SOLEMN REMEMBRANCES

SARAJEVO TI SI MOJA DRAGA 

In the saber rattling lead up to this war in the Ukraine a high ranking official in the United States government mistakenly said that we have enjoyed peace for 70 years in Europe, evidently forgetting the relative recent history of such conflicts as the Troubles in Northern Ireland that lasted into the 90s, or the Romanian revolution of the late 80s, or Prague Spring in 1968 or the 1956 Hungarian Revolution or the Basque uprisings or the Coup d'etat in early 80s Spain, just to mention a few.

GDJE JE TVOJ MOZAK?

That’s Bosnian for “Where is your brain?”

This is not a political rant though, but instead I want to offer a prayer for peace, especially as the 30^th anniversary of the Bosnian Wars is approaching. In April 1992, full scale hostilities broke out with Bosnia declaring itself independent of the former Yugoslavia Republic, following Slovenia and Croatia the previous year. Bosnia Serbs wanted to carve out for themselves Republika Srpska and create an ethnically pure state apart from the Muslims they had lived with and intermarried with for generations.

Before the war ended in 1995, horrific atrocities of genocide and ethnic cleansing were carried out. Sarajevo, the thriving, multi-ethnic city and cultural center of Bosnia and Herzegovina endured the longest siege of a capital in modern warfare. From April 1992 for 1,452 days the city was blockaded and its citizens were assaulted by rockets, mortars, artillery and snipers. By the time the Dayton Peace Accords were signed over 5,000 civilians were killed. It was a horrible war and it personally affected me.

EMBRACED BY THE WORLD

I fell in love with Sarajevo the first time I visited the city for the 1984 Winter Olympics. I was working for ABC-TV at the time and in the five months I was there I made a lot of Yugoslavian friends.

They were all called Yugoslavian then, not Slovenian or Croatian, Serbian or Bosnian, and Sarajevo was the shining example of a peaceful metropolis. Yes, Sarajevo is where WWI began, but the religious and cultural diversity of a city with mosques, catholic and orthodox churches and synagogues practically next to each other, where inter-faith relationships were given a shrug as they were a non-threatening no issue was a glorious introduction to the world for this young traveler. Sarajevo was an old city with a young heart, and for this young man, despite being so far from home, Sarajevo became a part of me.

The enduring memory I have of the coverage of the Sarajevo Olympics was the peaceful co-existence and the pride everyone had in their country of Yugoslavia.

While working in Italy during the summer of 1987 I took a quick three-day side-trip to Sarajevo to revisit my friends. Who knew that as we laughed and drank and I brushed up on my cursing in Sarajevan slang that this peaceful world would come so abruptly to an end a short time later!

EMBARRASSED

As aggressions intensified in the Balkans, I was helpless. A young father with two young children now I watched the news about Bosnia out of the corner of my eye as I changed diapers.

News of the war, the atrocities, the ethnic cleansing, the horrors were met with disbelief. I sought out my friends. I eventually found out one had fled with his family and eventually settled in Zagreb. Another was in Moscow visiting before the war broke out and could not return, but they had brothers and cousins “running through the woods with a shotgun”. Others were stuck in Sarajevo, dodging the mortars and sniper fire. The madness of it all was overwhelming and embarrassing for me, because I knew I could not help, except offer a prayer for peace.

SARAJEVO ROSES

A Sarajevo Rose

Considering the horrors of the Bosnian War; just google Srebrenica; Sarajevo has recovered, though still bearing the scars of the siege. Sarajevo Roses dot the streets. They are mortar craters filled with red resin to mark the impact.

Republika Srpska was created and there is a tenuous peace between Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks. 

When we traveled to Croatia in 2019, I went there with the guilt of not being able to help my friends, even after the war ended. I didn’t dare go to Sarajevo, the ache is still strong, but we stayed on the coast, sailing and staying with my friend Zeljko and his wife Hana at their summer villa in Trpanj a beautiful little town on the Peljesac Peninsula. They fled Sarajevo during the war and even aided in the rescuing of children from the siege. They settled in Zagreb, and made a life for themselves there. Many of their neighbors who also had their summer villas in Trpanj were from Sarajevo. One was Serbian. Another lived in Iran for a while. All spoke of Sarajevo being different again than the rest of  Bosnia, multi-cultural, vibrant and peaceful and they helped me brush up on my Sarajevo slang..

Pray for peace and perhaps it will come.

Love Janet and greg

SARAJEVO SIEGE

WHITE HOUSE PRESS BRIEFING 2/20/22

© 2022 by Gregory Dunaj.  

FRIENDS AWAIT

COUNTRIES DISSIPATE

The Yugoslavia I knew is gone. Has been since April, 1992 when the siege of Sarajevo began. That lasted over 1,400 days, longer than the Nazi siege of Leningrad during WWII, and took the lives of over 5,000 civilians and displaced many others and many dear friends. One was in Moscow visiting family and was unable to return home for the duration of the conflict. Another fled to Croatia and then was part of a group that helped get a lot of children through to safety.

And you get mad when the guy in front of you doesn’t move fast enough when the red-light changes?

I have been in Yugoslavia twice. Once for the Sarajevo Olympics. I was there from December, 1983 until April, 1984 and then again for a much shorter visit in the summer of 1987. During those two visits there was no hint of the horrors to come. When Communism fell, the fragile cohesion that evidently was holding Yugoslavia together, broke the country apart when Slovenia and Croatia claimed independence. They were successful after relatively brief conflicts, but then Bosnia and Herzegovina tried to do the same. Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) Croats and Serbs all butted heads on this. Serbs fought to keep Bosnia in Yugoslavia, the Croats wanted more land and the Bosniaks bore the brunt of the conflict with horrific tales of vicious ethnic cleansing, genocide, snipers and incessant shelling. When the Markale marketplace was targeted and killed scores of civilians the world finally heeded the distress of Bosnia and the United States brokered the Dayton Peace Accords.

IT'S COMPLICATED 

SARAJEVO ROSE

To this day Bosnia is still split in two; the mostly Serbian populated Republika Sprska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina with a population of Croats and Bozniaks. The peace agreement brought about the end of the Bosnian conflict but later conflicts flared up in Kosovo and Macedonia.

We are traveling to Croatia soon, flying into Dubrovnik and sailing through the beautiful Dalmatian Islands and you’re probably wondering why?  Dubrovnik, this proud and beautiful walled city on the Adriatic, was not spared during the Yugoslav Wars and shelled repeatedly. Reminders of the war can still be seen in walls pitted by shell fragments and bullet holes in buildings away from the coast and there are still dangerous areas where landmines have not been cleared. Although our trip will not take us to Sarajevo this time, the scars of the constant shelling during the siege are now called “Sarajevo Roses.” The gouges in the concrete have been immortalized and filled with a red resin to mark the spot. Sounds morbid, but this is the city where the conflagration of WWI began with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and how the assassin, Gavrilo Princip, stood as he fired his gun is also immortalized in concrete.

Indeed, Yugoslavia began after the Allied victory in WWI as a big “F.U.” to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, by taking away their land and then thrusting a lot of different people with different attitudes and grudges that were at times, centuries old, into one country.

Yeah, the area is complicated and when the long-time ruler of Yugoslavia Marshal Tito died cracks in the iron-fisted rule that kept Yugoslavia together began to show.

Now, I’ll bet you’re thinking a week at Seaside Heights, New Jersey is a lot easier to negotiate than traveling to this area, or better yet, turning on the air conditioning and drawing the curtains and not leaving the house is a safer way to go. If you do that though, you’ll be missing out on the most important aspect of this trip; a friendship that transcends decades. I have kept in touch with my friend, Zeljko, his wife, Hana, and now his son through social media. During the war he fled Sarajevo with his family to Zagreb and from there helped broker the safe passage of several busloads of children out of the horrors of Sarajevo.

Perhaps I feel guilty. When the war raged, I was immersed in my young family and turned a blind eye to my friends and their troubles and I can conjure up a myriad of excuses why this was necessary. Well, regardless of the past, now is time to redefine the locus of my travels.  We will be staying with them for the latter part of the trip at their seaside home in Trpanj on the Peljesac Peninsula to catch up. This is a trip of a lifetime...literally..

SAILING AWAY

CAROUSING IN CROATIA  

This July your favorite traveling duo is off to Croatia. I’ll warn you it’s a costly trip but we have quite a bit of freebees and mooching going on to make it happen.

  

DUBROVNIK

Here’s our itinerary. We fly to the walled city of Dubrovnik and stay there for a few days. We then board a luxury cruise ship that will sail us through the Dalmatian Islands for a week. Disembarking in Split we rent a car to travel a few days to see Plitvice Lakes National Park. Then it’s back to Split for a day and then it’s on to Trpanj to stay with a friend whom I worked with at the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984.

 

PLITVICE LAKES

Here’s the freebee.

Our airfare is free, because we signed up for an American Airlines credit card that gave us enough miles to fly to Dubrovnik. American Airlines just started flying into Dubrovnik this June. It’s quite a savings anytime you can get free airfare to Europe in the middle of summer.

Here’s the mooch. 

Through Facebook I’ve kept in touch with my friend over all these years and for years he’s been sending me pictures and imploring that I should come visit he and his wife during the summer. So, how could we refuse him?

We haven’t seen each other since I traveled back to Yugoslavia in 1987 after the Frank Sinatra Italian Tour ended and I took three days out to fly into Sarajevo. Lot’s of living and sadness for us both since then, and this will be our time to reconnect.  

Here’s the ouch.

The sailing is expensive, but that’s been a bucket list item for me, to sail through the Dalmatian Islands in the Adriatic Sea. It’s through a company called “Unforgettable Croatia”. They operate a small fleet of cruise ships with varying degrees of luxury. We could have gotten down and dirty with a trip, but that would have involved a lot of drunken naked younger folks, so we settled on a wrinkle in time…ahem.

Here’s the wow.

Our ship is the MV Infinity that has just a 38-passenger capacity and we will sail to islands like Mljet, Korcula (where Marco Polo was born), Vis and Hvar. There are many amenities included in our approximately $4,000 sailing adventure like meals with beer and wine included, tours to an oyster farm and a wine tasting, free WIFI, and all port fees are paid. It’s worth it!  

Much more details to follow! We leave soon, follow along

 MV INFINITY