Some moments stay with us forever. This was mine. Thank you for connecting with Remember Me. 💔
~Sanela
“The initial takeover included the attack on the town of Kozarac near Prijedor, on 24 May 1992, which included two days of artillery barrage and an assault by a mechanised brigade of troops. As a result, some 800 civilians out of a population of around 4,000 were killed.” ~Source
This time of year always brings up feelings of fear, overwhelming sadness, and a sense of not being wanted in the world or in life in general.
I witnessed the most horrible things happening to my family, friends, neighbors, and ultimately to me… I survived, but many didn’t.
The year was 1992. It felt like hell on earth. In Europe, in a country called Yugoslavia, in a smaller place called Bosnia, and an even smaller town called Prijedor with its surrounding municipalities, everything was being torn apart. People I loved were consumed by evil: murder, torture, concentration and rape camps… Why?
This year marks thirty-two years since the attack on Kozarac.
I would like to share an excerpt from a book called Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War by Peter Maass (An American Journalist).
I highly recommend this book. It is the first book I have read on the subject that describes Bosnia and Croatia in 1992 and 1993 exactly as they were, exactly how I saw it, but from a foreign person’s perspective.
Peter Maass worked as a foreign correspondent from 1983 to 1995, based in Asia and Europe. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic. His wartime dispatches from the Balkans led to his selection as a finalist for the 1993 Livingston Award for International Reporting. He is currently a magazine writer and lives in New York City.
Nationalist Serbs staged a nighttime coup to take over (my town) Prijedor. There wasn’t much fighting because the Serbs were well armed and there was no resistance to speak of. No one else was prepared for war. The man named Kovacevic organized the takeover.
In this excerpt, Peter Maass talks about the attack on Kozarac. Continue reading →
HAUNTING FROM THE PAST Sequel to REMEMBER ME is Available in AUDIO! (Plus a GIVEAWAY!)
IN CELEBRATION, I’m giving away a FREE audiobook to anyone promising to leave a review after they listen. Simply email sanela@sanelajurich.com and let me know you’ll do it. I will send you a code (US and UK only) to one FREE copy of Haunting from the Past to listen and review.
A Voice for the Voiceless – Deep and Honest; a Five Star Book Review by Author Gregory S. Lamb
“In spite of the dark tales contained within the pages, Jurich manages to leave readers with the hope that deep wounds can still heal. Ms. Jurich’s writing craft is superb and is well matched to her riveting debut novel, Remember Me. Jurich doesn’t hold back anything.”
—Gregory S. Lamb
Author of The People in Between
“Sanela Jurich continues to captivate book lovers in this sequel to Remember Me. She shows readers that having the courage to confront a painful past can bring hope to an uncertain future.”
—Lisa Tortorello
Author of My Hero, My Ding
As Selma tries to move on and recover from the horrible experience she had went through while living in Bosnia in 1992, where she and her parents had found themselves targets of the Bosnian war and where Selma had lost nearly all those she loved, was abused by those whom she once trusted, and had witnessed prejudice at its ugliest-the hell from which, she thought, she had finally escaped, found her in America and started haunting her again, reminding her that there was unfinished business someplace else.
Selma is a respected business woman, living in Chicago with the love of her life and their son. From the outside, it looks as if she finally has it all; career and family many people could only wish for. She thinks she is the luckiest person on the planet who had survived and escaped hell. One day she receives a phone call that forces her to go back to the place she had left behind almost two decades before. She had promised never to go back there, but now, she finds herself in a desperate situation from which there is no way out. She goes back to face her demons once again.
Will this trip finally push Selma over the edge and be the end of her? Who knows, it might even help her get some kind of conclusion. Follow Selma’s journey back to the past through despair, hatred, love, hope, and peace in this sequel to Remember Me by author Sanela Jurich.
Narrated by Lindsay Carrillo
Sample
Available on Audible.
“Sanela has a gift for sharing the very real feelings of her characters with the reader. I felt I really knew what Selma and the other characters created by Sanela were feeling. My emotions rose and fell with the feelings of her characters.”
When I was fifteen years old, my whole life changed in a blink of an eye…
I truly believe that I survived for one reason and one reason only: to tell our story, to give a voice to those who don’t have it anymore. I was there as a witness. As a survivor, I have an obligation. I have to talk about what happened in Bosnia in the early nineties, no matter the cost.
STORY TIME
Today’s story takes us to … you guessed it, Bosnia!
Once upon a time, in a small town in Bosnia, there was a young man named Abdul. Abdul, a man standing well over six feet tall, had blond hair and deep-set blue eyes. Despite being called “Sunny Boy” due to his irresistible smile, he disliked the nickname and usually suppressed his smile. He had just finished his studies and was starting his new job as a professor at the local community college. On his first day, he walked into his classroom and his eyes met those of a beautiful young woman named Hata. Hata was one of his students, but Abdul couldn’t help but feel drawn to her. Hata was lean with a narrow beautifully sculpted face. She kept her hair in a soft, wavy swinging bob that curled under just above her shoulders. She wore it straight back from her forehead. He adored absolutely everything about her.
Over the course of the school year, Abdul and Hata spent more and more time together. They talked about everything from books to movies to their dreams for the future. Before long, they were inseparable.
After graduation, Abdul and Hata decided to go on a road trip together. As they traveled across the country, they fell deeper in love. They talked about getting married and starting a family someday.
A few years later, Abdul and Hata tied the knot in a beautiful ceremony surrounded by their loved ones. They exchanged vows, promising to love each other forever.
A year after their wedding, Hata gave birth to their first child, a beautiful baby boy they named Azmir. They were over the moon with joy, and they knew that they wanted to have more children. A few years later, they welcomed another son, Almir, into their family.
Abdul and Hata’s love continued to grow with each passing year. They faced challenges and hardships, but they always stood by each other’s side. They raised their boys with love and kindness, and they looked forward to watching them grow into strong, confident young men.
On the 11th of July 1995, everything changed. The Bosnian Serb forces, led by Ratko Mladić, took over their town. Hata and her family were among those affected. As her husband and sons joined the Column – a group moving through the woods and mountains towards the nearest safe area in Tuzla – Hata was separated from them.
Recalling the moment of separation, Hata remembers how her youngest son held onto her tightly, pleading with her. “Mother, please let me go with dad and Azmir, I beg of you!” he said, his hands wrapped around her, an image that still haunts her to this day.
Hata decided to go to the area protected by the UN in a neighboring town.
Nearly a year after the war’s end in 1996, she received a phone call informing her that her youngest son, Almir, had been found in a mass grave. Although mostly complete, Almir’s remains were the only ones to be found. It wasn’t until 1998 that Hata would learn of the fate of her husband and her other son. Her husband’s remains consisted of only a few bones, while Azmir’s were only two leg bones. Due to the Bosnian Serb forces’ use of mechanical diggers to move bodies from primary to secondary and tertiary mass graves, Hata’s family members’ remains were scattered across kilometers, often in different locations with only partial remains.
Hata waited almost 12 years, hoping that more of her family’s remains would be found. But in 2010, she laid her husband and two sons to rest at the Potočari Memorial Complex. The Bosnian Serb army had not only taken away her husband and sons, but also her brothers, their sons, her cousins, and their children. The suffering was immeasurable.
Despite everything, Hata returned to her beloved town in 2003, fighting to reclaim her home from a Serb family who had claimed it as “spoils of war.” For Hata, the place was more than just a house; it was where her children had walked, where she had built her life. She has three trees that her youngest son had planted. He was small then and the trees are big now, she thought each time she looked at them.
This story was inspired by Hatidža Mehmedović, her husband, Abdullah and their sons Azmir and Almir.
Hatidža founded the Mothers of Srebrenica Association to support other women who had lost their families during the genocide. She led campaigns and projects, including the establishment of the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Complex and Cemetery, and civil lawsuits against the UN and Dutch government for failing to protect the people of Srebrenica.
Hatidža’s story is a powerful testament to the horror of the genocide done in Bosnia, and her campaign for justice for her family members challenges those who would deny its occurrence. Despite witnessing the worst of humanity, Hatidža never gave in to feelings of revenge and discouraged others from doing so. Even in the face of a long battle with breast cancer, Hatidža continued to fight for justice for the victims and survivors. She passed away on the 22nd of July 2018 in a Sarajevo hospital at the age of 65, leaving behind a legacy of courage and strength.
When I was fifteen years old, my whole life changed in a blink of an eye…
I truly believe that I survived for one reason and one reason only: to tell our story, to give a voice to those who don’t have it anymore. I was there as a witness. As a survivor, I have an obligation. I have to talk about what happened in Bosnia in the early nineties, no matter the cost.
When most people think of the month of May, in their mind’s eye, they see: spring-time, renewal, rebirth, flowers, sunshine, laughter of children playing outside. I, on the other hand, see the beginning of an end. The beginning of unimaginable hell. Most specifically, I see a teenage Bosniak girl being raped by Serb paramilitary units. Her parents restrained behind a fence while she’s being raped repeatedly. After a while she’s left alone in a pool of her own blood …
My birth-town, Prijedor, Bosnia in 1992.
The other day, a ninety year old man, said to me: “You can’t possibly understand what those poor people in Ukraine are going through!”
“I’m Bosnian.” I replied quietly. Not giving him any more information than that, knowing full-well he knew about the war in Bosnia. He lived through the early 1990’s and was hearing about the horrible war in Europe on the news then, just like we’re hearing about Ukraine now. He didn’t say anything else to me about the subject. His confrontational demeanor changed instantly while the look on his face became a little softer as he understood why I was reluctant to carry on the conversation about the Ukraine in the first place, which he obviously craved so much in hopes of teaching this “ignorant, spoiled, young American girl” about the “real” struggles of the world. He assumed I was younger than I am, therefore, he assumed, I was spoiled and didn’t know anything.
I let it go. He wasn’t worth my time nor energy. He did, however, bring up the memories I just can’t escape no matter how hard I try.
I was born in Prijedor and in 1992, I was only 15.
You see, when other people talk about the war, what they think is happening is army against another army, buildings being blown-up, dead bodies on the street and screaming children … for those are the images that are constantly being displayed on our TV sets. But what I see–in my mind’s eye– behind those news-images is a little different and a lot darker. What I see and know first hand is truly happening is a young girl being raped repeatedly by men in uniform, while her parents are restrained behind the fence.
Let me tell you about her: she is scrawny. Tall, but skinny. Shy beyond comprehension. She only speaks when spoken to. Always quiet. She is beautiful, although, she doesn’t know it yet and she wouldn’t believe you if you told her so. She loves her school-mates and her teachers. She loves her parents and grandparents, her aunts and uncles and even though she has no siblings, she thinks of her cousins as her brothers and sisters. Most of all, she loves books. She reads about distant places and people she would love to visit and meet some day. She’s a day-dreamer. She is happy. She is your typical little girl. She could be your daughter or your sister. Maybe a cousin or even a girl you’re crushing on. She could be you.
She doesn’t know anything about politics and quite frankly, she doesn’t care about such adult matters. She thinks she’s in love with her childhood crush.
In 1992 her whole world crumbles. Her loved ones are being tortured and killed. Thrown away into concentration camps. She doesn’t know why. She’s being punished, but she can’t understand nor remember what it was that she did that was so horrible to be punished so severely … Continue reading →
Author: Sanela Ramic Jurich
Hello Friends! Take a look at a new book trailer for Haunting from the Past. Hope you like it.
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On May 23, 1992, my mother and I were visiting my grandmother in Hambarine, not knowing that a war criminal, Radmilo Zeljaja, had given an order to the Serb army to start bombing my mother’s home town that day.
Heavy artillery, which has long been set on the hills around Prijedor and directed toward the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Croat (Bosnian Catholic) villages, started spitting its fire. The entire afternoon, the sky above Prijedor was rocketed and falling onto unprotected, innocent people and their homes in Hambarine.
Two years ago I visited my birth town, Prijedor in Bosnia. One day, I took my husband to town to show him the building where I grew up. I couldn’t show him our condo, because we were never able to get it back from the Serbs who forced us out of it, back in 1992, stealing our condo and everything in it.
My father’s land, about ten minute drive from town, however, wasn’t so easy to steal. Our ancestors owned that land in Ćela since the beginning of time and have survived all of the Balkan wars; Turkish Empire, Austor-Hungarian Empire, World Wars I and II and now, Serb-Invasion.
On our way home to my parents’ house on my father’s ancestral land, we decided to take a cab, but when we told the cab-driver we wanted to go to Ćela, he told us he didn’t know where that was. I looked at him, puzzled. It’s only a ten-minute ride if that. I figured he probably wasn’t from there if he didn’t know where Ćela was. So I told him I’d give him instructions on how to get there.