Summary of previous episodes: May 1993, another piece of state torn from the bloody republic of Yugoslavia – another patchwork quilt from Bosnia-Herzegovina, and its capital Sarajevo under heavy siege for more than a year. We, the television crew of the American network NBC News, arrive on a flight to the besieged Sarajevo and make our way in an armored car to the hotel that will serve as our home and office during the journalistic mission in the city. The first day, a few hours after arriving on a flight from neighboring Split in a UN cargo plane, we end with dinner at the hotel restaurant, which has known better days. The first night was short. I did not fall asleep until after midnight.
Holiday Inn Sarajevo Hotel, 1992-93 (Photo: Hanani Rapoport)
Good morning Sarajevo
At first light I woke up. A luxury king-size bed with no electricity, no windows, no curtains, and the view from the broken window is the Interior Ministry building, one of the tallest buildings in the city center, the upper floors of which were directly hit by Serbian artillery and caught fire. Sooty walls.
The view from the Holiday Inn window in Sarajevo, 1992-93 (Photo: Hanani Rapoport)
I took advantage of the fact that there was another half hour until breakfast, and went in to take a shower. Hot water is for the weak. No fuel no heating. Quick shower. This also saves water, a valuable commodity in the besieged city.
I took advantage of the fact that there was another half hour until breakfast, and went in to take a shower. Hot water is for the weak. No fuel no heating. Quick shower. This also saves water, a valuable commodity in the besieged city
Collect to the backpack the notebooks I brought, stationery, the camera and of course the transistor, headset, helmet and socket. When the elevators are not working you have to think carefully before going down five floors on foot, so as not to forget anything in the room.
I’m the first in the bunch at our table. Strong smell of the boiled milk crust, for those who like. I connect less and ask for, if possible, Balkan coffee. Be careful not to ask for Turkish or Greek, at least not before I understand what the locals’ attitude is to each of these.
Dobby and Martin join. Morning call in the hotel dining room. A stranger will not understand this. Our first night in a besieged city and our first question is – did you not also have hot water in the room?
Hard-boiled eggs and salted cheese slice, fresh bun, strawberry jam, Eat as much as you can. Yossi is delayed. He must have already picked up his espresso and gone outside to smoke a morning cigarette in the fresh air near the protective wall at the back exit of the hotel.
Danny Pixar enters the dining room, keys in one hand and a box of red Marlboro in the other. Sits down at the table, lights a cigarette, exchanges a few words in the local language with the waiter who hurries back with a small, strong espresso. The ceasefire will take effect in three hours. Martin asks to film the stand-up for tonight’s article next to one of the queues for water, fuel or food. Until then, we will go on a tour of the city.
For a backpack, I collected the notebooks I brought, stationery, a camera, a transistor, a headset, a helmet, and a notebook. When the elevators are not working one should think carefully before descending on foot 5 floors, not forgetting anything in the room
The first point this morning will be the Children’s Hospital
Once again, the asphalt is being scorched on Sniper Avenue in a particularly fast ride. Crowded in the car with the vest, and the helmet is heavy but I dare not remove it. Yossi sits in the front and takes pictures. Danny asks him to take down a camera. It’s dangerous, he explains, someone could be wrong and think it’s a rocket launcher and shoot at us.
Martin in the back – also with a camera, but a small camera. Martin photographs Danny in the mirror in the car, Danny tells about life in the city. Home Cinema. It will surely be fascinating to see it in thirty years. I thought then and did not know how much.
At the local hospital sandbags protect the entrance. Three ambulances are parked next to the sign pointing to the emergency room. The hospital has no visitors. This hospital also has no patients. This is the children’s hospital, children injured in the war. Thousands were injured. 1300 were killed during nearly four years of siege of the city.
Yasina accompanies us, a young Bosnian doctor, who worked until the outbreak of the war in the capital Belgrade and returned to the city to serve in the only children’s hospital here.
She takes us up the stairs to the second floor, to the surgical ward. Large rooms, high ceilings. Yasina tells as we walk through the quiet empty corridors where only the echo of her shoes is heard, about the shortage of medicines, the shortage of dressing materials, and the situation in the more remote neighborhoods, where the wounded and sick cannot reach the hospital in the center.
Sandbags protect the entrance at the local hospital. 3 ambulances are parked next to the emergency room sign. The hospital has no visitors. It also has no patients. It is a hospital for children injured in the war. Thousands were wounded. 1300 were killed during nearly 4 years of siege of the city
She tells us about the trauma of the children, about the post-trauma that awaits them when they grow up, if they survive the injuries. We enter one room, empty cots in the far corner of the window. On the other side of the room – one bed, a two-year-old boy, maybe two-and-a-half years old, Amir, he’s been here three months. Came with cleft lip.
His mother brought him and left him at the mercy of the nurses. Had to return to the village outside the besieged city. She left three children there alone, the eldest 11 years old. Her husband joined the forces defending the homeland, Yasina says. And now – Amir who recovered from the surgery wants to go home. Looking for Mom but Mom is not here, so he stays in the hospital for now. Amir is silent and hangs big eyes on the ceiling. Yasina says in a whisper that the child will not hear that if the family does not contact the hospital in the near future – little Amir will be transferred to the municipal orphanage.
To this day I imagine the child, Amir, sitting huddled and gathered by himself, holding a rag doll that may be the only souvenir from home, from the family he had until three months ago. He is sitting in the corner of the small crocheted bed, a baby with a scar on his upper lip, a sign of having undergone surgery.
Where is Amir today? Did his mother find him? Or maybe he even stayed, grew up and grew up in the orphanage? Thirty years, and his gaze, like the gaze of the children we left behind hungry, thirsty and sick in the Somali refugee camps, or those in northern Ethiopia, does not leave, as does the gaze of the girl who stood by the hotel one frozen Christmas morning in Timisoara, all scars to life.
Amir, who recovered from the operation, wants to go home. Looking for mom but mom is not here, so he stays in the hospital for now. Yasina says that if the family does not contact the hospital soon – he will be transferred to the municipal orphanage
Even thirty years later and the smells like the looks are etched in memory forever probably. The foul smells of the hospital, like the smell of boiled milk at breakfast, or the smell of black coffee with ginger at Muhammad’s Mogadishu in our villa. The smell of sewage flowing through the streets of Baidoua, or the sun burning everything alive in the port city of Assab, in southern Somalia in front of a death-yard, on the shores of the Red Sea.
Every such visit in every similar journalistic task, cuts another ring in the tree trunk of all of us who are engaged in the craft.
After two weeks in the besieged city we are on our way to the airport. Danny drives the armored Audi and we pass quickly for the last time on Sniper Alley, the most dangerous street in the world in those days.
Hanani and Martin next to the French plane on the way home (Photo: courtesy of the person photographed)
Just before we cross the last checkpoint at the airport entrance, Martin asks Danny, “When will you get out of here?” And Danny, like Danny, in a half-smile of “I do not really know” says he hopes to be on a plane with the family this coming July. And when Martin asks again where we’ll meet next time, he replies, “Maybe in Palm Springs California.” The essence of the Bosnian dream.
Even 30 years later, the smells, like the looks are etched in memory forever probably. The hospital’s odorous odors, such as the smell of boiled milk at breakfast, or the smell of black coffee with ginger at Muhammad’s in Mogadishu
Whether Danny left Sarajevo in July 1993 with the family as he hoped or not – we will not know. I have not returned to Sniper Avenue. This is the video we took while on our last trip to the airport.