Dealing With The Past –True Stories Market: Selected stories

Balkan Investigative Reporting Network BiH (BIRN BiH) - Detektor

PTSP in Bosnia and Herzegovina - The afflicted feel forgotten in the crisis, pandemic, and new war

Those suffering from PTSD have felt abandoned and forgotten for years while facing their traumas. Then came the pandemic and war in Europe, increasing loneliness and resurrecting old nightmares they thought they had suppressed. The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN BiH) reveals that, almost three decades after the end of the war, Bosnia and Herzegovina has not developed specialized centers for those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, nor does it have clear and unified data on the exact number of affected individuals and their needs. Instead, a significant part of the work in the field is expected to be carried out by non-governmental organizations with sporadic funding and without clearly developed strategies.

Balkan Investigative Reporting Network BiH (BIRN BiH) - Detektor

Most difficult memories of Biljanci residents are of their last moments with their loved ones

In the village of Biljani near Ključ, on July 10, 1992, more than 200 residents were killed, their bodies found in mass graves after the war. Magbula Mešanović witnessed her husband Hajrudin and son Admir preparing to leave, only to face soldiers outside. She remembers every moment of Admir getting ready. Later, she identified Admir’s remains in a grave based on his clothing, but couldn’t find her husband. During the pandemic, her other son passed away. Since then, Magbula avoids returning to Biljani

Tena Perišin and Janet Harris

Lipik Orphanage

A personal journey by Daniel Topić, who is the same age as the orphans of Lipik who escaped the bombing of the orphanage in 1991. He goes to Lipik to research the story of his aunt, local doctor Marica Topić who helped rebuild the orphanage during the war. The story begins with archive and follows Daniel tracking down the staff and children who experienced the destruction of war, but also discovering what they are doing now, showing that from the devastation of conflict a new story and society can emerge which is able to build a better future for children.

Vesi Vuković

A Hero from the Arena

A Hero from the Arena is about an everyday hero, Marino Zurl, who helped reunite countless families, forcefully separated during WWII. Yugoslav weekly magazine The Arena printed Zurl’s column Arena is searching for your dearest ones from 1963 until the end of 1980s. During that time span Zurl managed to give back identity to more than 160 displaced children-survivors of the concentration camps, although back then DNA analysis was not possible. The film tackles the pressing issues of wars, memory, forgetting, and revisionism of Yugoslav heritage. As a collage of present-day interviews, fictional segments inspired by Zurl’s writings, and archival footage, it poses a question whether heroes need to be flawless.

Zlatica Gruhonjić, Miljan Kovač, Lejla Gačanica

Red Van

I think every Banja Luka resident knew about it. The red van was, in translation, a funeral van, a van used to train people. It was the most terrifying thing that happened in Banja Luka, a city that had culture, civilization, yet people would simply hide and run behind corners when they saw the red van... People were taken away without a trace...” (ICTY, testimony transcript of Predrag Radulović, Ministry of Interior of Republika Srpska). In the dominant narratives of the 1990s, Banja Luka is remembered as a city where “there was no war.” However, following the story of the Red Van, the people who disappeared and survived the van, the witnesses, and those who still cannot speak about it today - we discovered that the wartime story of Banja Luka was brutally and irreversibly war-torn, silenced, and terrorized, transferred into the present. The story of the Red Van is a tale of Banja Luka before and after the war and what happened in between - crimes, repression, silence, and fear.

Team

Project Manager: Maša Marković

Programme coordinator: Ishak Jalimam

Project Coordinator: Ismar Begtašević

Host of the programme Dealing with the Past: Robert Tomić Zuber