We just wanted peace!

War is easy. Easy to do, talk about, discuss. Not at all easy to live it. Today like yesterday. Jasminko Halilovic was a child in Sarajevo in the 1990s. A martyr city, victim of the longest siege since the Second World War. Four years, from 1992 to 1996, without water, electricity, gas, under sniper fire. Jasminko witnessed killings, injuries and atrocious violence. Like him, 70 thousand children prisoners in the surrounded city. «Even today in Sarajevo time is measured like this: before, during and after the war. My before the war is in my memories – he writes – my during is inside me." The aftermath is in a luminous testimony that gives substance to the truth that comes out of the mouths of the little ones. The idea of asking those who had lived the same experience to answer a question: "How was your childhood in the war?".
Responses arrived in the thousands, collected today in the book Childhood at War, the legacy of a wounded generation that even today does not stop talking.

- I remember the fiery sky when I tried to look at the stars through the window in the dark (Minela, 1989).
- Adolescence and first love in the cruelest place… (Jasminka, 1977).
- Bran for breakfast, lunch and dinner (Miran, 1989).
- I started to grow, everything stopped. I have lost everything… (Kenan, 1979).
- Childhood at war is when you have a crush on your schoolmate and she is killed by a grenade (Jasenko, 1977).
- I hear screaming, shouting, crying, tension, fear. My mother holds me close and I feel protected and loved (Elma, 1989).
-Waiting for grandfather to return from the market, but he has not returned yet (Zlata, 1984).
- The emptiness that remains when dad leaves (Svjetlana, 1992).
- The reflection of the morning sun in the glass-covered streets (Damir, 1987).
- Frozen hands and feet while waiting in line to get water (Denita, 1977).
- Eating an onion pretending it's an apple because you haven't eaten one in months (Amina, 1985).
- I dreamed of meat and chocolate (Nedim, 1978).
- Blood dripping from my father's head onto the shiny white stove (Mirnesa, 1984).
- Forty square meters of cellar and 17 people (Edin, 1987).
- I saw my dead friends loaded onto a truck, while the water from the tanks washed away their blood (Amna, 1985).
- I remember the night when dad said: mom is dead. I remember the words: your dad is dead. Damn war! (Mirela, 1981).
- Being forced to grow up (Marina, 1976).
- Sleeping in the bathtub because it was the safest place in the house (Adnan, 1986).
- A blanket cut in two with scissors keeps you warm, but only if it is not cold (Damir, 1989).
- There is no such thing as childhood. You lose it when you learn to recognize the caliber of grenades and rifles (Dalida, 1980).
- Ask: "So the brain is pink?" after seeing a corpse (Irena, 1980).
- The murder of my father (Kasema, 1989).
- The usual question: what will mom eat tomorrow with nothing? (Amira, 1986).
- I remember my Selma. We sat close together at school, even though she had a twin sister. The day she was killed, I grew up (Suncica, 1982).
- There's no more wood, it's up to the books. I finish reading and then throw the book into the fire. It's terrible, but we have to make bread (Iris, 1978).
- The hope that tomorrow would be a better day (Kabir, 1981).
- We just wanted peace (Sabrina, 1988).

Matteo Spicuglia
NP October 2023