Anonymous, 53
Republika Srpska, Bosnia-Herzegovina
“And I’m musician. So this Serbian singer comes up to me and he’s like “hey man,” I says “what’s up.” he says, “we are gonna go in one of the hills”--which becomes the concentration camp in 1992--he says “We’re gonna go and shoot a video” and I said “nice, that’s gonna be awesome.” And I didn’t even know what the video is for, I was gonna be their drummer. And, um, so I got the printed lyrics about “We are the Serbia” and we gonna be on a tank with the Serbia new flags (which then I never even see it). So then my father shows up at home and I told him like “Oh I’m gonna do that,” and he found that um lyrics about the thing. And I got slapped first time, like BOOM! He says like ‘You go into your room and if I see you in that video you get out of this house.’”
Interview originally conducted in English
Cool, so just make sure you talk loudly--
Yeah, yeah, I’m loud.
So what happens: I’ve been a musician since1981. In a band, everything was mixed in that time. It was Yugoslavia, so nobody was thinking about it like “This is Serb, this is Croatian guy, this is gypsy guy.”
So anyway, I played with this Serbian guy that grew up in my neighborhood, and he was just like...without us, he was just kind of like a little bit dumb you know? (Laughs).
But we loved him anyway. And he was funny in some ways. And so, In between 1982 and 1992, and I think we released the first CD in ‘91. I joined a different band, so I left his band, and he was pissed--And I’m Croatian, he’s Serb--and, um… I think it was the first of May, it was a holiday, and everybody is getting čevapi and we were just having a party right next to the river, and everybody shows up regular clothes, but he shows in a uniform because he was fighting already in Croatia--And we didn’t even know. And we’re probably like 30 kilometers, like not even 14 miles, from the border.
So he showed up with a kalashnikov. And… totally different face, totally different guy. He was just so serious about everything, but we didn’t pay attention. There was just so many of us, you know. And all of a sudden, in the middle of the party, when everybody started drinking (I was not drinking at that time). I was… 23.
And he started talking about the Muslims and the Croatians and how everybody had to be like, wiped, wiped out of the world. So I think I said something... I don’t remember exactly what, and he turned around and he told me to shut up. But really looked at me for more than 30 seconds, you know. And his kalashnikov was on the table, but he had a gun too. And after like a minute or two later, I’m talking to another Serb who thinks same as me--everybody’s different, you know? And this guy was poisoned with war, you know-- so I started talking to this other guy and that one guy heard everything that I said, and he put the bullet in the chamber-- [khh,khh makes sounds of loading a gun].
And he says,
“If you gonna start talking about the Serbs or anything, I’m gonna end you right now, here.”
I left the party probably like two minutes after that because I didn’t feel comfortable anymore. It’s not the end of the story--listen to this.
I left in 1992, that was...end of the summer ‘91. I got thrown out of [my town in RS] in 1992, 27th of July.
I was going to see my mom and [the Serbian military] put everybody into the buses and they confiscated everything. So the house and the apartment that we owned in that time was was taken, just like that. And uh...so when I left the town, I didn’t know if I was going to ever go back home.
Then, in 2009, one of my friends in Chicago was shooting a movie in Belgrade. And he’s begging me like “Let’s go!” And I hadn’t gone for 19 years, I said “I don’t wanna go, man.” He said “It’s gonna be that actor, this actor,” like, uh… so I, was kind of like, you know, the 50-50. So he left in October, and I flew out in November. I got an open ticket.
And after a month of shooting that video, I went to [my town in RS]. After 19 years. And the same guy, that bass player everybody else, is pretending nothing happened. And I know that he killed at least 20 people in town that I know, and there’s proof from another 40 people that we all know, and he’s pretending to me everything was fine, and I even end up into his bar, and like… they almost everybody drinks there. And… they did start again, after 19 years. When everybody gets drunk, they started talking about the politics, I called my friend in the car, and I sit in the car, and I never saw him since 2009. And it’s just like, you know, the people don’t change. I mean, nobody did anything to me, but I live under the different law more than 32 years, so I did already change my mind in the head, I cannot get poisoned, you know. My son went over there 2015, and he says, like, “People are stupid here dad, when we gonna go back home?”
That’s what he said. So it’s like, I don’t know if my story got the point, but my point it is just like...people are so poisoned over there that you cannot get through, you know.
People in the Republic of Serbia, in [my town in RS] where my mom is from, they’ve been thinking they belong to Serbia, but they don’t have anything. They don’t have their money, they don’t have a passports, they don’t-- even their ID or driver's license says Bosnia and Herzegovina. It’s just like they have in their mind. So I just get over it and I keep continuing my life here. You know, that’s basically it.
Otherwise, you know, even if I’m in [my town in RS], I’m Croatian and my mom is from Bosnia, but maybe I will end up not even playing with a band because I’m different religion. What does that mean? Like nobody asks me anything here. I've been playing with an 80s cover band for last 10 years. People come and take the pictures with me and everybody was nice and when I said I’m from Croatia, they called me drinks and everything. So, I like this country and I’m gonna stay here. That’s it.
Oh wow, okay, so backtracking a little bit
Hit it
Before everything, pre-war--where are you from? What was a typical day like? How did you spend your days? What’d you think you would be doing?
Ma, you know, I was almost 22 years old when the war starts. But I was basically a musician seven days a week. I started playing when I was 13 because my neighbor was a drummer and I think he was into the women a lot, so he would get me as a backup drummer and I would play some simple grooves while he would be gone. So I got my drums when I was probably like, 13 or 14 years old. And I was already playing. That’s what I did.
But, I had to go to the military, so I ended up in the military for one year. March 18, 1987 until March 17, 1988 in Sarajevo. My father was a captain in the military and I didn’t want to go to military in the time, but it’s a shame for the family to not go to military, but I didn’t do anything in the military because they discovered that I was a drummer and I played [drums] in the military too.
I didn’t have any other jobs because my father supported the whole family, and uh, that’s basically it.
And where’d you grow up? In [your town in RS]?
No, I grew up on the Croatian coast, but my mom was going back and forth. But in 1992, when they threw us out [of our town in RS] my mom moved back to Croatia, and she ended up living in the States. She’s been here longer than me, since 1993.In ‘98 when everything calmed down, my mom went and she was the first out of the 50 people that got their apartments and houses back. So we basically got back the apartment in [my town in RS] but we traded the house--a Serb from the coast got the house in [my town in RS] and we got the house on the coast.
So that’s basically what it is. But I didn’t go back for 19 years. Since 2009, I was there 2013, 2015, and 2018, I-I didn’t go that much. I go more to Munich when I go to Europe because in Munich is eight hours, it’s like from here to Albuquerque, New Mexico, you know.
When did the war start for you? Was there a specific moment when you were like, “Oh, okay, this is happening?”
The war basically starts happening to me because I was in the Pula in June of ‘92 playing with a band. Pula was really far north of Croatia.
I was already playing with a band in a hotel when I got back to visit my mom, then all of a sudden, the town got surrounded just overnight, we had to leave. That’s it. We had to leave or we would get executed. Simple as that.
And at that time, when I was 23, I was thinking “Oh this is just, a normal thing.” And I was actually not scared in that time because I had a bunch of friends there too. And all my friends--
In [your town in RS] or in Pula?
[My town in RS] when we get thrown out, me and my mom.
Yeah, I mean, like, it happened so early to us then later on, like all that summer, that was the 27th of July, 1992.
So there were a bunch of people who...we are lucky. That nothing happened on that 27th, but slowly, that time, and I will say till like May 1993, lots of people got killed. And nobody… like, nobody goes to jail. But, about September, October, November, and a half of the ‘93, um… there’s proofs on internet, Prijedor, it’s the town right next to [my town in RS], 3,200 civilians that were killed, more than 200 kids, and uh… like, their most, all, all Muslims and Croatians. Or, anybody who was not Serb, was executed. [my town in RS] was the bigger town,, so the army headquarters is there.
I know like seven or eight of my friends who went to high school with me who were thrown off of the bridge in [my town in RS] because they didn’t have ID. I mean, they shoot them and they throw them off the bridge. But that’s like, what? Gonna be 30 years, next year. Yeah. So. Sad and I don’t know…
I was in the Munich playing with the bands while a lot of the war was happening.
In 1991, the war was in Croatia, okay. And I’m musician. So this Serbian singer comes up to me and he’s like “hey man,” I says “what’s up.” he says, “we are gonna go in one of the hills”--which becomes the concentration camp in 1992--he says “We’re gonna go and shoot a video” and I said “nice, that’s gonna be awesome.” And I didn’t even know what the video is for. And, um, so I got the printed lyrics about “We are the Serbia”--
You’re gonna go shoot this video with them, like be their drummer
Yeah to be their drummer, and we gonna be on a tank with the Serbia new flags which then I never even see it. So then my father shows up at home and I told him like “Oh I’m gonna do that,” and he found that um lyrics about the thing. And I got slapped first time, like BOOM! He says like “You go into your room and if I see you in that video you get out of this house.” And I’m like ‘Okay.”
So the story doesn’t end. My guitar player who was cro-Croatian, ended up playing on that video. I’ll send you that video, it’s on youtube,
It’s like a super nationalist thing, then like, “We are not gonna get anybody here except the serbs, this is a Serbian country, this is serb land,” and this is in Bosnia! I mean, c’mon! And one of my friends who was guitar player, you gonna see him on the video, he moved to Sweden, he was like, he was like same thing, like they throw him out of town. He couldn’t live for almost 15 years, nobody from Croatians and Muslims or anybody don’t wanna talk to him because he-he was on that video. [Laughs]
Music video described by Anonymous 53
That’s wild!
But when Germans started throwing people out, my mom and my brother got to [Colorado] before me like the end of ‘93, and I got here in the April of ‘93 because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Like where am I supposed to go? The German gave us six months and if they throw me, they will throw me back to Croatia, like what am I gonna do? So my mom and my brother sent me the paperwork and I got here in the end of the April ‘94.
But All my friends are Serbs. I still go-- my flights are to Munich, Belgrade, I never fly to Croatia (laughs) that’s so weird, you know.
Like you said, the interview is gonna be 20 minutes or 4 hours, I think I have seven hours to talk to you so (laughs). Now when I go back into the town, I don’t-- I don’t know, I have so many things coming into my mind right now, to talk about it.. There’s a bunch of people who’s supposed to be in jail that I know and a bunch of my friends who moved to Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Germany, Austria, Canada, United States, I mean, everywhere in the world, like if you look at it, like, the big community in Chicago, there’s 300,000 Serbs over there, and they nice! I already played in that Serbian church over there, everything’s cool! You know.
But over there, it’s just like… there’s been too much poison. I don’t think I could handle it, like I said earlier. I go to Munich for a week to kill the time and then I come back here, because the three days in Croatia or Sarajevo, it’s enough for me. But, when I go to Belgrade, Belgrade’s never enough. I wanted to stay in Belgrade for another two weeks. Because there’s always something going on, you know. Yep.
Yeah
I was really pretty much there for like more than 10 days and I could see they basically started to set up little offices that you could sign to give away your apartment or house. Can you imagine that? You live here, and somewhere half a mile away you’re gonna sign that I’m gonna give you apartment or house?
(Laughs). I’m like, that’s nonsense! And we didn’t even know because [my town in RS] was all over, or, on that time, 200,000 people lived there. And these little towns around, you know, Prijedor was not more than 30,000, maybe 35,000. And killing was already happening in between I will say starting September ‘91 and increased, I think, by the May. By the May, a bunch of… villages around [my town in RS] been burned down, like, to the ground. I mean… seriously like, you know, the tanks would come through every single house.
Um. But, that s- you know, it was the 27th when I found out the offices were opening. Three days later, they’re forcing people to leave. Your neighbor, if they Serb, which there were a bunch of Serbs in my building where I lived and they said,
“You guys need to go and sign or you’re gonna get executed or you gonna leave.” So if you don’t wanna leave, you will get executed.
My father used to work for the military for 35 years and he’s supposed to go in retirement in 1993, in the May. And he died on April 26, 1993. Um… so my father didn’t want to go, so he moved to his friends and we went back to Croatia. But we’ve been forced, overnight, what happens the main detail about that thing was the… one night, you normally go to sleep, and there was a neighbor, and he says, “You guys have to pack tonight! I mean, right now!”
You grab anything that you need, you know, the passport, you cannot grab anything, I mean, what do you need with you, there were no phones at that time, you know. So we left at like… 3:40am. And somebody else move into, into our place, because we didn’t even know, you know, they did the bunch of propaganda, like, when is the, when the Serbs are losing on this part, and they move that town, everybody’s coming to [my town in RS] and they don’t know where they gonna put the refugees and if you’re a Serb, well then “We’’re gonna throw this guy out of the place and you gonna move to his place.” Or you know… it’s just like… or y-you gonna get killed, simple as that.
So we moved, just overnight, sat in the car, and get over the border, two days after that, the bridge was down on the Sava. Bridge was down, and like, if we didn’t leave the day that we did, we wouldn’t have been able to because there was a corridor from [my town in RS] getting to Serbia. And if you got into the buses there, and they go check the IDs, by the name, they gonna find out you’re not Serb, 80% of those busses people get killed or they just burn you alive, they just burn the bus down. They just take the driver out, if he’s a serbian guy, and they burn the busses down. And that’s what I remember. I never see it live, but… there’s, uh, bunch of these things, you know.
So my father, my father passed away just because he was, uh, doing inside work in like command like for the whole town. He was, uh, doing security thing inside, they throw him out of the work and re-hired him nine times. I didn’t know what kind of thing he was doing because he’s always under the secret thing.
But I found out 20 years later on YouTube who my father was.
What’d you find out?
He was an architect for the secret shelters for the military, which, now they’re museums because they were originally for President Tito. He was doing, uh, I think, all these designs about the room and everything and what’s going on. That’s like 250 meters underground. But anyway, he basically passed away on a-- they throw him out nine times in a month and a half and they bring him back. They fire him today and hire him three days later and they fire him four days later and then hire him next day because nobody could be in that position because it’s secret… And he just fell asleep and he didn’t wake up. And I didn’t go to my father’s grave for 19 years.
His grave is in your town?
Yeah, yep.
How did you find out that he died?
Um, one of his good, good friends, Serb--you see, not everybody is the same, I mean, come on-- one of his friends who was working with him for 35 years, he did it with the radio station, called the Pula, and we got the phone call because we were in Croatia on that time, and we find out. So we couldn’t go to the funeral, we couldn’t go to anything. My mom did everything in ‘98, did the monument and all that stuff. But anyway. You mind smoking?
No, go for it.
Is it gonna bother you?
No, no, no, go for it.
(Lights cigarette).
Um, so, I don’t know there’s so many things. I’ve been, I’ve been so hurt, I mean, mentally, I’ve been so hurt that I… basically, I was in Croatia, only six days.
So from [your town] to the coast for six days and then from Croatia to--
Yeah, so my mom stayed there and my brother ended up in a concentration camp in [my town in RS] for 43 days. That’s how he ended up in the United States because Red Cross came to the Bosnia, in… September ‘93. So my brother moved Red Cross moved him to Croatia with my mom, and after that, the Red Cross showed up with the paperwork that said, “Australia? Canada? United States?” He says United States.
That’s the end of the story. When the Germans started throwing out everybody, I got the paperwork and I end up in the States. And that’s, you know, pretty much it. Yep.
When did, when did the war end for you?
The war basically ended to me when I moved back to Munich. I didn’t even think about it. I was paying the taxes like you do here, and after my father died, I got really upset… I basically forced myself that I’m never gonna go back home. And I forced it like 19 years, so imagine living that like? Like everyday, I know where I’m from, I’m United States citizen, but my heart is not, you know.
And after 19 years, I got back, and everything was the same. The only thing that really bothers me is that the people pretend like nothing happened.
You know--you wanted to shoot me just yesterday, and now I am buying YOU a beer?!
Which is kind of like… not setting me off that I’m gonna be, you pissed, like I’m just gonna leave.
All my friends are Serbs who is picking me up... everybody is poisoned, you know. I got two Serbs 2017 coming up to see me here and we went through all United States for a month and everything was fine, you know— everybody’s different, you know.
What was the year between the party that you mentioned where the guy said he was gonna shoot you and leaving?
That was ‘91 in August. And I saw him for the first time in November 2009. And he hugged me! And he was like “Hey man! Everybody’s talking that you are so scared to come back!” And I basically told him to the face and I’m like “I am scared to come back because you guys are insane.”
Did he say anything?
No, he was just backing up because they don’t like to hear the truth. And he was just like, I said like, “Don’t, don’t cross this line. I don’t wanna talk about it.” I’m after 19 years, like let me be here and I’ll see you. And I end up, you know, three days later at this bar, everybody’s getting drunk and everybody’s getting drunk and when they get like on a level when they drunk, then politics, then this, and it’s just like whoop, I basically, like, just left. I left after like 5 minutes when I see that they get to that level, I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle it. And there’s too many people, and nobody could listen what I think and I didn’t want to get into that subject. That’s basically what it is. Yep.
I mean, nothing changes in 30 years. I mean nothing changed. It’s just being like, we wanna be this, you guys gonna be this, we, we are gonna be this way. So these three sides are even more poisoned than in 1990. And that’s what I know. And I could feel it when I got there, through the stories! I’m just like talking to you drink a coffee in the morning like 20 minutes, I know what you think. Like, for example, they say they hate America. Why? Because America shoot the Belgrade in ‘99. One guy said, “You guys are shooting everybody!” I’m like, “I didn’t shoot anybody,” I’m like if I don’t like it here, I wouldn’t live here. That’s what it is. But. It’s so hard to explain those kind of people who didn’t move hundreds of miles away from the town for thirty years. I’ve played in 40 states here for 27 years. And um… that is a big… difference between what I think and what they think-- I am not thinking about nationality at all. You know, so, it’s like, I don’t know.
I gave my son name “Allen” to be a normal, you know. I-I-I’m not gonna give him a like Orthodox Croatian name that everybody knows and he’s gonna know the rest of their life, all of a sudden my son says like “No I don’t wanna go to Croatia.” Like, okay, that’s what it is, but… I don’t go, I don’t., I have a house and apartments in Rijeka, my mom still has an apartment in [my town in RS]which then goes back and forth because her sister lives there too.
Is it the same apartment that you had?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got it back in ‘98.
I don’t feel anything. I go there, I have a place to sleep, I don’t have to pay for a hotel. That’s how I feel.
You know. It’s kind of like a… I pretty much like it here, bunch of, you know, there is a bunch of politics too going on, I don’t look at the politics, I don’t care.
I never... even my band that I’ve been in for 10 years, they’ve asked me like, “What’s going on?” Go on, go on google, and they give you answers. And if I sit down with you, you will never understand.
So the party happened in ‘91, you were kicked out of your town in ‘92, what was the year between those two events like? Was it, did it seem normal, was there a lot happening, was there a sense of war, was it just like…
You mean what happening with me?
Yeah, like your life during that time
I mean, I was in pain, I’m telling you, I was in pain for 19 years. I discovered that when I got back to my time and first time get back, um… to see my father’s place where he was buried and uh, i got a big relief on that day, somehow, I don’t know, something came out of me, I don’t know what, I was, um, I was, I was, pissed, I was happy, I was, I was like more happy, i don’t know, like.
Like closure
Pretty much. I was in the pain. For 19 years. And like, holding that pain inside of me all the time, and I never talked this thing before, you probably, I think, couple of my friends, and I know them for 25 years, they know the little things, but they don’t know like what I just told you because I never brought that up. But I was in the pain and I know that. I know that on the, on that day in November 2009 when I got back into the town and I did cry, I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t stop crying and it never happens to me in my life, and uh… and uh… meeting with the other, other people was like so emotional.
Some of the people who they’ve been there since 1991, most of them they stayed the same. Somebody who was like , I seem, like they’ve been same, but they get so poisoned with the nationalism and they wouldn’t even talk to me.
And then when did you come to the US?
April 94.
Oh okay, what was that like, coming here, learning english, adjusting.
Oh like, I-- my english is still broken, you gonna find out that when you listen to this thing [recording].
Um, I knew only “thank you” and “welcome” when I got to the airport here. And that’s it. I didn't go to school, I--I just hung out with the people and watched TV. I went to the bars and I played with the bands, I actually did the Blues Jam night my forth day here.
I shipped my drums from Munich ‘94, a week before, then I got here, I think I just a changed the town. I, you know, United States is not on that time what it is now you know. Because everybody’s growing. But I just changed Munich to the States and I start liking it more than in the Munich.
When I got to the States, I burned my Croatian passport. And the lady was looking at me like “What are you doing?!” And I said like “I’m flipping a page in my life. I’m gonna start a new life and I don’t know, if when i’m gonna go back.” If my friend didn’t shot that movie, in Belgrade, I would probably never go there.
I got hit real hard. And when I said I was from Bosnia to people here, they hugged me! I said “What the hell is wrong with Americans? Germans never hug me!” You know, that’s exactly what happened with me. I’m like, hold on a second. And they, and they send the beer, I’m like, hold on, i’m like, what??
They felt bad about the war?
They felt bad about the war and they, they, they tapped me on my shoulder and they talked to me and they were being nice to me! [Laughs].
Is there something that you want Americans or like people who aren’t from the Balkans who don’t know what’s going on, something that you want them to know about the war?
I don’t want a nothing happen to anybody what happened to me, you know. The main part was just like, it’s too small country that nobody cares here. You know. I don’t know what to say.
It’s a mystery about everything. You know, Serbia knows the one thing, Bosnia knows the one thing, and Croatia knows another. And everything is in conflict even today. And you d-doing basically this job, now [interviewing people], and if you ask me if I wanted to do your job, I wouldn’t do your job. If I would be working for INS and they said “Hey you wanna work for us and go back home and get American money monthly and you live at your home and you just gonna send us emails about what’s going on,” I would say no.
And then um, last question, it’s called the Burek Initiative because we all love Burek, do you have a story or something that you’d wanna share.
So the burek it’s the… the best thing ever. So that would be the first thing--the only thing when I miss is the food. And most of my money will be end up we will go into the bars, people are poor in [my town in RS], for example, and the bartender will come up and say:
“What do you guys want?”
And I said “Everything on the menu.”
And he says like “What?”
“Everything on the menu, just start slowly, you know getting it out.”
And we’ll call people over and we will sit down and it will cost me like, $130.
The burek is the best food but it depends where you eat it. Even if you go south Serbia you will eat a different one, don’t go to Slovenia because they don’t know how to do it, Croatia sucks in the burek, Bosnia and I think al-albanians who live in the Belgrade, they do that thing good. That is the only way. But i’m, i’m actually saying the truth, and if they Bosnians are gonna hear me about the burek--
I was gonna say these are fighting words! [Laughs]
[Laughs].
They will be like fight like big time, I mean like, they do like pretty good burek in Sarajevo...I was in the military in ‘87 in Sarajevo and I never liked their burek. Never. I don’t know why. Because it’s just like a… I grew up with my mom and in my neighborhood where we ate it. And all of a sudden you go to military and I was 18 years old and every time these guys from macedonia, from you know serbia or from Slovenia, were going all to eat Burek and I’m eating sirnica. And they say “Why you not eating burek?” And I’m like...you don’t know what the real thing it is but you cannot say this in this place and you gonna get beat up. (Laughs), you know.
Burek is the best thing ever.