They are freezing to death.
Old people in a home on the outskirts of Sarajevo, wrapped in sweaters and coats and blankets, shiver in their beds, their hands and feet black from frostbite, waiting to die. They have been without heat, electricity, water and food for months.
Read MoreThe horror gets lost in the words. We've heard them all so many times before.
A city is under siege.
People are starving.
Children are dying.
Grenades are exploding.
This time the place is Sarajevo, host to the Winter Olympics in 1984, now host to soldiers and snipers. When Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe more than a year ago, Yugoslavia did, too. The result is that this country, once a federation of six socialist republics - Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Serbia - is now a mishmash of newly independent republics enmeshed in fighting which has already cost some 50,000 lives.
Read MoreTheir eyes are dry when they talk about him. Father, mother, brother, all are composed. In 21 years, you learn composure. You learn to tell what happened in a voice that doesn't betray your soul. You learn polite phrases that put strangers at ease. "He was always a happy-go-lucky kind of kid." "He never gave up."
Read MoreI wasn't there. I hadn't been born. I don't remember.
And yet I do have memories pieced from stories I was told and stories overheard, and television and movies and books. A photograph of a uniformed boy hung on a parlor wall, but the memory is fuzzy, the boy's face unclear. Army? Navy? Air Force? In which did he serve? I don't know. I was five, maybe six. I don't remember the boy's name; I couldn't pick him out of a crowd. But I know he was a boy, not a man.
Read MoreI never expected it would be like this. I imagined armored cars, tanks, bloodshed, women screaming, men begging, children lined against school walls and shot. Clergy would be tortured, churches burned. Families allowed to live would not be allowed to live together.
Most times I expected worse: The Conelrad alert would sound and be real. Twenty to 30 minutes until death and no time to go home. How would I be brave? How would I not cry in those final moments, not plead for my father and mother?
Read More"Tell me about the war, Dad?" I ventured, a long time ago when I was a child and needed a story to take to school.
"Were you scared? Did you think you might die?"
"Your father doesn't like to talk about the war," my mother scolded. "Run along and do your homework."
"But this is my homework " I protested.
Read More
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