Dear Mimmy,
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 B-H parliament building. The radio keeps playing the same song: “Sarajevo, My Love.” That’s all very nice, but my stomach is still in knots and I can’t concentrate on my homework anymore.
Mimmy, I’m afraid of WAR!!!
~Zlata
Monday, April 6, 1992Dear Mimmy,
Yesterday the people in front of the parliament tried peacefully to cross the Vrbanja bridge. But they were shot at. Who? How? Why? A girl, a medical student from Dubrovnik, was KILLED. Her blood spilled onto the bridge. In her final moments all she said was: “Is this Sarajevo?” HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE HORRIBLE!
NO ONE AND NOTHING HERE IS NORMAL!
The Baščaršija has been destroyed! Those “fine gentlemen” from Pale fired on Baščaršija!
Since yesterday people have been inside the B-H parliament. Some of them are standing outside, in front of it. We’ve moved my television set into the living room, so I watch Channel 1 on one TV and “Good Vibrations” on the other. Now they’re shooting from the Holiday Inn, killing people in front of the parliament. And Bokica is there with Vanja and Andrej. Oh, God!
Maybe we’ll go to the cellar. You, Mimmy, will go with me, of course. I’m desperate. The people in front of the parliament are desperate too. Mimmy, war is here. PEACE, NOW!
They say they’re going to attack RTV Sarajevo [radio and TV center]. But they haven’t. They’ve stopped shooting in our neighborhood. KNOCK! KNOCK! (I’m knocking on wood for good luck.)
WHEW! It was tough. Oh, God! They’re shooting again!!!
~Zlata