Tell me your story.
I was born in 1993, two years after the conflict broke out in the former Yugoslavia, in the same hospital where I now work. My mother abandoned me there.
What happened to you?
When Gorazde was destroyed by bombing and Serbian troops besieged the city for three and a half years, there was no food or medicine, and despite this, Muharem Muhic, the hospital janitor, took me to his house with his wife and two daughters.
Why did his mother abandon him?
More than 25,000 Muslim-majority women were raped by Serbs. Many had abortions, others killed the child when he was born, gave him up for adoption or abandoned him in the hospital; my mother was one of them.
How did society treat them?
They were despised, as if they had chosen to be raped, and the children who were born and survived were considered children of the enemy. It has only been three years since the Bosnian Government has recognized that we exist.
Does it still hurt to remember it?
I have been incredibly lucky to grow up in a family where there has been a lot of love and trust, but I will always have a black spot on my brain.
It is unfair that their own compatriots do not give comfort to these mothers and their children.
What is even more unfair is that those who committed these crimes walk the same streets as their victims and have happy lives when they forever marked the lives of those women and children.
Did your adoptive father not care that you were the son of a Serbian?
Surviving was difficult when my parents decided to adopt me and the neighborhood turned against them. My father overcame everything with love. They loved me very much.
That has taken you very far.
So he didn’t know that he would be the first child of war rape to say so publicly, nor that he would lead a foundation to help children of war, nor that I would take care of him in his old age just as he has taken care of me. I see my family as heroes.
A place with love in the midst of hate.
A miracle. They are my beloved parents and I am their beloved son without a doubt.
When did you know you were adopted?
When I was 9 years old, in a fight at school, a boy insulted me and told me that I was the son of a fascist Serb, the son of the enemy. I ran home crying. My father sat me on his knee and told me: “I don’t care who you were born to, you are my son.”
Did you get to know your biological mother?
At 22 years old. He located me thanks to the documentary The War Boy, and he told me his sad story.
…
She was repeatedly raped and tortured by a Serbian soldier. Two days after giving birth she left the hospital and walked to Sarajevo covered in a meter of snow, a feat, and she ended up arriving in America.
A difficult encounter?
She has two children who are photocopies of me as a child. It’s hard to look at her, her eyes are full of pain. She is in therapy. I walked away because I realized that she was bringing back memories that were damaging to her.
How do you feel about her?
I am grateful to him for giving me life. I have never judged her, I have put myself in her shoes a thousand times: having me was a difficult and brave choice, perhaps I would have killed that child. When I saw her face to face I immediately understood everything, it was enough to see every tear and furrow of his skin to feel her suffering.
He made his first documentary when he was ten years old.
And the second was 19. A relative of my father’s who makes films insisted that my story had to be told. My parents gave me freedom to decide. We recorded for three years. The associations of victims of sexual violence tell me that if I had not broken the silence it would still reign.
And he became an activist.
I joined the Forgotten Children of War Association, which was born from raped mothers, and I have not stopped creating projects and giving conferences around the world.
Did you know your biological father?
In 2006 there was a trial against various war criminals and my father was one of the defendants. He lived 30 kilometers from my house and one day I knocked on his door, when he opened it I saw myself in 25 years, not only physically, but also in the way he moved, but his gaze was icy.
What happened?
He denied that he had raped my biological mother. I saw in her face that he was a murderer and I left. He should be in jail. Many war criminals not only continue to live with impunity in their homes but have been rehabilitated as officials or members of the police.
