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Good People in an Evil Time: Portraits of Complicity and Resistance in the Bosnian War
584
by Svetlana Broz
Svetlana Broz
Good People in an Evil Time: Portraits of Complicity and Resistance in the Bosnian War
584
by Svetlana Broz
Svetlana Broz
Paperback(2nd ed.)
$35.00
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Overview
In the 1990s Svetlana Broz, granddaughter of former Yugoslav head of state Marshal Tito, volunteered her services as a physician in war-torn Bosnia. She discovered that her patients were not only in need of medical care, but that they urgently had a story to tell, a story suppressed by nationalist politicians and the mainstream media. What Broz heard compelled her to devote herself over the next several years to the collection of firsthand testimonies from the war. These testimonies show that ordinary people can and do resist the murderous ideology of genocide even under the most terrible historical circumstances. We are introduced to Mile Plakalovic, a magnificent humanist, who drove his taxi through the streets of Sarajevo, picking the wounded up off the sidewalk and delivering food and clothing to young and old, even when the bombing was at its worst. We meet Velimir Milosevic, poet, who traveled with an actor and entertained children as they hid in basements to avoid the bombing and gunfire, and we hear the stories of countless others who put themselves in grave danger to help others, regardless of ethnic background.
Faced with a world in which unspeakable crimes not only went unpunished but were rewarded with glory, profit, and power, the Bosnians of all faiths who testify in this book were starkly confronted with the limits and possibilities of their own ethical choices. Here, in their own words they describe how people helped one another across ethnic lines and refused the myths promoted by the engineers of genocide. This book refutes the stereotype of inevitable natural enmities in the Balkans and reveals the responsibility of individual actions and political manipulations for the genocide; it is a searing portrait of the experience of war as well as a provocative study of the possibilities of resistance and solidarity. The testimonies reverberate far beyond the frontiers of the former Yugoslavia. This compelling book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the reality on the ground of the ethnic conflicts of the late twentieth and the twenty-first centuries.
Faced with a world in which unspeakable crimes not only went unpunished but were rewarded with glory, profit, and power, the Bosnians of all faiths who testify in this book were starkly confronted with the limits and possibilities of their own ethical choices. Here, in their own words they describe how people helped one another across ethnic lines and refused the myths promoted by the engineers of genocide. This book refutes the stereotype of inevitable natural enmities in the Balkans and reveals the responsibility of individual actions and political manipulations for the genocide; it is a searing portrait of the experience of war as well as a provocative study of the possibilities of resistance and solidarity. The testimonies reverberate far beyond the frontiers of the former Yugoslavia. This compelling book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the reality on the ground of the ethnic conflicts of the late twentieth and the twenty-first centuries.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781590511961 |
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Publisher: | Other Press, LLC |
Publication date: | 01/17/2005 |
Edition description: | 2nd ed. |
Pages: | 584 |
Sales rank: | 872,057 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.15(d) |
About the Author
Dr. Svetlana Broz
Dr. Svetlana Broz, cardiologist, is currently Director of the NGO Garden of the Righteous in Sarajevo, the President of the Board of The First Children's Embassy in the World and a member of various NGOs, including the Association of Independent Intellectuals CIRCLE 99. She lives in Sarajevo.
Dr. Svetlana Broz, cardiologist, is currently Director of the NGO Garden of the Righteous in Sarajevo, the President of the Board of The First Children's Embassy in the World and a member of various NGOs, including the Association of Independent Intellectuals CIRCLE 99. She lives in Sarajevo.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments | xiii | |
Introduction: Why Read This Book? | xv | |
Chronology of the Conflict | xlv | |
Preface | lix | |
Translator's Note | lxiii | |
Pronunciation Key | lxv | |
The Testimonies | ||
Can You Count on Your Neighbors? | 3 | |
Friends and Strangers | 11 | |
Captain Mica | 16 | |
If Your Own Won't Take You, I Will | 23 | |
Out of the Hell of Mostar | 35 | |
A Longing to Paint | 38 | |
Death in Another Man's Grave | 41 | |
Neighbor, Come Back! | 44 | |
A Clean Street | 46 | |
Little Moscow | 49 | |
A Hospitable Home | 59 | |
Big Shepherds with a Lot of Sheep | 63 | |
Uncle Marko | 78 | |
Sarajevo Together | 85 | |
A Sarajevo Mosaic | 93 | |
Whatever Happens to You Will Happen to Me | 97 | |
Safe in a Muslim's Apartment | 101 | |
These Are the Balkans | 104 | |
The First Packages | 111 | |
We Staged Our Own Kidnapping | 114 | |
An Old Hand at the Underground | 119 | |
Set Your Mind at Ease | 123 | |
A Balkan Spy | 129 | |
Save the Child | 136 | |
Shelter in a Shop | 138 | |
The Fragrance of Lilies | 140 | |
Sane Children | 144 | |
As Long as I'm Here, Don't Worry | 148 | |
Divide Everything in This Package in Halves | 153 | |
These Are Just Kids | 156 | |
A Flash of Light That Is Shining Still | 161 | |
One Good Turn Deserves Another | 166 | |
Rape in Grbavica | 176 | |
Take with You the People Who Are Yours | 180 | |
Tears in the Eyes of a Giant | 188 | |
Tuzla, Above the Hatred | 191 | |
Please, Mama, Don't Let Them Take Me | 194 | |
Brandy for a Grandson's Wedding | 206 | |
A Gift from Good People | 209 | |
Forgive My People for What They Do | 212 | |
Farewell to Mother | 219 | |
It Took Courage to Go Home | 223 | |
You Reap What You Sow | 229 | |
A Humanitarian Aid Wedding | 236 | |
Banja Luka, A Tormented Town | 239 | |
The Wallet | 243 | |
Tricked into Surrendering | 246 | |
Who Is After Us and Where Are They Taking Us? | 249 | |
Coffee, Behind Bars | 255 | |
A Soldier Wept | 261 | |
Trust Earned | 268 | |
A Passport | 274 | |
Through a Mine Field to My Love | 282 | |
A Cup of Coffee at Mustafa's | 286 | |
And Seven Days Later | 291 | |
A Life with Dignity | 300 | |
There Would Never Have Been a War | 304 | |
Hang Me, Let Him Go | 310 | |
Enjoy Your Trip, Ma'am! | 312 | |
Your Typical Jewish Name | 314 | |
Those Barbarians Took a Part of Us | 321 | |
Help for a Wounded "Chetnik" | 332 | |
You're No Better Off than Me | 334 | |
I'll Do It | 336 | |
Like a Sister to Me | 342 | |
If Everyone Else Can Wait, So Can I | 344 | |
Three Potatoes | 351 | |
We Won't Fight Without Him | 354 | |
The Ninth Brother | 357 | |
I'm Going with You | 359 | |
Out of Nowhere, a Feast | 368 | |
I Mean to See an End to This Evil | 371 | |
A Man and the Writing on the Wall | 377 | |
A Promise Kept | 382 | |
A School Friend | 385 | |
The Tunnel | 390 | |
A Last Name Saves the Day | 395 | |
Living Side by Side in Tuzla | 399 | |
The Man with a Hat on His Chest | 403 | |
I Will Not Leave My Town | 406 | |
The Most Loyal Comrade-in-Arms | 411 | |
You Are a Disgrace to Sarajevo! | 416 | |
The Hodja's Hundred German Marks | 423 | |
Colonel Risojevic's Protection | 428 | |
Touched by Human Kindness | 433 | |
I Love You, Grandma, More than Anyone, Anywhere | 441 | |
That's Not the Way I Think | 451 | |
Kill Them and Kill Me, Too | 458 | |
Fadil | 466 | |
When Death Stalked the Streets | 470 | |
Afterword | 474 | |
Appendix I | Bosnia-Herzegovina: History, Culture, Ethnicities | 481 |
Appendix II | Glossary | 491 |
Appendix III | Recommended Readings and Films | 513 |
Editor's Acknowledgments | 515 |
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