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 work now. 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, a janitor at the hospital, took me to his house with his wife and the two daughters
Why did his mother abandon him?
More than 25,000 Muslim-majority women were raped by Serbs. Many aborted, others killed the child when it was born, gave it up for adoption or abandoned it in the hospital; my mother was one of these.
How did society treat them?
They were despised, as if they had chosen to be raped, and the children we were born and survived were considered children of the enemy. It has only been three years since the Government of Bosnia recognized that we exist.
Does it still hurt to remember?
I was extremely lucky to grow up in a family where there was a lot of love and trust, but I will always have a black spot in my brain.
It is unfair that their countrymen do not give comfort to those mothers and their children.
What is even more unfair is that those who committed those 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 Serb?
Surviving was difficult when my parents decided to adopt me, and the neighbors were against them. My father overcame everything with love. They loved me very much.
This has brought you very far.
He didn’t know then that he would be the first child of a war rape to say so publicly, or that he would lead a foundation to help children of war, or that I would care for him in his old age as he has cared for me to 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 child without a doubt.
When did you find out you were adopted?
At the age of 9, in a fight at school, a boy insulted me and told me that he was the son of a fascist Serb, the son of the enemy. I ran home crying. My father sat me on his knees and said: “I don’t care who you were born to, you are my son.”
Did he meet his birth mother?
At the age of 22. He located me thanks to the documentary El noi de la guerra, and told me his sad story.
…
She was repeatedly raped and tortured by a Serbian soldier. Two days after giving birth to me, she left the hospital and walked to Sarajevo covered in a meter of snow, a feat, and ended up 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. He does therapy. I moved away from it because I realized that it brought back memories that hurt him.
How do you feel about her?
I am grateful to him for giving me life. I have never judged him, I have put myself in his shoes a thousand times: having me was a difficult and brave choice, I could have killed that child. When I saw her face to face I immediately understood everything, it was enough to see every tear and every furrow of her skin to feel her suffering.
He made his first documentary when he was ten years old.
And the second at 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 be maintained.
And he became an activist.
I joined the Forgotten Children of the War Association that was born from raped mothers, and I have not stopped creating projects and holding conferences around the world.
Did he meet his biological father?
In 2006 there was a trial against several war criminals and my father was one of those prosecuted. He lived 30 km from my house, and one day I knocked on his door; when he opened it, I saw myself 25 years from now, not only physically, but also because of the way he moved, but his gaze was icy.
What happened?
He denied that he had raped my birth mother. I saw in his 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 civil servants or members of the police.
