In late 1991, Zlata Filipovic, 10, a Bosnian girl of mixed ethnic heritage, started a diary of her life in Sarajevo. It soon became a chronicle of horrors. Over the next two years, as the city came under intensifying Serb attack, Zlata grew from a girlish innocent into a precociously wise young teenager. She compared herself to Anne Frank, the Dutch Jewish girl who was killed by the Nazis and left behind a poignant account of her life in hiding. Last summer a peace group in Sarajevo published Zlata’s diary. A French publisher brought out a European edition and arranged for the family’s evacuation from Sarajevo. Now 13, Zlata lives with her parents in Paris. The U.S. edition of her diary is published this week. Exclusive excerpts:
OH GOD! THINGS ARE HEATING UP IN SARAJEVO. ON SUNDAY A small group of armed civilians (as they say on TV) killed a Serbian wedding guest and wounded the priest. On March 2 (Monday) the whole city was full of barricades. There were “1,000” barricades. We didn’t even have bread. At 6:00 people got fed up and went out into the streets. The procession set out from the cathedral and made its way through the entire city. Several people were wounded at the Marshal Tito army barracks. People sang and cried “Bosnia, Bosnia,” “Sarajevo, Sarajevo,” “We’ll live together” and “Come Outside.”
HEY DIARY! YOU KNOW WHAT I THINK? SINCE ANNE Frank called her diary Kitty, maybe I could give you a name too. What about:
ASFALTINA, PIDZAMETA, SEFIKA, HIKMETA, SEVALA, MIMMY or something else???
I’m thinking, thinking . . . I’ve decided. I’m going to call you MIMMY.
All right, then, let’s start.
Dear Mimmy,
It’s almost half-term. We’re all studying for our tests. Tomorrow we’re supposed to go to a classical music concert at the Skenderija Hall. Our teacher says we shouldn’t go because there will be 10,000 people, pardon me, children, there, and somebody might take us as hostages or plant a bomb in the concert hall. Mommy says I shouldn’t go. So I won’t.
I’M TRYING TO CONCENTRATE SO I CAN DO MY HOMEWORK (reading), but I simply can’t. Something is going on in town. You can hear gunfire from the hills. Columns of people are spreading out from Dobrinja. They’re trying to stop something, but they themselves don’t know what. You can simply feel that something is coming, something very bad. On TV I see people in front of the parliament building. The radio keeps playing the same song: “Sarajevo, My Love.” That’s all very nice, but my stomach is still in knots.
SNIFFLE! MARTINA, SNIFFLE, AND MATEA, SNIFFLE, left YESTERDAAAY! They left by bus for Krsko [a town in Slovenia]. Oga has gone too, so has Dejan. Mirna will be leaving tomorrow or the next day, and soon Marijana will be going too.
SNIFFLE!
Everybody has gone. I’m left with no friends.
TODAY WAS TRULY, ABSOLUTELY THE WORST DAY ever in Sarajevo. The shooting started around noon. Mommy and I moved into the hall. Daddy was in his office, under our apartment, at the time. We told him on the intercom to run quickly to the downstairs lobby where we’d meet him. We brought Cicko [the canary] with us. The gunfire was getting worse, and we couldn’t get over the wall to the Bobars’, so we ran down to our own cellar.
The cellar is ugly, dark, smelly. Mommy, who’s terrified of mice, had two fears to cope with. The three of us were in the same corner as the other day. We listened to the pounding shells, the shooting, the thundering noise overhead. We even heard planes. At one moment I realized that this awful cellar was the only place that could save our lives. Suddenly it started to look almost warm and nice. It was the only way we could defend ourselves against all this terrible shooting. We heard glass shattering in our street. Horrible. I put my fingers in my ears to block out the terrible sounds.
I WAS ALMOST POSITIVE THE WAR WOULD STOP, BUT today . . . Today a shell fell on the park in front of my house, the park where I used to play and sit with my girlfriends. A lot of people were hurt. AND NINA IS DEAD. A piece of shrapnel lodged in her brain and she died. She was such a sweet, nice little girl. We went to kindergarten together, and we used to play together in the park. Is it possible I’ll never see Nina again? Nina, an innocent 11-year-old little girl the victim of a stupid war. I feel sad. I cry and wonder why? She didn’t do anything. A disgusting war has destroyed a young child’s life. Nina, I’ll always remember you as a wonderful little girl.
SLAUGHTER! MASSACRE! HORROR! CRIME! BLOOD! SCREAMS! TEARS! DESPAIR! That’s what Vaso Miskin Street looks like today. Two shells exploded in the street and one in the market. Mommy was nearby at the time. She ran to Grandma and Granddad’s. Daddy and I were beside ourselves because she hadn’t come home. I saw some of it on TV but I still can’t believe what I actually saw. It’s unbelievable. I’ve got a lump in my throat and a knot in my tummy. HORRIBLE. They’re taking the wounded to the hospital. it’s a madhouse. We kept going to the window hoping to see Mommy, but she wasn’t back. Daddy and I were tearing our hair out.
I looked out the window one more time and . . . I SAW MOMMY RUNNING ACROSS THE BRIDGE. As she came into the house she started shaking and crying. Through her tears she told us how she had seen dismembered bodies.
A HORRIBLE DAY. UNFORGETTABLE.
HORRIBLE! HORRIBLE!
THERE’S BEEN NO ELECTRICITY FOR QUITE SOME TIME and we keep thinking about the food in the freezer. There’s not much left as it is. It would be a pity for all of it to go bad. There’s meat, and vegetables and fruit. How can we save it?
Daddy found an old wood-burning stove in the attic. It’s so old it looks funny. In the cellar we found some wood, put the stove outside in the yard, lit it and are trying to save the food from the refrigerator. We cooked everything, and joining forces with the Bobars, enjoyed ourselves. There was veal and chicken, squid, cherry strudel, meat and potato pies. All sorts of things. It’s a pity, though, that we had to eat everything so quickly. We even overate.
I KEEP ASKING WHY? WHAT FOR? WHO’S TO BLAME? I ask but there’s no answer. All I know is that we are living in misery. Yes, I know, politics is to blame for it all. I said I wasn’t interested in politics, but in order to find out the answer I have to know something about it. They tell me only a few things. I’ll probably find out and understand much more one day. Mommy and Daddy don’t discuss politics with me. They probably think I’m too young or maybe they themselves don’t know anything. They just keep telling me: This will pass – “it has to pass”????????
BOREDOM!!! SHOOTING!!! SHELLING!!! PEOPLE BEING KILLED!! DESPAIR!!! HUNGER!!! MISERY!! FEAR!!
That’s my life! The life of an innocent 11-year-old schoolgirl!! A schoolgirl without a school, without the fun and excitement of school. A child without games, without friends, without the sun, without birds, without nature, without fruit, without chocolate or sweets, with just a little powdered milk. In short, a child without a childhood.
WE GAVE OURSELVES A TREAT TODAY. WE PICKED THE CHERRIES off the tree in the yard and ate them all up. We had watched it blossom and its small green fruits slowly turn red and now here we were eating them. Oh, you’re a wonderful cherry tree!
SHELLING, KILLING, DARKNESS, AND HUNGER CONTINUE IN Sarajevo. Sad! I still don’t go out. I play with Bojana and with my kitty Cici. Cici has brightened up this misery of a life. How you can come to love an animal! She doesn’t talk, but she speaks with her eyes, her paws, her meows, and I understand her. I really love you, Cici.
AS YOU KNOW, I CONFIDE IN YOU EVERY DAY (ALMOST). Well, you know the summer school in our community center? We had a wonderful time together there, did some acting, some reciting, and best of all, some writing too. It was all so nice, until that horrible shell killed our friend Eldin.
Maja is still working with our teacher Irena Vidovic. And the other day, Maja asks me: “Do you keep a diary, Fipa?”
I say: “Yes.”
And Maja says: “Is it full of your own secrets, or is it about the war?”
And I say: “Now, it’s about the war.”
And she says: “Fipa, you’re terrific.”
She said that because they want to publish a child’s diary and it just might be mine. which means – YOU, MIMMY. And so I copied part of you into another notebook and you went to the City Assembly to be looked at. And I’ve just heard that you’re going to be published! You’re coming out for the UNICEF Week! SUPER!
I KEEP WANTING TO EXPLAIN THESE STUPID POLITICS to myself, because it seems to me that politics caused this war, making it our everyday reality. War has crossed out the day and replaced it with horror, and now horrors are unfolding instead of days. it looks to me as though these politics mean Serbs, Croats and Muslims. But they are all people. They are all the same. They all look like people, there’s no difference. They all have arms, legs and heads, they walk and talk, but now there’s “something” that wants to make them different.
Among my girlfriends, among our friends, in our family, there are Serbs and Croats and Muslims. It’s a mixed group and I never knew who was a Serb, a Croat or a Muslim. Now politics has started meddling around. It has put an “S” on Serbs, an “M” on Muslims and a “C” on Croats, it wants to separate them. And to do so it has chosen the worst, blackest pencil of all – the pencil of war which spells only misery and death.
Why is politics making us unhappy, separating us, ourselves know who is good and who isn’t? We mix with the good, not with the bad. And among the good there are Serbs and Croats and Muslims, just as there are among the bad. I simply don’t understand it. Of course, I’m “young,” and politics are conducted by “grown-ups.” But I think we “young” would do it better. We certainly wouldn’t have chosen war.
A bit of philosophizing on my part, but I was alone and felt I could write this to you, Mimmy. You understand me. Fortunately, I’ve got you to talk to.
TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY. MY FIRST WARTIME BIRTHDAY, 12 years old. Congratulations. Happy Birthday to me!
The day started off with kisses and congratulations. First Mommy and Daddy, then everyone else. Mommy and Daddy gave me three Chinese vanity cases – with flowers on them!
As usual there was no electricity. Auntie Melica came with her family (Kenan, Naida, Nihad) and gave me a book. The whole neighborhood got together in the evening. I got chocolate, vitamins, a heart-shaped soap (small, orange), a key chain with a picture of my playmates Maja and Bojana, a pendant made of a stone from Cyprus, a ring (silver) and earrings (bingo!,).
It was nice, but something was missing.
It’s called peace!
MORE TERRIBLE, SAD NEWS TODAY. OUR DEAR, BELOVED [canary] Cicko has died. He just toppled over and that was it. He wasn’t sick. It happened suddenly.
He was singing. Now he’s not cold anymore. The poor thing got through the winter, we found him food. And he left it all. Maybe he had had enough of this war. Daddy buried him in the yard. His cage is empty. No more Cicko.
YESTERDAY I WAS A DISASTER: TODAY I’M SUPPOSEDLY BETTER. LET me tell you that breakfast, lunch and dinner were all uncooked because the gas went off yesterday. And as you know, we have no electricity either, so we’re all on the verge of suicide. DISASTER! Oh, Mimmy, I can’t take it anymore. I’m so tired of all these Sssss! I’m sorry I’m swearing but I really can’t take it anymore. There’s a growing possibility of my killing myself, if all these morons up there and down here don’t kill me first. I’m losing it.
BOOK PROMOTION DAY.
Since I didn’t take you with me (just a part of you was there) I have to tell you what it was like.
It was wonderful. The presenter was a girl who looked unbelievably like Linda Evangelista. She read parts of you, Mimmy, and was even accompanied on the piano. Auntie Irena was there. Warm and kind, as always, with warm words for children and adults alike.
At the end I read my message. This is what I said:
“Suddenly, unexpectedly, someone is using the ugly powers of war, which horrify me, to try to pull and drag me away from the shores of peace, from the happiness of wonderful friendships, playing and love. I feel like a swimmer who was made to enter the cold water, against her will. I feel shocked, sad, unhappy and frightened and I wonder where they are forcing me to go. I wonder why they have taken away [the] peaceful and lovely shores of my childhood. I used to rejoice at each new day, because each was beautiful in its own way. I used to rejoice at the sun, at playing, at songs. In short, I enjoyed my childhood. I had no need of a better one. I have less and less strength to keep swimming in these cold waters. So take me back to the shores of my childhood, where I was warm, happy and content, like all the children whose childhood and the right to enjoy it are now being destroyed.
“The only thing I want to say to everyone is: PEACE!”
EVER SINCE JULY 17, VARIOUS PEOPLE HAVE BEEN coming around – journalists, reporters, cameramen. From Spain, France, the U.S. . . . England . . . and yesterday a crew came from ABC News. They filmed me for American TV as the “person of the week.” Hey, imagine, me a personality?
Can that outside world see the darkness I see? just as I can’t see myself on TV tonight, so the rest of the world probably can’t see the darkness I’m looking at. We’re at two ends of the world. Our lives are so different. Theirs is bright light. Ours is darkness.
SOME PEOPLE COMPARE ME WITH ANNE FRANK. THAT frightens me, Mimmy. I don’t want to suffer her fate.
YESTERDAY I HEARD SOME OPTIMISTIC NEWS. THE “KIDS” [politicians] have signed an agreement in Geneva on the demilitarization of Sarajevo. What can I say? That I hope, that I believe it???? I don’t know how I could. Whenever I believed and hoped for something it didn’t happen, and whenever I didn’t believe or expect anything it did happen.
YESTERDAY OUR FRIENDS IN THE HILLS REMINDED US OF THEIR presence and that they are now in control and can kill, wound, destroy . . . yesterday was a truly horrible day.
Five hundred and ninety shells. From 4:30 in the morning on, throughout the day. Six dead and 56 wounded. That is yesterday’s toll. Souk-bunar fared the worst. I don’t know how Melica is. They say that half the houses up there are gone.
We went down into the cellar. Into the cold, dark, stupid cellar which I hate. We were there for hours and hours. They kept pounding away. All the neighbors were with us.
Sometimes I think it would be better if they kept shooting, so that we wouldn’t find it so hard when it starts up again. This way, just as you relax, it starts up AGAIN. I am convinced now that it will never end. Because some people don’t want it to, some evil people who hate children and ordinary folk. We haven’t done anything. We’re innocent. But helpless!
Zlata
