by Elie Wiesel
But Bosnia is far from our concerns, too far for most people to pause over its fate. Go there? How? On whose behalf and to do what? So there is Bosnia, abandoned, betrayed, removed from our preoccupations. Later, in August 1995, Croat Serbia shares the same fate.
And time is passing.
I feel guilty that since 1988 we have not been able to overcome the financial difficulties and create an association of Nobel laureates. It could have intervened in Bosnia, sounded the alarm, saved some children, helped their mothers. We could have given the victims human and moral support and testified on their behalf.
And time is passing.
My personal involvement dates from July 1992, when I receive a call from Israel Singer and Elan Steinberg, directors of the World Jewish Congress. They show me a letter from Dobrica Cosic, president of the Federal Yugoslav Republic. Evidently he had written to Boutros Boutros-Ghali, secretary-general of the U.N., asking him to appoint me to head an international commission to investigate the situation in prison camps for Bosnians in Serbia.
The world media are talking about these camps. The televised images arouse indignation everywhere. Systematic humiliations, rapes, arbitrary arrests, deportations, summary executions—all are part of a policy of “ethnic cleansing.” Everybody is accusing the Serbs. Some people do not hesitate to use the words “concentration camps,” “genocide,” and even … “Auschwitz.” I do not. I have never wavered in my affirmation that Auschwitz is unique and will remain so.
What could be achieved there by a single individual, one who has no power and represents no one but himself? Nonetheless, does one have the right to remain neutral, to stay on the sidelines, to keep silent?
After several conversations with State Department and U.N. officials (Boutros-Ghali claims not to have received the Yugoslav president’s letter), Singer, Steinberg, and I decide to fly to London to meet President Cosic and other leaders of the former Yugoslavia, who are there to take part in an international conference. They are Slobodan Milosevic (Serbia), Radovan Karadjic (Serbian Bosnia), Alija Izetbegovic (Bosnia), and Franjo Tudjman (Croatia), the last an author of an anti-Semitic work denying the Holocaust. For obvious reasons I do not wish to meet Tudjman; he will be excluded from the list.
The four leaders insist that we travel to their countries. We demand guarantees and total freedom of movement and action. We must be able to go anywhere and meet anyone at any time. And what about the camps? Cosic, Milosevic, and Karadjic protest vehemently. They all blame the media. So then, there were no atrocities, no rapes? Oh well, here and there a few unfortunate incidents, that’s all. As we don’t bother to hide our skepticism, Cosic summons Karadjic and appeals to him in our presence to shut down all the camps on his territory in “our honor.” Karadjic commits to do this. In writing. I have his signed letter. Why not announce it officially at the conference? Fine, they’ll do it.
Of them all, Cosic seems to me the most open, the most understanding, the most human. A seventy-three-year-old novelist, he impresses me favorably. As usual, am I too gullible? I tell myself that if the reports of Serbian atrocities are true, he may not be to blame. The crimes may be perpetrated behind his back.
His opponents send me pamphlets and articles to prove his share of responsibility for the “ethnic cleansing.” His friends provide me with the same kind of documents on Alija Izetbegovic and his project for a Greater Islamic Republic in former Yugoslavia. The people in charge of propaganda of every kind are not sitting on their hands.
Meanwhile the violence continues to rage in the Balkans. And what about Cosic’s promise and Karadjic’s commitment? Null and void, as they say. In November, Ted Koppel of ABC’s Nightline devotes two programs to the Balkans. David Marash’s report is gripping, full of harrowing images, heartrending testimonies. Invited by Koppel to comment on them, I speak of the horror the images arouse and the feelings of helplessness I experience. I plead for a summit meeting in Sarajevo.
That is when I decide to go there.
My principal fear is that of being manipulated by one side or another. I must at all costs avoid being turned into a propaganda instrument. Cosic conveys his assurances in that regard. I refuse all dinners, cocktail parties, receptions. I am not coming to savor the undoubtedly delicious specialties of Yugoslav cuisine, but to see the prisoners, speak to the victims. Belgrade agrees to my terms. Am I right to trust Cosic? For all practical purposes, he is my host. He is the one who sends four airplanes to Geneva to take me and my delegation to Belgrade. The group includes a number of our foundation members as well as several journalists: Abe Rosenthal, Marc Kravetz, David Marash, and others. (An Italian journalist has joined us. His pro-Serb sympathies render him suspect to certain correspondents based in Belgrade, where, I was told later, he falsely claimed to be my representative.)
Immediately upon landing I make clear to the local press that no one will take advantage of this visit. We have come with the sole object of uncovering the facts and making them known. At the president’s palace there is another press conference with Cosic. I repeat our demand that our visit not be used for propaganda purposes. Cosic says: “All we want is for you to know the truth.”
He takes me by the arm, and I think he is going to accompany me to the door. Wrong. He leads me to a sumptuous dining room where a huge banquet has been laid out. I find it difficult to restrain my frustration and anger. From the very beginning, I had asked specifically that the program not include any lunches, dinners, receptions, or cocktail parties without which, evidently, diplomatic life would founder. But I am not a diplomat. I sit down across from the president and ask for the floor, not to propose a toast but to make a short statement: “I am a Jew, and this is Friday evening; my place is not here but in the synagogue….” I stand up, shake a few hands, and leave, followed by the whole delegation.
The synagogue, destroyed during the Occupation and recently restored, has few members. Many have left for Israel; the community is disintegrating. The Chief Rabbi, a frail and sad old man, officiates in a low voice. He reminds me of the frightened rabbi I met in Moscow in the sixties.
I share a pleasant Shabbat dinner with the congregation. There are prayers, speeches, small talk. And what about the war? People mention it, of course, but in abstract terms. A well-spoken woman, fortyish, says: “You must help us.” Who are “us”? The Jews? “No, us the Serbs; we are reviled, slandered, presented as monsters.” A Jew in Sarajevo tells us: “You should help us.” “Us,” who? The Jews? No. “The Bosnians; we are the martyrs of this era. We are persecuted, we are massacred, and the world refuses to intervene.”
The next day at the U.S. Embassy, the articles that have appeared in the local press are translated for me. I had expected the press to be biased but not so downright mendacious. I am scandalized by the crass manner in which it presents our visit’s main motivation as assisting Federal Yugoslavia, that is, Serbia, in the task of improving its international image. I protest publicly several times.
That’s not all. In spite of our agreement, our program includes a luncheon with the mayor, another with some minister, a reception somewhere else. How can I cancel them all without creating an incident? But I do cancel them; never mind the susceptibilities of the high officials in charge of public affairs.
There is another, more serious source of friction: I am told how complicated, difficult, and dangerous it would be to go to Sarajevo and visit the prison camps. We are told again and again that we shall have to obtain all sorts of flight authorizations from the U.N.—a matter of air corridors, security measures. I call General Philippe Morillon in Sarajevo, General Nambier in Zagreb. Hours go by; the tension mounts. We are taken to a local museum showing the atrocities perpetrated by the Croats during the World War II Occupation and very recent ones committed by the Muslims. Our guide shows us a picture of the corpse of a man clubbed to death; a woman in black on my left bursts into tears: his widow. In another photo we see a man stabbed to death; his orphans, behind me, are sobbing. And then
there are children, murdered children. The innocence of their death is thrown into our faces as though to mark the death of our own innocence. We are shattered. Perhaps it is meant to condition us, to “explain” to us the reason for certain “excesses” on the Serbian side. To “explain” hate is too easy. By explaining you risk justifying.
Will we finally obtain permission to visit the camps?
There is an atmosphere of duplicity, of delaying tactics. Serbian officials are deliberately dragging their feet. They obviously wish to prevent us from going where we might uncover unpleasant truths. But what about Cosic’s promise granting us total freedom of movement? We send a message to the officials that if we do not take off in the next hour we shall head home. At once all obstacles are removed. Two hours later, we are en route to Banja Luka. Cosic has promised us that he will close the camp we are about to visit.
The notorious Manjaca camp is plunged in darkness. At five in the afternoon, against a background of whitish snow, night has already fallen over the barracks, where three thousand prisoners are locked up. Only the infirmary is lighted.
We see six hundred prone shadows. The camp commander, Bozidar Popovic, bellows orders to make them move. His flashlight lights up their faces. I choose fifteen at random. They follow me to the infirmary. I ask to talk to them alone, far from the eyes and ears of their guards. Earlier I had insisted on a solemn pledge from the commander that there would be no reprisals, even if they complain, even if they say things he won’t like. He gives me his word. The foreign correspondents based in Belgrade tell me this Popovic is a real professional; authoritarian, strict when it comes to discipline, he yells and hollers, but he is not mean. Why is he so forthcoming, so respectful of me? The explanation turns up by accident in the course of our conversation: He has mistaken me for Simon Wiesenthal, whom he admires.
The prisoners tell us that the food is not too bad, the conditions in general bearable. Yes, they suffer from the cold—temperatures can reach 35° Celsius below zero—and from being confined, but on the whole their situation is better than at the beginning. What are their main complaints? To be out of touch with their relatives, their people. To be cut off from the outside world. To live on the sidelines, to feel superfluous. And then the uncertainty, never knowing what the next day will bring.
There is a young German among them. He is blond and thin and stands very straight. He was taken prisoner by the Serbs. Why? How does this war concern him? “Oh, I didn’t come to fight,” he answers, shrugging his shoulders, “but to write a book.” A book about what? “About the war, of course.” And that’s why the Serbs arrested you? “Well, it’s that … they caught me with a Kalashnikov [rifle] in my hand.” I am bewildered: “And it was with a Kalashnikov that you were going to write a book? Have pens gone out of fashion?”
The faces are lifeless, resigned, drained of their vitality. Looking at them, we feel guilty. We are a different species: free. How can we best help them? How can we express our solidarity? In this place “solidarity” is a word that rings empty.
When we leave, we promise not to forget them. For prisoners, it is crucial to know that people at least think of them.
As a result of our visit the camp is shut down; most of the prisoners are freed. But five hundred of them are not handed over to the International Red Cross. They disappear into a “disciplinary” camp. The worst of it is that the group we had spoken with in the infirmary was punished and transferred to an even tougher, even more rigorous camp, Batkovic.
Disappointment, anger, outrage. All these unkept promises. All the broken commitments. And what about Popovic’s word of honor? The men we came to help and encourage are now worse off than before. What kind of humanitarian missions are these if in the end the victims pay the price?
• • •
Sarajevo is a city that is tragedy incarnate, among the saddest, most desolate, most devastated cities in the world. I am told that it once was one of the most beautiful and most peaceful.
It looks not unlike Dresden in 1945—ruins and debris, gaping, haunted-looking houses. Here and there you see a man, a woman, a child collecting wood from beneath the snow, their faces closed.
General Morillon welcomes us. His is a professorial, ascetic face. This warrior for peace is the pride of France and of the U.N. His behavior in Srebrenica has won him universal admiration.
He tells me about Sarajevo. Life and terror in Sarajevo. Hunger. Death.
How do its inhabitants live in this besieged city? Even far away from “Sniper Alley” there is a risk of being struck by a stray bullet at any moment. And yet whenever there’s a letup people walk heads high, almost normally, even as their eyes check the ground before them. But they seem to be going nowhere. The schools are closed, as are the stores. “The worst,” we are told, “is that life in Sarajevo seems purposeless. You get up, you go out, you come back, you say something, you answer, and it’s all for nothing.”
At the Victor-Bubanj prison, in the high, narrow, lime-covered cells, we are allowed to see twenty inmates. Standing in a line, heads lowered, humbled, humiliated, they are waiting to be interrogated. Name, age, place of birth, profession—they answer without looking up. Behind us the guards and officials comment on their answers. All of them have been arrested legally, they tell us. All will have their day in court. A “criminal arrested for war crimes and genocide” is pointed out. I recognize him: His picture had been published in the New York Times a few weeks earlier. His name is Borislav Herak. He had confessed to having assassinated thirty-five men and having raped thirteen women, all Muslims. His acts are an abomination, but why call them genocide? (He will be condemned to death and executed.)
President Alija Izetbegovic is our guide in this phantom capital, where visitors circulate only in armored cars. At one point he shows us a small square and says: “It was here that Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914; it was to be the first bullet of the First World War.” And to think that a third European if not world war may well start in this region….
Whatever else he may be, Izetbegovic is brave. His bodyguards try to restrain his enthusiasm. He walks with us, his face exposed, with inadequate protection, disdainful of the risks. Surely he knows that we make perfect targets for sharpshooters who may hide anywhere. Abe Rosenthal remarks on this, and we hurry back to our cars and continue our guided tour.
Here is the National Library, or what’s left of it. The walls are riddled with holes from bullets and shells. On many floors you see dark traces of a conflagration; the building must have burned for a very long time.
In the drawing room of the presidential residence, a gaunt man with a dark, tormented face turns to me: “I am a writer. It seems you are going to visit someone who pretends also to be a writer. Ask him why he set fire to the beautiful library of Sarajevo.” I promise.
Sitting opposite Radovan Karadjic, master of Serbian Bosnia, I ask him why he burned the library. His face red with indignation, he starts “demonstrating” to me that the accusation is false, an absolute falsehood. It was the Muslims who set it on fire so as to accuse him. I protest: I saw the library just an hour ago. I saw the walls, the traces of artillery fire. Clearly the building was attacked from the outside. Karadjic tells me I understand nothing of such things.
Is Karadjic guilty? Of course. As is his commander in chief, General Ratko Mladic. Does this mean that his opponents, the Bosnians and the Croats, are innocent? In this war the first victim is not only truth but innocence as well. Here no one is innocent. Only some are guiltier than others.
And yet. For at least five centuries Sarajevo was an example of urban coexistence. There was cooperation among its Jews, Christians, and Muslims, a harmony marred by not a single racial, ethnic, or religious incident. What provoked the abrupt change?
Before leaving Belgrade, I visit Cosic as agreed. We spend a few hours together. I summarize what I have seen. I tell him of my negative impressions. I try to convince him to end the policy of terror against the
Bosnians. He tries to convince me to accept the principle of ethnic separation: “As a Jew you must understand that certain communities cannot live together. Sooner or later, this will happen in Israel, too.” So what his opponents say about him is true: He is indeed for the expulsion of the Muslims, by whatever means. I try to explain to him that he is wrong about the Jews, that we have coexisted with so many peoples for so many centuries. He counters all my arguments with his own, insisting on the fact that the time has come for us to be realists. Finally I slip him this piece of advice: On the day marking the New Year, when he undoubtedly will address the nation, why not use the opportunity to order the Serbian army to close all the camps? “I would be disobeyed,” he answers. I say: “But at least you will have earned a few lines in the history books. And I don’t think you would be taking much of a chance. No one will dare attack you. You will be the hero of the day. You will be applauded by the whole world. You will have the support of all free men.” He promises me to think it over. He lacked the courage and probably the conviction, for in his speech he said nothing. And anyway, his opponents replaced him. His enemy Milosevic took his place.
The war goes on in that part of the Balkans. The Serbian conquerors of the early days have been conquered in turn. The gods of war turned away and favored the other side. The Croats have gone on the offensive, and the Serbs themselves have become victims. The U.N. can do little. The power of death is supreme.
What I feel is total frustration and helplessness.
Day after day men keep killing each other; night after night men fall. And everywhere it is the children who lose hope. This is how it is, always. Adults make war, and children suffer. What can one do? Intervene? How? With arms? Make war on war? The debate divides America. A few months after my visit to Sarajevo, I am in Washington for the inauguration of the Holocaust Museum. I interrupt my speech, turn to President Clinton, and urge him to do something—anything—to stop the bloodshed over there. He is moved; he tells me so. Because my appeal corresponds to a sense of expectation in the country, it is taken up by the newspapers, quoted on radio, on television. I did not say that I favored a military intervention, but that is how my statement is interpreted. Charles Krauthammer, the Time editorialist, reproaches me for it. A Jew, he says, should not get involved in the Balkan war. According to him, I should not have launched my appeal from the “sacred place” that is the Holocaust Museum. I don’t agree, Mr. Krauthammer. First of all, no museum is sacred. Secondly, when men are dying, when innocent people are subjected to rape and torture, when cities are being transformed into cemeteries, Jews do not have the right to be silent.