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Killing Days |
Personal account of a Serb-run concentration camp survivor |
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Synopsis
‘The Killing Days’ is a true story, recounting my experiences as a Bosnian Muslim inmate of the infamous Serb-run concentration camps at Omarska and Manjaca during the first seven months of the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The book is written in a simple, understated style, avoiding hyperbole and overt politicisation of the story - despite the shocking brutality which the book describes. ‘The Killing Days’ is written in three distinct sections.
Part One, The Attack, begins shortly before the assault on my village, when we were attacked and rounded up by former neighbours - suddenly claiming never to have been our neighbours - as the nightmare of ethnic cleansing got underway. It describes a frightening and often bizarre series of events which unfolds as former friends and colleagues swagger among us - suddenly all-powerful, armed and volatile, as they begin taking away intellectuals, professionals and other local public figures to be killed. Yet nothing that happened in those few days prepared me, or prepares the reader, for the horrors to come in Omarska.
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In Part Two, Omarska, I describe how we attempted to adjust to our new, almost unbelievable situation. At first, nobody could quite comprehend the brutality of conditions in the camp; but we soon realised that the killings would not stop and there were no signs that we would be released.
In two and a half months, over three thousand people were murdered in the most terrifying, arbitrary manner, and most of us were beaten and tortured.It is impossible to explain, even convey adequately the overall truth of the camp. I can only write what I know. My approach is to describe everyday experiences, sketch the characters of fellow prisoners and recall stories that cast some light on this darkness. These stories convey the anarchy in which we were forced to live - never knowing when we might eat, or who would be next to die.
After the first foreign journalists visited Omarska and wrote about our plight, I was among 1,350 people transferred to the camp at Manjaca, where prisoners were at last registered with the International Red Cross. Here, we were given basic food and clothing, and for the first time believed that we might survive.
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Part Three, Manjaca, describes life in this more ‘organised’ camp - where although we were neither criminals nor enemy soldiers, but rather randomly selected civilians, everyday life was more like what many people imagine a prison camp to be.
It is amazing how inventive people can become when they know at last they have a good chance of survival. Normal human activities began to re-appear in Manjaca, such as trading in cigarettes and food, working (local Serbs used Muslims to build them an Orthodox Christian church in the forest), wood carving and, understandably, trying to escape. Also, as people do in such situations, we soon split into hierarchies - ordinary detainees and those favoured by the kitchen staff, for example. |
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The message that I received from my brother Asim while at Manjaca. It was the first confirmation I had that my family were still alive. It reads: " Hello brother. our old man and I are alright. mother arrived and is here with us in Zagreb. She is alright. Many greetings from us." 
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Finally, the book ends with our release, at the point where we were expelled from Bosnia altogether - crossing temporarily into neighbouring Croatia before beginning a new life outside the region.
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 <- My brother Kasim at the Red Cross Centre flat in Newcastle shortly after our parents' arrival in the UK. He is now staying in Holland.
Kemal Pervanic (on the right)
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