every building pretty much realized that what they wanna do is turn that into living areas. Since my dad worked at the train station as one of the engineers, he was able to manage to get the seating areas from the trains and actually bring them into the storage areas that were in basement. Each condo had a little bed and had a little extra area where they made a kitchen so everybody would bring the little canned food or pasta or dry food. He actually brought the phone line from our apartment down to the basement so anybody who wanted to call after the bombings started-because we would get the reports on the TV- our phone line was the phone line that people could reach and ask for the families.
When I came to visit, my first experience was seeing the hole in the ceiling from the bomb. Luckily, the bomb was so old that it didn’t explode so it just pretty much hit the ceiling, did the damage.
The roof collapsed in the kitchen, and we had a pretty good view of the stars and the sky.
My first experience was the first bomb that I heard, and I couldn’t believe it- that it was real war. I wanted to start running down to the basement. My dad said no.
He said, “We’re waiting for the third bomb to come off.”
I said “Why?”, and he said, “After third.”
After all those years being in the war, they realized that after third, that’s when they changed the direction of the bomb. He said go ahead and hide under sink in the bathroom because that’s the smallest area. You know, condo was not a big. You’re talking about a 2 bedroom little space. I hid under and you couldn’t hear anything after third bomb exploded, which was very close to our area. That’s when you hear all the doors opening and everybody running downstairs to the basement. That was my first night that I actually spent in the basement. For me, it was a shock.
For them, it was normalcy and you just realize that they were counting how lucky they were that this time the bombs didn’t actually hit our building.
When you were in Rijeka and you were talking to your parents, were they telling you all these things?
Yeah, I mean, I would call and I would be like “Hey, where is dad?” Because on the news, they were always showing like bombings started in Osijek, bombings started in this city, sirens are going off here, this building got hit. I would call house and my mom would say, “Hey, dad went to the store.” He would go to the store before the bombings started and sirens went off so you were just scared. They would pretty much say hey we still have to live so that’s a risk you were taking.
He still went to work. You had to go to work. You had to report otherwise you would lose the job. There was no break for them. You just really have to be careful and go the sideroads or not take a bus or stuff like that in order to survive. But you had to report. If not, you would be betraying because so many people from Serbia, they still kinda lingered within the city. Those were the ones who didn’t want to show up to work because they will actually do the damage in the city during the night. If you didn’t show up, pretty much for them was like okay you are for the war and you are supporting to damage your own city. You had to go to work, you had to go to grocery store, you had to buy the stuff, and luckily, they just survived.
It seems like a lot of people adapted to-
You didn’t have a choice. If you left the city, you lost the job, you couldn’t come back. The government had the right to take over your apartment if you left. So if you left with your family to try to go to other city, for example where I was studying, where the war was not as intense, they would come in and take over your place because you fled. You were against the country, and that was the whole concept. You really didn’t have the choice.
You also had a friend who stayed in Osijek, right, during the war?
Yes, my best friend, she stayed, yes.
Do you know about her experiences or did you guys visit anywhere while you were in the city?
When you’re young, as much as it is scary and as much as you see the buildings being destroyed, downtown being destroyed, craters from where the bomb exploded in the roads, you see the balconies being destroyed, hearing that people got killed there, coming out of smoke, and then the shrapnels would just kill them and stuff… I really don’t know, thats a good question. We really never talked about it. I really don't know how she handled all that for all those years, but she never left the city. She lived there.
I know when I came to visit, everybody somewhat thought during the day its safer. It’s towards the end of the war. It’s almost like they had signs or signals or some kind of communication where they knew bombing was not gonna happen today, it’s gonna happen tomorrow. How’s that happening, I really don't know, but that’s the vibe I had. That’s how those people knew when its safe and when it's not.
So me and her just went for a ride. We were best friends ever since elementary school so we just went in the middle of the day for the ride. She lived literally building next to me. First we went to the outskirts of the city, which was very naive, very ignorant towards the situation. We were just driving in her car, and we came very close to the Serbian border. There was Serbian military, and we didn't have a clue. We came to the end, which was outskirts of the city, and they were giving us the signs to stop. I guess she realized that we were about to get into a trouble. She just made a U-ey, and she started going back. They started shooting, not after us, but they were shooting up in the air just to scare us. It was not fun. She was shaking. I was shaking, so we pull into the city.
Our hometown was 130,000 people, and we thought it was big. We pulled into the city, and she's about to go in her parking area in front of her building. We just see military running back and forth and and we’re like “oh, its a practice”. It's in the middle of the day, and they’re practicing, they're running, police, there's nobody on the streets. Traffic lights are just blinking and we’re like “Oh yeah it's just a practice, they’re exercising.”
We pulled up into little alley where the back of her building is, where the parking is. We get there and the police stopped us, the military, and they're like “Guys, where are you going?” and she’s like, “I live there”. At this point, we’re shaking because we’re like something is not right.
There was a sniper on the building, and they didn’t really know where it was. He was just shooting at people, and since it was day, they can’t really use those light bombs. That’s usually how they get them, so they really didn’t know where he was hiding. The police officer was like “Hey, where do you live?”, and she told him the address which is literally two buildings down. He said “Go ahead and park the car, and we’ll escort you to the condo, okay?”
You need to understand we were like twenty some years old and [no] experience about this. So bless her heart, she was tryna get up the curb, get off the curb, get up on the curb, and as much as you are nervous, I was telling her, “if he didn't shoot us by now, he definitely has a chance to shoot us now,” because we’re the only car moving back and forth and back and forth. She was so nervous she couldn't park up on the curb. There was a little hidden area behind the wall so that’s where they told us, “go ahead and park there.” So they took us-
Well she could have just left the car and-
Yeah no bless her heart. I can’t even imagine what the military guy was thinking when he saw her parking back and forth. They took us to the entrance of the building which was the back door, and then we had to crawl up to the fourth floor where she lived. I called my parents. My dad was very scared and very nervous.
I said “Hey, I’m fine.”
He said “Okay, we’re gonna talk about it in the morning so just say there, sleep there.”
We slept on the floor. Everybody had to sleep on the floor up against the walls. The whole night it was just a lot of those light bombs going off where they were just trying to see where he was. I think it was around 4 oclock, there was a lot of shooting. Supposedly they got him, and I could go home next morning. I had to explain to my dad couple of things, but that was probably scariest part besides the bombing and running down to basement. Those are probably my top two events during the war.
I also know you had family in Zadar during that time so did they experience any death there or how was-
I mean my family was not affected. My grandpa, which is my mom’s dad, died in the second world war. My grandma remarried to the guy who was Orthodox. She had two sons so even though they were born in Croatia, they were raised in Croatia, they were Croatian, they went through a lot of threats and a lot of name calling just because their background. I don't know anyone who was killed down there. Of course the city was destroyed also, it was on the ocean. There were bombings, but I think there were certain areas of Croatia that were affected more than others. Zadar was just not one of them.
If people had a family member who died, how did they deal with funeral processes and things like that?
My grandma died during the war, and my uncle from chronic diseases. They didn’t die caused by the war, but they died during the war. The funerals were pretty much nonexistent. It was priest, if you wish for the priest, and family members and very short “lets pray” and put them in.
The main reason why was because this war was a civil war. You never knew who was on your side, who was not, how many of your enemies is actually within the city, how many of them will actually attack the certain events.
Those things were minimized as much as possible. I know the stories of people [where] the bomb exploded right in front of them. A lot of people were in shock so every time when the bombing will occur, they would just freeze, just like a PTSD. It was long time ago, and I know “Oh, this neighbor got shot or this neighbor got killed.” I had elementary school friend who was in the military, and he got killed because he was in military. None of those detailed stories that I’m aware of.
Besides him, did you know anyone else who got drafted during the war?
I’m actually her maid of honor. We were high school friends, and her dad went in the war. He died in Vukovar which was the city that was evened up with the ground. They actually found his remains probably 10, 15 years after the war. That’s what that is.
Was there a moment for you that you knew the war was over?
It was pretty much when they announced it. Maybe it was ignorant from my part, but living in that completely different city for six, seven years, it was more like announcement. I think the announcement was made once when the parties reached the agreement. The reason why the whole war started was instead of peaceful separation, the three parties didn’t make agreement. Once they agreed on borders and and federations within the cities or within the countries, the war ended.
Also, could you talk a little bit about your experiences like how you came to the United States, how it was when you first arrived here.
So there was a program through Catholic Charities and they were helping refugees. It was a program, you had to apply, and it was through the sponsorship so as far as I know. There were certain families in the United States that would sponsor you as a family- it was mainly families that they were tryna bring here. They’ll pay for your tickets so you had like three months to get your paperwork done here and once you start working, you had to pay them back. You had to go through the process of eligibility, you go to the embassy, they interview you.
The reason why we were able to come was because my husband, his town was way more affected in Bosnia. Through his application, they realized we were eligible because we didn’t have a place where to live so we were approved to come to United States. I was still trying to finish my internship as a dentist, and I had about a year left so he came 10 months before me. We decided to come to Tennessee just because his sister was sponsored to come to Nashville and to just kinda stay close with the family.
I came 10 months after him, and it was organized really well. It was hard to see the whole process because there were refugee camps. They were organized coming from the capital city and depends on where the ticket where your flight was from. Our bus full of people - I believe it was two buses - you just take whatever your necessities are. They took us to Austria, across the border.
It was very heartbreaking to come out at the border. It’s almost like they’re treating you like criminals.
Then you go back on the bus, and they take you to Austria. We flew from Austria to - I’m not sure, but we ended up at La Guardia New York. They took our stuff. A lot of those families were coming from different backgrounds. Some of them were actually refugees from Bosnia. They were stationed in Croatia just trying to just get out of there, and they were extremely confused. On one side is being brave coming here and looking for something new and the new future. On the other side you feel like those people didn’t know the language, they didn’t know where they were going, they never been anywhere outside of Bosnia and coming here. It's like the borderline between being brave and maybe not being educated to actually realize what's happening to you. I think the biggest disappointment for me was coming to La Guardia Airport. I was trying to help all those refugees, send them to the right flights, send them to the gates. They didn’t know how to read the plane ticket.
Coming to La Guardia, they took us with the bus to this little motel that was not in a good area. I mean, when I lived in New York for 2 years, every time I drove by, it just brought a memory. They put us in this little hotel and they took our bags on this line going into the basement. It was just shoved in there, and we were given these little rooms in this little part of the motel. My room ended up being in the basement so I had metal frames [on the window]. The shower is different, all that’s different. It’s seven hour time difference, you’re exhausted, you traveled forever, bus to Austria, plane. You’re just confused, and you just don’t feel right.
At 4 oclock in the morning, there's just knocking at -prior to that, my first experience with America was knocking at the door, asking for money. The person next to me comes to my room and she says, “Hey, you know he's saying something, and I don’t understand him.” I was like “Yes sir, can I help you?” My language was not as fluent as it is now, but I still knew way more than they did. He was asking about money, and I said, “Money for what?” He was trying to say that we need to pay for the hotel which he was just one of those scammers. I threatened to him. I said, let me call the office, and after I talk to the people in the office, we’ll see what needs to be done. He pretty much took off so that kinda scared me. I was by myself in the room. I made sure that my basement window is locked up, that my door is locked up.
At 4:30 in the morning, because our buses, our planes were around 7. So around 4:30 in the morning, they started knocking at the door. They’re serving us with this yellow rice in the styrofoam containers and boiled chicken thigh. No taste, no flavor. So I'm sitting there, and I’m hungry, of course. It's lunchtime per your time, right, so I’m looking, and
I’m thinking, “Is this what I came for?”
It’s not that I never ate rice in my life but just the whole experience was very eye opening and you realize. They give you at the airport these little bags, and
you’re marked like you are less worth it, you're a refugee. People are looking at you.
You know just the whole thing was... even though with the good intentions.
We had way more pride than the way we were treated, and it was just hard for us. It was hard for us. None of us would have been in this situation if the war didn’t happen so you are thankful for another country accepting you, but you’re also feeling defeated. You feel like less of a person for something you really didn’t choose.
Could you talk about how they [the United States] valued your education from Croatia here? Its interesting when you consider that everyone was a professional back in Bosnia and Croatia but now its different that you’re in the US.
You just have to leave that mindset. I personally came with the mindset that I’m gonna succeed. I always knew that regardless of how hard it is or how unsuccessful I am, I always have a chance to go back regardless of what kind of conditions are back home. So you know, I had 5 years of dental school. It’s different set up there. Five years of dental school, you have almost like a medical minor because we did two and a half years of medical courses and then one year of internship which is GPA here. In those 10 months while my husband and I were separated, he was able to contact the ADA (American Dental Association), try to see what the process is for me to get my license here and practice dentistry.
It was a lot of ups and downs, a lot of different colleges. You realize they’re all private colleges, majority, so they have their rules and regulations. The local college, dental school actually, in Nashville wanted me to go back and take undergrad. There was a company in Florida that takes your transcripts, contacts your school, verifies your transcripts so my degree was equal to DDS degree here and it was based on - the only subject that we didn't have was patient management- but it was actually equal to the DDS degree here. Now, nobody wants to accept it so you have to figure out which school you can go and attend as non accredited dental degree student. Through that I had to do the national boards, I had to do test of english.
During that time I had to work as a dental assistant. I found a job to work with oral surgeon just so I can learn the language, learn how to speak, how to communicate, to improve my language, my ability to communicate with the professionals. I’ll never forget, I was paid 9 dollars an hour. I thought that was the best thing ever in my life. I loved what I did. I didn’t know how to assist though because I was never assistant in my life. Was I aware of all these instruments, names, procedures? No because I was never involved in oral surgery to those details.
I'll never forget when the oral surgeon that I work with told the main assistant that if I don’t learn how to assist, I’m gonna get fired. I couldn't afford to get fired from 9 dollars an hour job so I asked her for help. We printed pictures of the instruments, all the equipment, all the things he could ever ask during a surgery, and I studied. I stayed with them as one of the main assistants, doing all the complex procedures with him. During that time I took the national boards, I also got pregnant with my first daughter. I decided that’s not gonna stop me so I applied for school for 2001which was a year later after she was born.
There are a lot of people who gave up on their dream. Lot of people gave up on their degrees. Lot of people gave up on pursuing what they started.
Was is it easy? No. Was it worth it? Yes. I always appreciate this country because it's really up to you. It's up to you what you're gonna make out of it. It gave me a chance, and I appreciate the chance.
Can you talk a little bit about your experience as a mixed marriage couple while you were both in the United States as well as back home?
I’m not coming from mixed marriage. My parents were Catholic, but my grandma remarried into Orthodox. For me, it was part of normalcy. I really didn’t see any difference in people coming from different religions. The religion itself, before the war down there, was more like a tradition so you celebrate, you respect, you gather for the holidays, you respect the holiday. You know it's not anything that is forced. It's really more like a tradition so we rarely had any extreme rules or regulations regarding the religion.
Each family was probably hoping to stay within just because- not because of hate. There was no hate on my side of the family or my husband’s side of the family but just knowing it would be easier, especially after the war. The huge percentage of mixed marriages did not make it after the war. If you had Catholic and Orthodox moving to Serbia because they had to flee or whatever, he [Catholic] wouldn’t get a job, he would be pointed at, the children would be pointed at. It was just easier to split and separate.
One of my best friends through high school, his dad was with the Serbian military. He was actually attacked by the Serbian military because he didn’t wanna go against my hometown, Osijek. They had to flee in order to save the family. When they moved to Serbia, he didn’t wanna move in as a military personnel so he just quit that part. That’s pretty much how I found out that the war was about to start because he called me. It was very late at night, and he said,
“I can't say anything, but just please save your family.”
My family was just scared, just like my husband’s family, are we gonna be pointed at, where we gonna live, how is my life if I’m gonna move to Bosnia, how is his life gonna be if he stays in Croatia. Knowing that there was actually so much underlining hate towards the different religions, it was almost like a system of cleansing which is not right. It's not how we grew up. That’s not what we thought was normal, but it was just easier for the future of our children just to leave and not be a part of that and allow the children to have the freedom to grow up without being judged or anything like that.
From that standpoint, our kids didn’t go to church here. I believe it was hard for them also, going to school and being asked “Aren’t you going on this field trip?”, “Aren’t you taking the church pictures?” When they were younger, we just tried to explain to them that they’re very special because instead of three holidays or two holidays, they have four, they have six.
They just need to carry that with extra pride on their shoulders, knowing what their family went through, the parents, in order for them to have a normal life. Once they grow up, they can choose to be whatever they wanna be. We will never force it on them.
It's way different here. I believe that it depends on what part of the country you live. People might be more surprised than the others that you’re in a mixed marriage. But you know, you make the best out for yourself. I don’t think here it's any less of anybody’s business than down there where we come from.
What are your feelings now when you think of Croatia or Yugoslavia? Have they changed or?
I left when I was fairly young. I was 27, and my best years were the years before the war. Some were during the war, but it was limited so when we would go back, we would relive that memory of what it used to be when we were younger. Every year, you would try to dig it from underneath, from under surface in hopes that the country is still the same. Then you realize the burden of actually a very weak economy, the burden of unemployment, the burden of Croatia never actually recovering from the war completely, and the certain parts of the country completely being neglected by the government. You realize that it's heavier and heavier for the people to have a normal life so you almost feel bad coming from the United States, talking about certain things.
The conversations become very superficial where you realize how much those people are hurting and you don’t want to hurt them even more by coming from somewhere else and talking about everyday life here.
I believe that it was 3 years ago, 2019,
when I had a moment when I realized, not that I don’t belong there anymore, but that it's not the country where I grew up and if I go, I'm just going as a visitor. There’s no more connection because- it's not because the people don’t wanna have a connection, it's just because of the unfortunate events. So many things changed that the baseline is not there anymore.
When was the first time after the war that you went back to visit and did you-
It was 5 years later. Well my dad got sick in ‘99 and end of ‘98, beginning of ‘99, and that was before I had any children. That’s when I went to visit for only 7 days, and then he unfortunately passed away in May of ‘99 so I just went for the funeral. After that, I didn’t go back for 5 years. After that, we would try to go just because my mom is still living, my sister is there, my husband’s parents were there. We try to go every 2 years to build that relationship into our children which they really enjoyed. They enjoyed the family, they enjoyed the visiting, the traveling, the food, all that stuff. It just kinda became a part of our routine for them to know where we were coming from, for them to realize what we came from and also to visit the family. It's like a tradition to visit every 2 years.
The first time that you returned, or maybe the time when it was 5 years after, did you feel like the country was getting better or?
The first time that we went, 5 years [ago], I would call that vacation because the other two times, I was going because of my dad. None of that was on my mind but 5 years [ago], I think it's hard to tell because there was so much excitement. Yes, the streets were full, it was during the summer, there were a lot of tourists and everything was vibrant and alive and you really couldn’t feel it as much. I think that the people were still trying, and they were trying to find that same excitement and same lifestyle that we had before. But then every time after that, when we kept coming back, you can just feel less and less people present, less and less enthusiasm, less and less hope, more and more frustration. Corrupt system was coming more and more to the surface. With the way they lived, you felt more and more distinct from them.
Is there something that you would like American students or just Americans in general to know about the war? Or something that they can take away from this experience?
I wasn’t as exposed to [the war] as somebody who was actually through the whole war. Maybe it's easier to make this statement because I was not emotionally hurt, I don’t have any PTSD from it. I luckily haven’t lost immediate family members so it might be easier for me to speak.
I think hate is the one thing that really shouldn’t have a place in any country, in any system. It doesn’t matter if it's a first world country. I don’t think anyone deserves for their lives to be destroyed because of hate and greed.
Unfortunately, that is the reason of many many fights, many war. It doesn’t matter which level of war it is, civil war, not civil war.
I think the United States is an amazing country. We all- not just me from Croatia and Bosnia, any refugee - is extremely thankful to have the chance to come here and make the life here.
When we feel frustration from Americans or from different nations here towards the refugees, I think that everybody needs to know that we, as refugees, wouldn’t be here if the war wouldn’t happen in our country. We would all enjoy actually staying and living in our country and and and being a part of what was familiar to us, where we grew up, where our parents live, where our families live instead of trying to flee the country, leave it, legally, not legally, doesn’t matter which way, in order to make a living.
I think that’s one of the statements that as I’m older, I realized seeing a lot of disparities, seeing a lot of hate even in this country which can be extremely successful. It's extremely hard to accept knowing that those two things- hate and greed- never brought nothing good to nobody.
I think the United States has to be extremely appreciative and lucky that they never had to go through that and if everybody takes that into perspective, it might change the certain mood or the certain pattern of things that are happening here.