AHS-2015-01-29
Date of Interview
1-29-2015
Interview Location
St. Louis, MO
Length of Interview
1900-01-04
Date of Birth
1986
Gender
Male
Religion and/or Ethnicity
Muslim
Description
Earliest memories are those of growing up in his birth city of Prijedor, Lived in a duplex with his father, mother and both grandparents while on the floor above lived his aunt and uncle, Area was peaceful and parents had friends that were Serbians, Croat and Muslim, Remembers playing outside all the time with all the children from the neighborhood in peace and without any problems, Celebrated Christmas and Eid and Ramadan, Noticed changes first on radio messages that was directed at all Muslims to bring any weapons of army supplies to the police station, Remembers another announcement stating that all Muslim must have a white flag on hanging on their home and facing the street, Say one day heavily armed men traveling out of the city with one solider having a large rifle with a bayonet and on that bayonet was the body of a baby, Lived in fear and would not speak for days at a time, Survived by traveling with his mother to get food from around the city and from friends, Soldiers were roaming around the city knocking on houses searching for weapons and anything else that they thought was forbidden, They would execute people if you would try to hide, First convoy leaving Prijedor was ambushed and around 600 people killed, Mother and himself on second convoy and after passing through various checkpoints made it to Croatia, Lived with Great Aunt in Zagreb while awaiting paperwork to travel to Germany, After waiting every day from 4 AM to 8 PM at the German embassy in Zagreb paperwork finally approved, Traveled to Germany where they met up with his father and stayed there until April of 1998 when they came to the United States on the 28th of April
Keywords
Prijedor, Trnopolje, Prijedor Massacre, Shelling, Bus Convoys, Croatia, Germany
Pre-War Residence
Prijedor
Wartime Residence
Prijedor, Germany
First Country of Residence
Croatia
First US Residence
St. Louis, MO
Document Type
Oral History
Collection
Affton High School
Digital Format
MP3
Digital Publisher
Center for Bosnian Studies
City
St. Louis, MO
Copyright Note
These oral histories are made available by the Center for Bosnian Studies for research, educational, scholarly, and/or creative purposes only. All uses should adhere to the principle of fair use established under Section 107 of Title 17 the 1976 Copyright Act. More on fair use is available here: https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/.
Rights Statement
