Book Review: Solving the World's Greatest Forensic Puzzle, Bosnia's Million Bones

While we were in the museum about Srebrenica in Sarajevo, and looking at pictures of warehouses full of coffins, I realized I wanted to read a book I'd seen while I was at the St. Louis Public Library.

Naturally, a lot of what is contained in this book is rather gruesome.

But what happened is gruesome.

Warning: If you don't want to read about it, skip to some of the other posts.

Here are a few quotes from the book:

About the atrocities in Srebrenica

"People in wheelchairs were burned alive in their homes." Pg. 24

There was a long line of men that tried marching from Srebrenica to Tuzla.

The Serbian army tried luring men out of the line and then convincing them to go back to the line and lure other men out. This is what happened to one man:

"When he rejoined his compatriots, they saw what the Serbs had done to him: one of his eyes was gouged out, his ears were cut off, and an (Orthodox) cross was carved into his forehead." Pg. 33

But not all of the soldiers fighting for the Serbs were on board with the idea of mass killing.

"A participant in the killings, Drazen Erdemovic, who confessed to killing at least 70 Bosnian Muslim males, was a member of the 10th Sabotage Detachment of the Bosnian Serb Army. Erdemovic, who was 23 years old in 1995, was a Bosnian Croat who had joined the Bosnian Serb Army. He was an unwilling killer, an involuntary accomplish to mass murder. At first he refused to execute prisoners; he was told either do so or hand his weapon to his colleagues and join the line of men waiting to be shot." Pg. 40

"When some of the soldiers recognized acquaintances from Srebrenica, they beat and humiliated them before killing them. Erdemovic had to persuade his fellow soliders to stop using a belt-fed machine gun for the killings, for while it mortally wounded the prisoners, it did not cause death immediately and prolonged their suffering." Pg. 40

After the Serbs killed over 7,000 people in a few days, they tried to hide what they did by burying the bodies in mass graves. Then further trying to hide the evidence, they dug up the bodies, put them in trucks, and buried them in new graves. You can only imagine what kind of a smell that would bring with it.

"Witnesses living in Bratunac described the "incredible stench" of the lorries passing through the streets in the summer night, and some children reported finding, the morning after, some legs that had fallen off the trucks during the nights as they passed through the town." Pg. 54

"Foreign military and habitation personnel arriving and working in Bosnia were often surprised and appalled, at all stages of the war, at how badly all sides could behave toward each other. They were also astonished at the corrupt and selfish behavior of so many of the local political leaders, something large segments of the population seemed prepared to tolerate." Pg. 62

Thank you, Tito, for the mental preparation to allow the local population to handle government corruption.

I plan to learn about Tito next.

I'm also incredibly curious to understand the mental conditioning that happens to lay the foundation for genocide. When you live in a civilized society, it seems so outlandish that anyone would behave this way, yet all this happened in my life time.

"Somehow, in the developmental apocalypse of post-war Bosnia, there was no mass vengeance, no incidents of Bosnian Muslims, for example, taking large scale revenge on the Serbs." Pg. 62

"In September 1996, the first general elections for the country's tri-ethnic, three-person rotating presidency were held since the war, and 2.5 million votes were cast." Pg. 62\

\

I find the science, and the development of this science amazing. With that said, this would likely be my reaction if I ever had to go experience it myself:

"The pungent smell of decay and death, the body bags, and the hundreds of bodies provide too much for some. At the Tuzla mortuary, a hard-bitten television cameraman who'd seen the worswar just went white, started sweating, and went outside. A journalist walked into the mortuary, took one look and fainted, unconscious before she nearly hit the floor. (Fortunately, an ICMP staffer caught her.) An A-list international film actor, in Bosnian to research a role, almost vomited when a body bag's contents were shown to him." Pg. 192

The process of solving this complex forensic puzzle was not an easy one.

There were limited funds in Bosnia, and they were pioneering the use of DNA samples to identify dead bodies. Rather than using clothing, dental records as the starting point, they used DNA.

I had never thought about this before, but people switched clothes, family members couldn't always remember as perfectly as they though they could what their loved ones were wearing when they died. At one point there was screaming match between two families about who the clothing of a deceased person belonged to. So they learned that DNA was the more reliable starting point.

They obtained DNA samples from living relatives, started organizations of living relatives so they could create lists of missing persons, dug up the bodies which were very decayed, created inventories of the bones, were meticulous about their chain of possession records so what they obtained could later be used for trials. They used skills from multiple sources: forensics, archeology, detective work.

But there were obstacles:

"One of the largest collection operations in America took place in St. Louis, Missouri" Pg. 126

"...at one point bodies had to be stored in the Clinical Centre in Tuzla, where the staff, not surprisingly, horrified by the appalling smell, threatened to go on strike. In due course, somewhere else was found as a storage area for the thousands of body parts being exhumed from the Srebrenica mass graves: the salt mines in Tuzla." Pg. 91

But eventually rats got into the salt mines and started eating the bodies, so they started the world's first "super mortuary," a building large enough to hold the different remains of hundreds of bodies was built in the parking lot of a funeral home in Tuzla." Pg. 92

"So, in the very early days, when funds were tight, instead of an expensive medical-grade machine that would stir the DNA samples as they were going through a process of DNA extraction, the ICMP team adapted a chicken rotisserie bought from a local Bosnian market for $150.00." pg. 130

"Extractor fan technology for laboratories was very expensive but was substantially similar to technology used to extract toxic air from coal mines, again, as used in Tuzla. Their forensic staff proved extremely innovative in fining new and less expensive ways of doing things very well." Pg. 130

Through their meticulous work, they were able to obtain substantial evidence later used to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Of one of the war criminals at his trial at The Hague in May of 2012 (only 4 years ago as of the writing of this blog entry):

"The packed public gallery was full of Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa. As the defendant looked over at them, one of them reportedly extended her middle finger at him. He smirked and drew a finger across his throat in an unmistakable gesture. Repentance was not on Mladic's agenda." Pg. 207

"The appearance of the ICMP's forensic evidence in court in The Hague was not just going to be the last part of the forensic science puzzle it was going to be the convincing proof that methodically and properly deployed scientific technique could judicially triumph. Scientific truth, and by extension justice, could triumph over hearsay, rumor, conspiracy theory, the fallibilities of human evidence - memory, visual recollection - lying, and planned deceit." Pg. 213

This quote is important because truth and accountability are very important.

Serbian propaganda had always denied that any war crimes were committed in Srebrenica, until there was pressure from the EU. 

"Their carrot was hundreds of millions of euros of EU accession funding, and their stick was the economic isolation that would follow if such funding and other development aid to the country were cut off." Pg. 151

As a tangent here, just as the Serbs were able to get the unity of Sarajevo to crack under pressure from external sources, we see here pressure external to Serbia also cracked their unity in protecting their war heros and turning them over.

People and communities have a tendency to create and believe in the truth they want to believe in. Through rigorous science combined with the judicial system, they were able to indict 161 high politicians and  military personnel, with no inductee remaining at large.

This was a tremendous accomplishment.

BIL's Video

Watch his awesome video here

Sarajevo and The Mountains of Bosnia

After we finished with Plitvice

we traveled back to Sarajevo, Bosnia.

This was about a 5 and a half hour drive.

I slept through some of it.

We played our favorite music while we drove.

We stopped at quaint restaurants for their amazing

and incredibly inexpensive food.

And the country side was breathtaking.

The mountainous terrain was steep,

and emerald green, covered with trees.

These pictures do it absolutely no justice,

but at least you have an idea.

That drive was lovely and fun.

Then we got to Sarajevo and stayed with our cousin Wayne.

He is married to my cousin Sue who is currently in Greece helping with refugees.

It is a bummer we didn't get to see her,

but it was great spending time with Wayne.

This house - Wayne and Suzan's - was built after the war, but is situated right on the front lines of where the war was.

If we had taken the photo from the other end of the porch, you would have seen the area where the Serbs occupied the hills during the siege of Sarajevo.

Wayne said their neighbor's house, which you cannot see in this picture,

still had bullet holes on its walls until he finally patched it.

Which brings me to the city.

The siege in Sarajevo was from 1992 to 1996. 

The length of the average american's high school career.

Summer's included.

It has been 20 years since the war. 

But you can still see the bullet holes on the old buildings.

You can also see remains from bombs in the sidewalks.

These are called Sarajevo roses.

This old apartment building is completely covered.

These buildings have been repaired,

but you can still see where all of the bullet holes were.

Those can demonstrate for you.

The main drag in Sarajevo was known as "Sniper Alley"

Here is an old picture, placed on a new picture of the alley during the war.

(I wanted to get our own picture of this, but we weren't able to get it.)

Serbian snipers were paid 500 German marks for every Sarajevan they killed.

They were stationed on the tops of the buildings and shot day and night. (Pg. 191)

In my book about Oslobodjene the author writes:

"People continued to die, but no one bothered any more to hide from the bullets or the mortar shells. If you stayed in the cellar all the time you would die just the same, because you would have no food, water or firewood. And so you were forced to go out."

Pg. 206

In fact, one of his reporters had a wife who refused to leave her house after the siege commenced.

She locked the door behind her husband as he went out to get bread one day.

When he came back, she was laying on the floor dead, with a bullet in her.

Staying home didn't insure safety.

There are cemeteries all over the city.

I didn't take any pictures, but after a while, you start to notice that it is unusual.

13,952 Sarajevans were killed during the war.

Before the war the city had over 500,000 people.

Since the war, there are more than 300,000

But still about 200,000 less.

But just look at this gorgeous city.

Let's move on to some happy thoughts for a wee bit.

The 1984 winter Olympics were held in Sarajevo.

We visited the luge.

For a silly video at the luge, click here.here.

And a lovely view of the city as we drove down from the luge.

We did not, however, visit the place where they used to hold the medals ceremony.

Because it was used during the war for executions.

What a contrast of great human achievement

and human barbarity.

Well, that was a great transition to the start of WWI

It was in Sarajevo that the Arch Duke Ferdinand was killed

along with his pregnant wife.

By this bridge.

With this gun.

By a Serbian nationalist.

(To be fair, these people in the Balkans have had so, so many people rule over them through the years. I can understand why they would be interested in building their sense of nationalism.)

Transitioning back to happy

This is the city hall, a lovely example of Austria-Hungarian architecture.

When they went to build it, there was an old man's house on the property.

Try as they might, the man would not leave.

Finally, after much pressure, he relented,

on the condition that his house be moved brick-by-brick to the other side of the river

and a bag of gold.

That house is now known as the House of Spite.

They serve traditional Bosnian food at this spiteful house now.

A symbol of the stubborn Bosnian.

I like this view with the minaret.

Which brings me to visiting the Gazi Husrev Begs Mosque.

It was built by the chief architect of the Ottoman Empire around 938

I had never been to a Mosque before.

All of the men were washing their feet and engaging in prayer.

There were very few women in sight.

Prayer rugs.

It really is remarkable how many Muslims are in the city. I'm not sure I've ever been in a place before where 20 - 30% (it seemed to me) of the city population was made up of Muslims.

I enjoyed that.

Every medeaval town has a clock tower.

But this one is special

it is the only public clock tower in the world to display lunar time.

Hence making it the clock that is never on time.

But with it being on lunar time, 

it helped track the time for prayers for the Muslim population.

Keeping this clock running as it should took a lot of skill back in the day.

This is the eternal flame. 

A memorial to the soldiers of WWII victims.

This picture of the large can is in honor of the food that was snuck into the city while it was under siege.

A local girl told us it tasted so bad that a cat wouldn't even eat it.

But when your city is under siege...

But, you ask yourself, if a city, surrounded by mountains

is under siege for four years, how do obtain their food?

The answer is via tunnel.

The city built a tunnel to sneak the food and supplies in.

This bullet-pocked house was at one end of the tunnel.

The tunnel was less than two meters high.

And it took two hours to get through.

It was only one meter wide.

And they carried about sixty pounds of supplies whenever they went.

Because they couldn't go very often

And they had to bring enough to last them till the next run.

This secret tunnel was often filled with water.

Us in the part that is left of the Tunnel of Hope

But no matter how bad the food was.

The city survived.

And then we flew out of Sarajevo's tiny international airport.

When we had dinner with Wayne he asked us when we were flying out.

Without hesitation he knew which airline we were flying out with.

That's how small the airport is.

Trip Summary

I went from having no stamps in my virgin passport to having 16 passport stamps from a ten-day trip. 

My travel companions were amazing. I met Curtis last August on our family vacation. He was very nice, but very quiet. I met him again at the wedding, but he asked me all about me, and again, I didn't get to know him. And then we spent Christmas with him, but I didn't get to know him then either. He was at my nephew's baby blessing, but it wasn't until this trip I got to know him. He is very funny, playful, creative, insightful and smart. He drove the entire trip, and he should have a medal of honor just for that. The streets were narrow. Sarajevo is extremely hilly. Our rental car, Cleo, didn't have much power. Most of the time we were all a little short on sleep, but since Curtis was driving - no rest for him. He did a fantastic job and I was happy to get to know and appreciate my brother-in-law.

Andrea came for the first part of the trip. She was off to Ghana to work on a project for her MBA. She is so much fun. Interested in learning. Appreciative of the arts. Intelligent. I think the quality I like most about her is her kindness. I was sad she couldn't spend the whole trip with us.

I met Steve at my sister's wedding. I don't think I got acquainted with him at all, but when he showed up in Germany I recognized him. He functioned as both our trip accountant and navigator. And if you have any comprehension of how bad I am at directions, you will know that his unfailing ability to get us from point A to point B was quite appreciated. He was easy going, smart, and his judgment calls were generally pretty solid. He and Curtis were quite entertaining.

The last trip out of the country I took with Ginette about 10 years ago. This one was my favorite. I was impressed by her planning. She had researched the places we were going. Gotten the maps all set up. Talked to people. And along with the others, was excellent company and thoroughly enjoyable.

I always wonder before I go on a trip how and if this trip will change me. I would think it was a colossal waste to go on a trip and come back unchanged. Pretty pictures and selfies entertain you, but they don't change you. I certainly know more than I did before about the history of the Balkans and I am thirsty to learn more. I think the books, combined with the people we met, the conversations we had combined with seeing the area has expanded my perspective. Concretely, I think I will better relate to the Bosnians in St. Louis. The delivery man will be someone whose context I understand. I hope I will help out with the refugees of Syria more. I think my added perspective could help my immigration cases. I am more firm in my belief of the importance of free media, and also of the importance of not seeing people as "others." I think that is how people get dehumanized and humanity justifies unkindness. I think I will read a few more books about Bosnia. 

And who knows, maybe one day I'll go back.

Book Review: As Long as Sarajevo Exists

"...there are no windows left in my city--all of them have been shattered by explosions..."

Pg. 191

[Brief history of Bosnia in case you needed a refresher - like I did. Yugoslavia was run by a guy named Tito. He was well loved, known as the benevolent dictator. He managed to keep all of the factions in check. But he died in 1980. By the 1990's, the country was fracturing. Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence. Bosnia became its own country, too. Within Bosnia there are Bosniaks (Muslims), Croats (Christians), and Serbians (Serbian Orthodox). These groups co-ruled the country. But Serbia had plans to create a large Serbia which included portions of Bosnia. There were many Serbians living in Bosnia, Croatia, and other parts of the Balkans. Serbia, along with the Serbians in these countries fought to take control of the land to become part of Serbia. Ethnic cleansing of the Muslims in these countries due to wrongs Serbians believed their people had received in the past was part of their program. The Bosnian parlament voted to become a country. Over 60% of the voters voted for it. The Serbians were very upset about it, and laid siege of Sarajevo the day after the vote.]

This book, more than anything else, shaped how I processed this entire trip. I had read about 3/4ths of it on my way into Sarajevo. It gave a lot of history about the war, and it is written by an absolutely incredible writer who lived in Sarajevo through the entire war - and reported on the whole thing. 

I'm not sure you could find a better source for perspective. My post about the media explains a lot of how this book opened my eyes to the greater Balkan issues. Beyond that - here were some quotes I found incredibly moving:

"For here he was, this friend from my youth, praising the "Republic" which was being built on mass murder and enormous human suffering..." 

         

        The truth is, I think it was a good thing that Serbia didn't win in their attempts to make a greater Serbian state for this reason. If this is how they were to start their country, what would have come later? Keep in mind that in Yugoslavia - although Tito was greatly loved - there was still a great deal of corruption, the media was controlled. There were things that everybody knew but no one could talk about. There were good things about the communist era (so Dragon, the man who works at one of the museums we visited said. It was not a bad life for him), but there was also bad.

The question that I kept wondering about though - is what kind of propaganda do you need to be producing to get this kind of viciousness from your soldiers and country? It had to be incredibly moving to prime them for war. This answered my question:

Pg. 163 - "In the year before the war, Kurtovic had participated in the SDS project of opening up mass graves of the victims of Ustasha atrocities in the Second World War. The Serb nationalists would open those graves, excavate the bones of the dead, and then carry those bones in processions through Serb villages in Bosnia organizing mass rallies at which the priests and politicians of the SDS, as well as leaders from Servia and Montenegro, would offer the remains of those who were killed half a centruy ago as evidence of a new conspiracy to exterminate the Serbs. The excavations were thus part of the campaign to prepare the Serves for the war that was to follow; to make them believe that the killing, humiliation and expulsion of their neighbors, Muslims and Croats, even those born long after the Second World War, was essential to the judge and legitimate "defense of threatened Serbhood.""

One of the most moving scenes is where he and one of his reporters head to New York to accept an award. It is winter in Sarajevo. They have no heat, no electricity, no telephones. All of the glass windows in the city have been shot out. Getting to and from work involves dodging sniper bullets. And at their layover in Germany they experience this:

"Thus traveling on our new Bosnia-Herzegovina passports, we boarded the Lufthansa plane for Frankfurt to find ourselves -- two shell-shocked travelers from the dark underworld that Sarajevo had become--transported to a place filled with Christmas trees, light, and festivity. The pre-Christmas atmosphere at the airport was as beautiful as it was unreal. "Do people here have any reason to think about other people's misfortunes?" we wondered, as we shared a drink before getting some sleep to be ready for for the next day's flight across the Atlantic." - Pg. 192

That image was powerful one, I thought.

He got injured at one point and ended up in the hospital. His observations:

"The hospital was one of those places in Sarajevo where you were directly confronted with the tragedy and pain of the war. The doctors were performing true medical miracles. Without electricity even for x-rays, there were times when they were forced to operate by the light of miners' lamps. Often there was no water, making it difficult to have enough food for either the patients or for the staff, and every day the numbers of seriously wounded grew." Pg. 182

Lastly - two more thoughts on the value of the newspaper:

"...Oslobodjenje is a very good paper for all those who do not wish to read only their own opinion. Sometimes it criticizes me, and sometimes I dono't agree with what it says, but that is the way it ought to be in a democracy." President Izetbegovic. Pg. 223

"Dissent at the heart of democracy--this had been the teitmotif of our struggle at Oslobodjenje. In its pages we had tried to practice as we preached, and hoped that those who governed Bosnia would recognize that a society that allowed no space for a multitude of voices would lapse into tyranny." Pg. 234

I bought a copy of the paper even though I don't understand the language at all. I've had a habit of buying a paper in every country I visited anyway. This time just had more of a back story.

And as we were driving to the airport, we randomly saw the building that produces the paper. 

Book Review: After the Fall

Srebrenica Survivors in St. Louis After the Fall

I devoured this book on the way to Vienna. I could not have found a more perfect book. It follows several Bosnian families who became refugees and settled in St. Louis. The pictures of them in St. Louis are at the end of the 1990's. They are sitting on porches of classic St. Louis brick houses.

Their stories are harrowing, not as harrowing as the one from the delivery guy, but awful. The book starts out giving a chronology of the genocide that took place in the town of Srebrenica. I must say that my knowledge beyond the fact that there was a war in Bosnia in the 90's was very limited. I was shocked to find that the U.N. didn't help the matter, they made it so much worse.

First, there was an arms embargo on all of the former Yugoslavia, so when they were attacked by the Serbs, they had no weapaons with which to protect themselves.  (The Serbs - the attackers - had obtained most of the arms from the Yugoslaves People's Army arsenal.) Bosnians had no organized militia. 

The U.N. set up Srebrenica as a protected zone, so Bosnians flocked to that area as their home towns were being invaded. The population swelled. Despite promises, the U.N. provided no help at all to these people. There was little to no air protection. The ground troops did practically nothing. And the unarmed men of Srbrenica were systematically killed by the thousands within a few days. Think about that - thousands in just a few days. The U.N. troops allowed the Serbian army to separate the men from the women and children, put them all on buses and then dropped them off killed them all. Then they buried them all in mass graves to hide what they had done.

After going through the history then the people give their accounts of how they escaped. You find out which family members were never seen again. Did I already mention that this book made me cry?

One thing I found odd is that many of them said that they would go back to Bosnia if they could. That life there was easier. There was much less crime. Children played outside without fear. That in America they have to work all the time and they never got to see their children. In Bosnia they had their own houses, and before the war, they were happy. I could tell that they were very family oriented. As I read this on the airplane, I thought it was odd that they would want to go back. Despite living abroad for 2 years, there is still that part of me that thinks that America has got to be preferable to anywhere else.

That was until we landed in Sarajevo. The still beauty of that city is remarkable. As we drove through the sleepy mountains into the farmlands I could see why they would never want to leave this place. The houses are largely made of some type of cinder block. It is simple, but adequate and so very charming. Many places still use clothes lines. Many places had piles of hay and wood stoves. 

The people are social and friendly. You can tell there is a lot of love and sociability among them. 

On my flight from Munich, Germany to Washington, D.C. I sat next to a Bosnian refugee who was on his way back to St. Louis. He looked to be about my age. He was both handsome and kind. He still has a slight Bosnian accent. He was traveling with his mother and sister who were a row over. 

I asked him the question that had piqued my curiosity - would you ever move back? No, he said. His life is in America; he has spent more than 20 years of his life in the U.S. I asked him what nationality he is? Bosniak, he said. Muslim? I inquired. Yes, he is.

While in Sarajevo we visited a museum specifically about the genocide in Srebrenica. I had read it in the book, but still, to see the pictures of warehouses full of systematic piles of skulls, bones, and clothing remains was just incredibly sobering. To think about how hard it must be to locate the mass graves and piece together lives so their families can have proper burials. They had pictures of warehouses full of coffins ready to be interred. To think through and let it really sink in that these atrocities happened during my lifetime. And what was I doing? Living an almost totally oblivious life.

You can't help but wonder - what could I have done? I feel like I really should have done something. I should have been more educated and aware of what was going on in the world. I should have been an activist. But at the time, I really was too into my own life.

As we were leaving there was a video montage of what is going on in Syria. And as we exited the building by way of the tiny, grey elevator - all I could think was that I must do something for Syria after I did nothing for the Bosnians.

Plitvice, Croatia - Waterfalls

Plitvice was a bit out of our way, 

but we had heard it was a must see.

And it was.

Breathtaking.

We had also heard that you need to get there first thing in the morning,

or the crowds get pretty bad.

If this blog inspires you to go there,

take it from me that was great advice.

Find a place to stay, and get there right away in the morning.

This was our Airbnb host's dad. 

He leaves fresh bread at the door every morning.

He had a St. Louis Ram's shirt on!!

So I had to get a picture.

The story is that his son loves baseball,

so they sent him to the U.S. to train

because there isn't much baseball in Croatia

and he comes back and gives his dad sports stuff.

It was a very enjoyable coincidence that he happened to wear the St. Louis shirt when I was there

Even if the St. Louis Rams are no longer in St. Louis.

And he was so funny - 'You want me to model for you?' 

He said with a smile when I asked to take my picture with him.

Across the board the Croatians and Bosnians have had a great sense of humor.