The Hadassah-Bosnian Story

While the world watched in horror, the Bosnian War exploded through our television sets and into our living rooms. Few stepped forth as the war escalated into the civilian community. Elsie Roth, a nurse and activist from St. Louis, Missouri, conceived the idea that four nurses would go into Sarajevo, a city under siege, to do a needs-assessment and then approach Hadassah, the largest Jewish women’s organization in the world and a designated humanitarian and activist group. They succeeded.

During their time in Sarajevo, Roth and her companions saw people brought to their knees through ethnic cleansing, rape, and concentration camps. The circular population barely had food, water, and heat. There were not the bare necessities of life. At great personal risk, the nurses did their assessment with the help of the remnants of the small Jewish community of Sarajevo that chose to stay behind rather than seek safety in Israel. They are called La Benevolencija, which means ‘The Benevolent Ones’. They chose to remain in order to help their Muslim, Croatian, and Serb fellow citizens. Pope John XXIII has since awarded them an international Peace Prize for their valor. La Benevolencija then became the designated organization to receive and dispense supplies for Hadassah.

Elsie Roth and Sherry Hahn, a Hadassah volunteer, returned to Sarajevo in February 1995 with some 33 tons of supplies; then again in April of 1996 with 75 more tons, totaling 108 tons of pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, new warm clothing, and toiletries valued at more than 10 million dollars. It was one of the largest shipments of the war next to that of the United Nations.

These pictures were drawn or painted by eight- to twelve-year-old children in Sarajevo. The months of January through May were drawn in 1993 during the early phase of this brutal war. These children attended the Saburina School and were sent as a thank you for the supplies sent to them from Crestview Middle School, in St Louis, Missouri. The months of June through December were drawn by children attending the Isak Samakovlija School, where they were asked to draw ‘A wish after the war.’ They were drawn in March of 1996, three months after the war, and were a gift to Elsie Roth when she returned to visit them at that time.