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Youth brings vivid tales of land wrenched by war
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
© St. Petersburg Times, ST. PETERSBURG -- Dunja Busic may be only 18, but the horrors of World War II have touched her life. In more recent years, a bloody civil war chased her family from their home and almost claimed the life of her father. During the next four years, Ms. Busic, who arrived in the United States days ago from her native Bosnia, will tell her story to young Floridians. She will share her experiences as part of the mandate for recipients of the newly established Children of Genocide scholarship at Eckerd College. "My aim for this scholarship is really twofold," said Fred Lamar, 67, who initiated the idea. "I would like to give hope and new life to one young person who suffered terribly because of ethnic, religious or racial persecution or discrimination. And secondly, a bigger goal is I'd like to leave behind a legacy. What I would like to do is leave something that can help us learn to live together, respect each other. We don't have to kill each other because of ethnic, religious or racial differences," said the retired United Methodist minister and member of Eckerd College's Academy of Senior Professionals. The four-year scholarship for students from ethnic or religious groups that are or have been victims of genocide is meant to create interaction between these witnesses and area residents. It also hopes to equip recipients with skills to work for peace and justice back home. Thursday, just before beginning a morning class to improve her conversational English, Ms. Busic spoke about living for 3 1/2 years in a war zone. "My house was on the front. It was on the first line of war. We were just half-mile from the Serbians. We were looking at them and they were looking at us," said the recent high school graduate whose home is in the 1984 Winter Olympics city of Sarajevo. "My father had been shot twice at the beginning of the war in his leg and his arm. ... He just went out to get some bread, milk and sugar and stuff like that. He went out of the building and they just shot him. The second time, he was coming back from out of town and he wanted to run, but he was too old," she said of her father, Stanislav, who was in his late 60s at the time. "That's when we moved to the center of town and we lived there for two years and it was a little better." The war in Bosnia, a former republic of Yugoslavia, started in 1992, after Croats and Muslims united against the Serbs and voted for independence. The Serbs took up arms and the ensuing conflict brought death to about 200,000 people. Besides the conflict with the Serbs, who were responsible for the "ethnic cleansing" of Muslims from areas they seized, fighting also took place between Croats and Muslims. An uneasy peace eventually was established with the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. Ms. Busic and her family were among the thousands of Sarajevo residents who were trapped by Serb fighters. She has vivid memories of acute shortages of water, food and fuel to warm their home. "There was a time when my mother would bathe me with a little bit of rain water and she could count my bones. That is how skinny I was," said Ms. Busic, who also has a 31-year-old brother, Jasenko. In a country torn by warring ethnicities and religions, Ms. Busic, whose father is Jewish and mother is Muslim, said she grew up with friends from all cultures. Ms. Busic, who considers herself Jewish, recalled hearing her father's "powerful" stories of the Holocaust. Of 49 relatives, only four survived Nazi concentration camps, she said. Her father was alarmed when war broke out in Bosnia, Ms. Busic said as she sipped a glass of juice for breakfast late last week. "At the beginning of the war, he said, "Oh, I experienced one war. I hope I won't have to another one.' " These are just some of the experiences she will recount as she meets with Americans during her studies at Eckerd. The Children of Genocide scholarship will require that she and future recipients work at the Florida Holocaust Museum, 55 Fifth St. S, St. Petersburg. "We provide the outlet for these young people to pay back the community for their scholarships," museum director Steve Goldman said. "They come in and they work in our education department. They talk with students. It truly is a unique opportunity to have young survivors of genocide talk to young people. Let's face it, the Holocaust survivors are their grandparents' age. I think kids relate to kids." The Holocaust Museum is just one of the organizations involved in the Children of Genocide program. The ELS Language Centers, on the Eckerd College campus, is providing Ms. Busic with English language training, director Don Back said. Catherine McGarry, director of corporate and community relations at Eckerd, said the scholarship complements the college's Doris Mathes Endowed Chair in Peace and Justice. "The Chair in Peace and Justice studies the lessons of the Holocaust in the context of today's society," Ms. McGarry said. "The Children of Genocide was developed as a companion piece to put a face on the ethnic cleansings and genocide that are happening today, to make the lessons of the Holocaust relevant to today." Lamar, who met Ms. Busic when she served as an interpreter for a group he took to Bosnia in 1998, said more money is needed for the scholarship. "Thus far, we have raised most of the money for Dunja. We are $10,000 short," Lamar said, adding that funding has come from Eckerd College, private citizens and foundations. In addition, he said, $100,000 has been raised toward an endowment to ensure permanency of the scholarship. Ms. Busic said she hopes to study international relations. "I hope," she said, "to come back to my country and try to help my people."
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