Book tells turbulent tales of war-torn Bosnia

Brian Hayward

“WE lived a peaceful, normal childhood, but everything changed overnight with the war. People around us died from hunger – we would eat grass just to survive. One day men broke into our house and took my parents hostage and warned my sister and me: ‘We‘ll be back to kill you after we kill them‘.”

These were the haunting words of Port Elizabeth masters student Savo Heleta, who hails from Bosnia, speaking about his book due out in March next year called Not my Turn to Die – Memoirs of a Broken Childhood in Bosnia.

In it he tells how he stared death in the face numerous times as he, his sister Sanja and their parents lived through the horror that was the Bosnian war which broke out as South Africa‘s apartheid regime was crumbling, spanning from March 1992 to November 1995.

Heleta was born in Bosnia in 1979 and lived in Gorazde – a city south-east of the capital Sarajevo – with his family.

He says it was after spending a semester at NMMU in 2005, spurred on by a group of American friends joining him from his US university at the time, St Johns in Minnesota, that he decided to pen the book about his turbulent life growing up in war-torn Bosnia.

A visit to Cape Town‘s Robben Island Museum, where he came face to face with former prison inmates, further ignited a flame within Heleta to tell his story.

“When we visited Robben Island and met the inmates who had been imprisoned for 14 years, I was overwhelmed. I had read about apartheid and how the country had moved on, but experiencing it made me realise I had a story to tell about the incredible people who I would not have survived without,” he said.

Gorazde was a hotspot of conflict with Serbian forces surrounding the predominantly Muslim city which has a population of about 40 000. Sniper fire and bombing rang through the nights.

“A few months into the war I saw a man holding his legs in his arms after he was maimed in a bomb blast. Many times rockets hit just metres away from where we were.”

There was no electricity and food became a luxury. Being Serbian, the Heleta family stood out like a sore thumb. Friendly neighbours turned to enemies overnight.

It was the help of dedicated friends who hid the family and gave generously when they had little to give which became the daily existence for the Heletas. But even that was not enough.

“One time men broke into our house and held my parents hostage,” said Heleta. “They told me and my sister they would kill our parents and come back later for us. It was a hell of a day.”

Miraculously, their parents escaped, but the threats continued. The family were arrested and charged with being spies by the police, and while they were incarcerated bombs hit the building they were held in.

Having barely survived two years of the war – a mixture of luck and help from people who put their own lives in danger by protecting them – the family decided to break out of their besieged town in April 1994 by swimming down the freezing town river Drina.

“We swam for over an hour,” said Heleta. “I was 14 at the time and we had to swim for more than 3km.”

Today Bosnia is being rebuilt and even when confronted with his own demons Heleta is able to put the past behind him.

“While I was visiting with friends in Gorazde last year, the man who had taken my parents hostage sat down across from me in a coffee shop. It‘s tough seeing such people afterwards and dealing with the fact they are free.

“I hope people reading the book will be amazed by the examples of how ordinary people have risked their lives to help others.”

But for the time being Heleta is eagerly awaiting the release of his book which he began penning after his 2005 visit. Loving Port Elizabeth, he is now dating Jade Peterson – the sister of cricketing star Robin – but he admits: “I‘m really no good at cricket, but my friends are trying to teach me.”

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