Sunday, May 09, 2004
Neighborly Kindness in the Midst of the Balkan War
from the excellent book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges
During the fighting in the bleak, bombed-out shell of a city that was Gorazde, where bands of children had become street urchins and hundreds of war dead lay in hastily dug graves, a glimmer of humanity arrived for [a Bosnian Serb couple] the Soraks in the shape of Fadil Fejzic's cow. The cow forged an unusual bond between Fejzic, a Muslim, and his Serbian neighbors, the Soraks.
When the Serbs began the siege of Gorazde in 1192, the Soraks lived in the city with their older son, Zoran, and his wife.
...
On the night of June 14, 1992, the Bosnian police came to the door for Zoran ...
...
Five months after Zoran's disappearance, his wife gave birth to a girl. The mother was unable to nurse the child. The city was being shelled continuously. There were severe food shortages. Infants, like the infirm and the elderly, were dying in droves. The family gave the baby tea for five days, but she began to fade.
"She was dying," Rosa Sorak said. "It was breaking our hearts."
Fejzic, meanwhile, was keeping his cow in a field on the eastern edge of Gorazde, milking it at night to avoid being hit by Serbian snipers.
"On the fifth day, just before dawn, we heard someone at the door," said Rosa Sorak. "It was Fadil Fejzic in his black rubber boots. He handed up half a liter of milk. He came the next morning, and the morning after that, and after that. Other families on the street began to insult him. They told him to give his milk to Muslims, to let the Chetnik children die. He never said a word. He refused our money. He came for 442 days, until my daughter-in-law and granddaughter left Gorazde for Serbia."
...
The couple ... said they could never forgive those who took Zoran from them. But they also said that despite their anger and loss, they could not listen to other Serbs talking about Muslims, or even recite their own sufferings, without telling of Fejzic and his cow. Here was the power of love. What this illiterate farmer did would color the life of another human being, who might never meet him, long after he was gone. In his act lay an ocean of hope.
from the excellent book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges
During the fighting in the bleak, bombed-out shell of a city that was Gorazde, where bands of children had become street urchins and hundreds of war dead lay in hastily dug graves, a glimmer of humanity arrived for [a Bosnian Serb couple] the Soraks in the shape of Fadil Fejzic's cow. The cow forged an unusual bond between Fejzic, a Muslim, and his Serbian neighbors, the Soraks.
When the Serbs began the siege of Gorazde in 1192, the Soraks lived in the city with their older son, Zoran, and his wife.
...
On the night of June 14, 1992, the Bosnian police came to the door for Zoran ...
...
Five months after Zoran's disappearance, his wife gave birth to a girl. The mother was unable to nurse the child. The city was being shelled continuously. There were severe food shortages. Infants, like the infirm and the elderly, were dying in droves. The family gave the baby tea for five days, but she began to fade.
"She was dying," Rosa Sorak said. "It was breaking our hearts."
Fejzic, meanwhile, was keeping his cow in a field on the eastern edge of Gorazde, milking it at night to avoid being hit by Serbian snipers.
"On the fifth day, just before dawn, we heard someone at the door," said Rosa Sorak. "It was Fadil Fejzic in his black rubber boots. He handed up half a liter of milk. He came the next morning, and the morning after that, and after that. Other families on the street began to insult him. They told him to give his milk to Muslims, to let the Chetnik children die. He never said a word. He refused our money. He came for 442 days, until my daughter-in-law and granddaughter left Gorazde for Serbia."
...
The couple ... said they could never forgive those who took Zoran from them. But they also said that despite their anger and loss, they could not listen to other Serbs talking about Muslims, or even recite their own sufferings, without telling of Fejzic and his cow. Here was the power of love. What this illiterate farmer did would color the life of another human being, who might never meet him, long after he was gone. In his act lay an ocean of hope.
Labels: compassionate people, war
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