#5 Each picture represents a story

The bridge was the place where he and the rest of the village had to escape to when the soldiers came to their “hometown.” The soldier's first step was to rob the people of any identification papers they had. This wasn’t any normal checking such as the ones that you are used to going through when you visit another country. No, this was different. Imagine you and your family going for a vacation. But when you show your passports etc. that you have, you’re supposed to get them back after maximum 10 minutes. But you don’t because the police take them. And now you and your family are nobodies. To the government, you’ll just be a person claiming to have an identity but you’ve got absolutely no proof of it. The only differences between you in this situation and him are that he wasn’t going on any vacation. He was trying to run away from the danger. There were no policemen taking his passport, it was soldiers that weren’t afraid to kill. You would be no one but free. That was not his case. He was being robbed of his identity, so if he were to get out of this situation the people at his next destination would have no idea if he would be a victim or a traitor. He could be anyone, which meant that he would be looked at what people wanted him to see no matter what he said. This didn’t just happen to him, it happened to everyone in that village.

But the thing is that the people weren’t given the chance to try and see what would happen to them if they arrived at another destination. No, they were brought to different places where they were either meant to die or just stay until another concentration camp had enough place for them. They were basically sentenced to death because of their religion and ethnicity. But no, this is still not a story from WW2, this is a story from some year during 1991-1995. If you don’t believe me then please comment and let me know. I do not want people walking around saying that concentration camps after WW2 are lies because it is not a lie. It happened and I will not accept people spreading lies about it. It happened and the stories I’ve written about are true. They aren’t just ”based on a true story”, it is the true story. Some lost their lives to this cause and other survived but my purpose is to share these stories with all of you who are denying, ignoring or just didn’t know anything about them.

 

And these are some very bad pictures of some terrible trains. Some of them are ones that he was transported in. Yes, it might seem strange that I was able to take pictures of some trains that were used more than 20 years ago in a war, but it is not strange at all since they are there, just ten minutes away from his village. People (there are unconfirmed theories about who these “people” are) has left the train right there on the tracks. There have been theories about why as well. Some people say that the trains are still there because the Serbians want to remind and threat the Bosnians with them. Because if the train remains there then some people say that it is as a reminder that the Serbians did it once and that it might as well happen again, so they should stay on their guard.

One of the worst parts about when we found them was seeing this child's shoe. It broke my heart a little bit to be reminded once again of what happened here and how many it is that have been killed here. Yes, many of the deaths were civilians but children? Innocent children? To torture, if not kill, an innocent child is one of the worst things that you can do. Their lives have barely begun and you are already ripping them apart and destroying them for so many years? Who knows when they would get over these parts in their lives? This and so many other wars are destroying people. Sometimes even literally… The things that the people have been through and are going through are terrible. If you haven’t heard about the paramilitary during this war then you should definitely read about it. I haven’t decided if I should go through it or not but I know that it is not a happy story. Some helpful information might be that the paramilitary during the war in Yugoslavia that I’m referring to is the Serbian Paramilitary run by a man named Arkan. He was wanted in too many countries for me to remember, including Sweden, and yet the “punishment” that he got for everything he had done was a higher position in the Government.

I want to add that these stories aren’t beautiful and I’m aware of it. They are terrible even though I’m not giving you enough details. And the stories you will be able to read about the paramilitary that Arkan lead is not anything that will bring your mood up.