393: What if you survived the Bosnian genocide? [Rebroadcast Ep277]

Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of this is actually happening. Add free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. This is actually happening, features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode, and for more information about support services. High listeners. Today we bring you the fifth episode of our annual three-week winter re-broadcast series. We'll return with all new episodes starting January 13th. Today's re-broadcast episode, what if you survived the Bosnian Genocide, originally aired as episode 277 on May 9, 2023? Today's episode features Mirsad Selokovic, a survivor of the Bosnian Genocide. Before we begin this episode, it will help to give some brief background of the Bosnian War, which is incredibly complex, and this will be a very, very incomplete portrait. But it will help give some context to Mirsad's experiences, and I encourage you all to research more about it. The Bosnian War was a three-year armed conflict that took place in what is now Bosnian Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war was part of the breakup of Yugoslavia, a former communist country that comprised what is today seven different countries, including Croatia, Bosnian Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegril, and Kosovo. In the 1980s, the rapid decline of the economy of Yugoslavia led to internal strife and independence movements, destabilizing the country. As Yugoslavia was breaking up, the republics within began declaring independence, beginning with Croatia and Slovenia in 1991. Bosnian Herzegovina declared independence in February 1992. After declaring independence, a series of violent internal struggles for control ensued, and a brutal Serbian political leader, Ratovon Karagic, supported by the regime of Slobodan Milozović, emerged with the goal of securing Serbian territory and dominance in the region, to create enclaves that were exclusively Serbs. This led Karagic to architect an ethnic cleansing campaign of Bosnian Muslims and Kroats in the region. Today's storyteller Mirzod is part of the Bosnian Muslim population. Estimates suggest that the war claimed the lives of around 100,000 people and displaced over two million through violent conflict, including torture, mass murder, rape, and genocide. So be mindful that this episode includes especially brutal material. Again, this is a very broad overview and I encourage you all to look into more specific details of the war and its aftermath. But now we hear from Mirzod Solakowicz in today's story, what if you survived the Bosnian genocide? That becomes tragedy beyond people's comprehension. You've cannot imagine it. Neighborhood turns against neighbor, friend against friend and family against family for what? As a child you observe that and as a child you remember, as a child, the effects are more and it kills you. From Wandery, I'm Whit Missildine. You are listening to this is actually happening. Episode 277. What if you survived the Bosnian genocide? Episode 277. What if you survived the Bosnian genocide? When I asked my parents, how did you raise me? They would say, I didn't raise you, the neighbors have raised you, the schoolteachers have raised you, the villagers have raised you, we lived in north, west of Bosnia, the little town called Kazarat. And we lived under the brotherhood of communism and everybody retreated the same. You have Serbian people, Croatian people, Bosnian people. There were no such thing as somebody was labeled as being brown or black or white. We embraced it with our full heart and the childhood vividly, it's like a fairy tale living by the lake in the summer, swimming in the lake, looking after the animals whilst they were fed by eating grass. We were basically shepherds after school, everything you eat, you pick from your garden, you share with your family, friends, neighbors and the sense of being raised in that kind of community brings people together. I never realized anything different that I was different or any other children would be different. Even our names are very universal, so we had Elvis, we had Mirosadri, we had Anita, it's a very international names, so you wouldn't be able to tell what religion people were. And I think on top of it, religion was never an issue, it was never important, I have loads of friends and we never distinguish our differences, we always looked at our similarities and how to embrace everything we had. I didn't say much and I was a very, very hard working kid. He follows to describe my childhood, I worked from the age of 11 on the farm and the rest of the time you'll have homework and the chores and my dad was a farmer working on the farm, but he would have a hay, wheat, corn, potatoes, he would export it to Italy and he'd come back from Italy with the machineries, motorbikes, so he was the farmer that you'd say a trader. My mom was a typical housewife working hard on the farm, looking after the family and looking after the kids. We had family members who were workers, they had to be fed on daily basis so every worker would have a meal and that would be her main responsibility. My uncle's house is next door, my granddad's house is two doors away or cousins house so we all kind of in a row of houses next to each other on the farm and we were brought up to look out for each other to help each other to support each other to dive for each other and that's how I was raised in my typical household in a village of of Causarats until the war broke out. It was a sunny afternoon in May 1992 and when I come back from school I turned up from school with all my grades. We used to have these like a passport and all the grades would be written and I've turned off really proud of that day because my dad said if I get all the A's and overall pass with grade A my dad would buy me a motorbike. It came literally running home, I've run to find my mom and I would always find in a garden and I said my mom guess what and this is what were you so happy I said I passed all my grades with grade A. He says go and find a dad so I looked for dad and I found him and he's literally hidden a motorbike that I always dreamt of the Thomas made in Slovenia, little automatic, the scooter bike. It was the happiest day in May. I didn't get a chance even to ride it when the sirens went off and my mom was in a garden and she said the war is on, the war has reached our part of Bosnia so we have to go in a shelter, we have to hide. All of a sudden from a complete piece, a peaceful day, a sunny afternoon coming back from school early to a war zone and that's when everything started changing. At this point, the first time in my life I experienced my name has been very anxious, upset, angry, scared, they were completely dissolving and a shelling started and people were confused. I was 12 years of age and it's May we usually finish school in July, it's as well we finish and the teacher said the war is around the corner, it's not safe and this is you know, aren't you going to protect us? He says, do you know who I am? He said, what you mean are you? He said, you know, we're different now. This is what you mean we're different. This is I'm part of the Serbian paramilitary troop. It's what you're here to protect us. He said, but I'm not because we're different. In Bosnia is the most mixed out of all Yugoslavia, the Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia. We didn't have one ethnicity, it was mixed and we all lived together as one equal right equal opportunity through communism and so if you look at the Croat, the Serbian or the Bosnia Muslim, those little differences didn't make any difference. We did not see the little differences until until the war kicked and over the night the KJ start, there's a Serbian trying to fight Croatian who are Catholics and Bosnians who are Muslims and then you have different little sects like Ukrainian, Polish settlers there after Second World War and because I've had Muslim heritage attached to me through my roots you become an enemy. Everything overnight all your neighbors turn into your worst enemies that you can imagine because a neighbor's not everything about you and they turn against you and they want to kill you. We run in around like headless chickens turning to a neighbor's doors and it's not safe for you. The Serbs by military troops are coming and looking out for people that had different ethnicity, people that had different religious beliefs. You've just literally become in a victim of the vicious game of system of execution, see you constantly hiding, you constantly fighting for survival and as long as you have a Muslim name attached to it you become victim of that vicious game whether you were religious or not. So we run to our Serbian neighbors and there was a woman called Dushankas she said you can stay with us, you are safe, your neighbors will look out for each other we help each other out. So we stayed a night with this lady called Dushankas all of a sudden she starts panicking and saying well I don't think it's safe for you to stay here the Serbian army is overtaking the town so go to your homes return to your homes and continue normal life. She did try to assist us in helping us but I think she was scared for her own family and well-being because we didn't know at the time how nasty the war will work out. So we return home and the Shelley would stop during the day time I'll start again during the night. They kind of took us by surprise the way they've attacked the town where till we were on top of the mountain you have your own Yugoslav army shelling from the top of the mountain the whole town cause a rhodes and surrounded towns and stuff. Every household dug out the ditches or trenches we covered them with something on top so we'd enter when the shelling starts and is the safest from when grenades fall and stuff you you are under the ground you are safe. And all of a sudden you have people dying the movement became very restricted so you wouldn't literally move from your house because as soon as the shelling stars people start missing and even the people they've tried to leave the town have just disappeared overnight that have never been seen again and I remember people complaining about the smell and it's this kind of rigorous smell that he's his way to describe it's like something is rotting and the human flesh when it rockens in a sunny day it's something that you cannot explain how horrible it is literally the whole village started smelling of the human flesh decaying and then we've been instructed by a grandad to release all our animals because we had cows and everybody in a village they had to release the animals because when the shelling starts the barn where the animals kept if he shatters he'll kill the animals and then the dogs the cats all of our animals were released in the open fields in a village you'll see like a safari of animals themselves running up and down the street not knowing where to go away to hide when the shelling starts to we as a kid we observed the dogs and the dogs became wild and I've asked my grandad what's going on the dogs you can't get near them are they scared or something and then my grandad realized that the dogs were eaten human flesh so those animals would be prepared to attack humans they became wild we discovered our uncle Hashim's that's been killed one of the first victims in the village has been killed and hidden in the bushes I remember tracked the turling up at our house and all of a sudden everybody's panicking and crying and stuff is alive is the alive when I've reached the trail of the tractor as a child you jump to see what's in it and all I could see uncle Hashim's face but his stomach was blown up and I was 13 years old as the first time I've seen a dead person and then I've heard my mom shouting my sad man said what you doing get back inside the house you're not allowed to see that and it just took me back thinking as his stomach died out how did that happen all sorts of firm things running through my head and I remember grandad one day he crawled down in a village and he went to some shrubs where there were two young men the heads were caught off me and my friends we couldn't help it but we had to run to see one day we made my friend me myself we crawled down to see when we saw the head's caught off we were so confused as kids and we looked and they've splod everywhere and stuff and we run home shouting to grandad grandad we seen those two young men the heads caught off and they shouted us again you shouldn't have been there you could have got yourself killed. Grandad couldn't help him he went to bury those two young boys he dug out the hole but when the the sniper started shooting it became home crawling so when he buried them he didn't bury them enough so you have these dogs like vultures and they've started eating that flesh with those two young boys that was a trotch and that stuck with me for a very very long time those kind of experiences I think in now about it what is sanity you know what's insane and what is sane that becomes tragedy beyond people's comprehension you've cannot imagine it neighbor turns against neighbor friend against friend and family against family for what as a child you observe that and as a child you remember as a child he affects you more and he kills you more so we were literally divided in a small groups and the small groups became smaller it's like a heatless army they've had a plan how to ethnically cleanse Bosnia Muslims how to execute diplomats business people intelligent people pious academics people that would pass on the history I and my family belonged to that strand of people that were very successful and if you were successful the war eats you pretty quickly predominantly the village where we lived we're occupied by Bosnians and the Serbians were on the other side of the village across the river so the Serbian snipers were watching the movement of the villages and they've seen us hunting animals basically just trying to catch themselves and bring them back and feed the families so on that day we went to get some animals and stuff and we were distracted because the sniper person started giving us warning shots they were firing above our heads and just in the sky just to warn us get away this is not safe so on anymore so we'll run to our village and as very upset as angry that because we lost our freedom as kids there was no more freedom in a village like to experience our wilderness to play with our mates that day we realized we can't be more ball anymore but that came to me just that moment he said this is if somebody come and questions you don't say anything any kind of information would be so useful for everybody in a village so the more you say the more people in a village will be in danger so this is the safest thing for you is to keep quiet when the army became stronger and the Serbs took control of the city we're looking for that person we're looking for this person we're looking for that person now the best source of information would come from the kids it's like gangsters comes in and say I want that that that that you got 24 hours if not a lexico all of your family so what do you do I ask my dad what if they have to kill me what if they say if you get give us no information you'll kill us and my dad says well it's better if they kill you than a whole village that sentence stuck with me for rest on my life thinking that is a big thing to say and it's probably very brave thing to say for my dad but I was too young to digest it was too young to understand it and that's where I said to myself I am not going to say anything I'm in Dravama and in the latest season of the spy who we open the file on Larry Chin the spy who outplayed Nixon for decades Chin was embedded deep inside US intelligence then comes an opportunity Richard Nixon's secret plan to reopen relations with China information Chin can place directly into mouse hands but the CIA has a weapon of their own a Chinese mole ready to affect how long until Chin's giggas are follow the spy who now wherever you listen to podcasts before you know it there is a like a police army squad full uniform turning up but we've been already informed by the other villages the police army are coming around questioning people asking them they had any weapons if they had any involvement with territory army if they were on checkpoints in entrances to the villages and everybody were involved in checkpoints all the villages all the farmers and what you'll also find the most educated the most priceless the most richest were first taken away question and murdered killed disappeared overnight the police squad when they turned up they were marching outside and saying to everybody stop where you are don't move hands in the air and as a kid they had no top on that days of warm day I've had little shorts and I would always crouch in position and put my hands on my mouth my family went outside and when these soldiers this is only older gold and he'd all the flour corn anything you got getting out of the house you've got my mom panicking taking all the rings necklaces from her hands from her neck and passing the onto soldiers this is that's not enough this is getting inside the house and this is if I find any gold that you're not taking out of the house all of you going to be murdered and I've seen the panic in my mom's face my grandmother there's about 27 family members there because there were family members from surrounded villages and out of all of them they've asked them for you questions and as was crouching looking observing this is you young man follow me as soon as they said that my mom started crying very overpowering the howling noise of panicking woman saying they're going to kill my son just fear that they're going to kill a child the first thing the did this is take your clothes off and then take him a clothes if he said we're going to ask you some questions if you don't answer the questions you're going to get a bullet in your head at first I didn't take it seriously but when they asked me to step on on thorns and bushes in a shrub with no shoes on there I knew these guys are going to torture me they're going to beat the crap out of me they're probably going to kill me and then they start beating me up with this buckle of a belt which was very painful on my back and I still suffer with my back with the weather changes I remember this pain like yesterday as Jungin when you received the pain been beaten up by the buckle of a belt it's very very very painful all the houses across the fields they could hear echoing sounds of my painful screaming and I started bleeding everywhere and they said oh okay now we're going to bring you dad maybe you that can help you so um they start torturing my dad one of the soldiers had a knife and he's drawn cross on my chest and cross on my left arm and I just realized that I've got very warm my heart was pacing and then the pain disappeared but then the fear takes over and all I can see is like I'm in a little black hole I feel left in a black hole that can't get out so they put me an execution spot and he says well we're going to shoot you know if they don't give us information that anyone in this village had any weapons of anything and I just kept quiet they were all drunk soldiers to be young the full of I don't know anger full of anger so there's a one person standing right next to me and hitting me with rifle but on the back of my head and he says again he says um ask your dad that can help you what says dad can you help me is this I can't help you I says dad please can you help me he said I can't help you at that point I just wanted peace and when you think about the peace you don't think about the death you just want to be a peace because I was so in such a discomfort of fear that you can't explain it you've got your own father standing in front of you cannot help you it can completely confuse because you're completely innocent as a child in court up in a war and then my cousin a lady she's 15 older than me and I was very close to her she would help me uncle's daughter she stepped on front of a house front side of the house so she's looking at me saying to the soldier say what you doing to the kid what has he done to you he's only a kid is an innocent child I want soldiers he ran very close to and he says you want to be right had they you say things like that and all I've seen my auntie grabbing her by a hand of shouting in what you're doing here it's nothing to do with you and she pulls her away and at that minute of discovering how much danger I am they take my dad away and then they shoot the gun above my head and then they shoot to the rice and on the left side and I just kept quiet if standing in front of me this is we'll give you another chance and it is a one soldier that activated the hand grenade and it says hold that tight it's like your life depends on it if you let it go you'll blow yourself and there's another soldier came he says one's not enough put another one put two active hand grenades of squeezing them so hard at this point I started sweating and crying literally crying my eyes out because thinking if I let this go I've just blown myself at that point I realized he's drunk if I fall down and if I blow myself I can blow this person as well but I've held it so tight I didn't say a word one of the soldiers came probably the oldest soldier at the time they were five of them and then he took the grenade and when I realized he's holding the grenade his hand was shaking and there was a pinion it was pulling the pinback that's where I realized shit this was actually activated I could have blown myself and when he's taking him he left he said you could have killed yourself made it easy for yourself you could have thrown that I killed us all because we're all drunk and then I realized what a horrible thing the war is what horrible things the war wakes he wakes horrible things up from the people the war it's kind of discovers who is the baddest person on the planet and who is the kindest person on the planet as soon as the pins fell on the floor almost like waking up from the dream and I could see the blood splattered all over my eyelashes opening my eyes and discovering that that wake me up soon is alive there's a blood gushing from my ears coming from my nose my mouth I'm alive that's probably the happiest moment I never forget that day and that day will live with me for the rest of the life and I always think the oldest the soldier that saved my life I always wondered who that person is and why he's done it after that couple of weeks there was a man that came running through the fields that's best friend and he said to my dad it says pack all your stuff in in minute and you're gonna go because they ethnically cleanse in the whole cause of it this is when the Serbian's army the foot soldiers were overtaking the town and they kept shouting firing burning houses soldiers just shooting people people have panic attacks and people run you know just looking for freedom but it's not freedom we're all captured there was no social media we were blocked off from civilization we're blocked off from the world we're like in a little black hole so the soldiers came and they said everybody from surrounded villages you have to go to to collection center at the time it's called collection center my school became a concentration camp my teachers became camp guards and people from surrounding villages they were all moved and ethnically cleansed towards my school and that was my school there was turned into concentration camp so in the school where I've played where we had a theater and star he turned into concentration camp and that's where things go really really complicated the streets of fuller people and the soldiers guided them to move towards the concentration camp so we walked about four kilometers to reach the concentration camp and every time we were like checkpointed by the soldiers taking the rings off necklaces of asking for money constantly asking for money I've seen a two young man running through the inside of cornfields and I've seen the soldier shouting stop stop stop come back they didn't come back in the shot through the cornfields and they killed two young men and it just left them there under entrance on a concentration camp the woman couldn't take a ring off this is don't worry about this I'm going to cut it with an axe it's as a soldier took him outside from us and apparently I've heard the cut her finger just together ring off that's how desperate they were for the jewelry or anything they could get of people it's almost like that's how soldiers would get paid by killing people like any concentration camp there were processing people in the same way they've questioned me the question everybody the man was separated from women we were in the part of the school where they call it dome every school had a dome it's like a social dance club we stayed above the halls there was a there was a little rooms there was about 150 crammed people all sitting on top of each other and we stayed there women and children because my dad was classed as disabled he had a heart operation he never served in the army he allowed him to stay with us every night the soldiers that the guards were taking different women and they were raping them they were taking them back and I've heard how distressed and tearful the women were after coming back and you've actually heard of woman been raped and you you hear a scream in her head off and then just they were shouting in and stuff most of the guys were drunk most of the time we stayed probably not more than two weeks of the camp we were already starving we had diarrhea they've had no sanitation they've had no toilet so you have to urinate you have to go to the toilet outside people were already getting bugs people were getting infections and so on one day I've had a diarrhea run down to outside we just crouched down and and do you think and somebody shouting at me and the soldier came down he says you need to follow me to be into it so I've gone to the room where I've seen Mati who is now a guard Kalashnikov on the table he says we meet again I said you didn't answer none of our questions now it's your opportunity so the same routine started they've had a truncion and they start beating me up in Bosnia the truncions are the rubber ones who under hit you really hurt but hit me across my face across my neck across my back and everywhere the full room was full of smoke and there was a blood spattered everywhere and this is this is the blood from different people from people like you they didn't give a snout was your dad involved in the total army was your dad everywhere did was your dad there or anywhere and I just kept quiet my parents at this time they're thinking I'm just going to the toilet and I'll be coming back but again I've been tortured all of a sudden after they've questioned me and didn't say anything I've heard him saying I'll go and bring his dad and as I walked out so my dad is selling cigarettes I've looked at him and when they've told me to leave I left and went top stays and when I met with dad later I've asked him was that about the cigarettes he said or been questioned as well that told me if I don't sell them cigarettes my life depends on selling them cigarettes if I don't sell them they'll kill me so he sold the cigarettes and he survived so then one morning it was like another police unit came and I thought the way they were cunning they will kill us all they surrounded the whole camp and they moved all of the women and children from the camp and I remember my dad was with us and there was a soldier that stopped him and said where are you going where you think you're going and the opening shirt he says I've had an operation he's got massive car in the middle of his chest he said he had a heart surgery never been to army never been involved in anything and he says motherfucker you ain't going nowhere go back as he was going back to concentration camp I think 99.9% he would have got killed and there's another Serbian guy saying he just left the guy alone he's a old man he's done nothing wrong he's disabled he has an operation so we were put in an animal carriages train we were taken to the Bosnian part of Bosnian called Grapchenica and in Grapchenica he's territory controlled by the Bosnian Muslims and we stayed there for about six weeks we became refugees everybody's taken a family to take him feed him and look after them but as soon they've they've run out of food and they've asked us to leave so my dad organized a commercial lorry to take us all across the danger zones and some points are very close to the Serbian military points that were controlled by the Serbs which is a very risky game to cross from Grapchenica to get to the Croatia my dad collected money from the people from the Bosnian people and people were hiding the money usually in the underway that they've stitched it up like back in the days Jewish people did to hide the money from the Germans and the money was always handy because with money once you get out of to the safe zone as the money becomes very very handy because you can pay someone to smuggle you through the borders to take you through it from one part of Bosnian ways dangerous to another and so on so with that money dad paid for our family and anybody that had money they've heard that my dad is organizing a lorry they'll take him across the lorry was it's like a trailer of covered so he was covered and we all crammed up they liked potato and set off probably five o'clock in the morning and most of the time they would drive during the night because it's safer even though they were selling during the night it was so dangerous and it was kind of improvised roads through the farest we reached the town called Konit I'll never forget there was selling and the cell just missed my legs the cell just literally missed my legs and my mom thought oh my god I've just taken his legs up I was lucky um what about my legs inside that day it's like waking up from dream and just thinking what is happening and you haven't got time to digest the process none of that experience until you've reached the south zone we haven't reached the Croatia yet we're in poor soul shit head to guvina part of south Bosnia which is closer to Croatia now and it's very safe where we stayed about couple of weeks so there was a coach organized from poor soul to Croatia where my aunt is but there was a one checkpoint there was a horrible checkpoint by Krawat where they've taken a 16 years old boy he said any man from 16 to 16 need to come out because we need him to fight a war my dad was panicking this is undisabled he had this tidy card is disabled the operation never been to the army never been to the service he was okay but there was a woman with two sons there were 16 very tall lads they looked 18 and they've taken him away and remember my mom squeezed me underneath her dress she could not see me at all the soldiers came in a Croatian border this is all the men and I remember those kids been literally taken out from that woman and her harrowing scream at the soldiers of crying and never figure never never never when we reached the Croatia our auntie who lives in Croatia came and picked us up there was a camp in Croatia where we were safe there was a massive mosque in a city called Zagreb and they made it like a camp for refugees in Croatia we were safe we stayed with our auntie with our other family members probably beginning of my ptsd when i just had a nightmare about my uncle dreaming about him with a blonde stomach and my cousin osman the way he was murdered in concentration camp but nothing major until one day that kept going to the refugee camp in Zagreb in the mosque and he met his Arab friend called Sam and Sam said i've heard you've got a boy that's been tortured and injured this is the human appeal organization from UK are organizing refugees with injured children or people that they've been titled to go and reach UK my dad doesn't want to leave Croatia he was thinking the war will stop in next six months and we'll return happily to live in Bosnia but that was far from it the reality is the war stretched for another three years from 1992 to 95 and the auntie dinner that persuaded my dad that the safest thing is to take the kids to take us to UK we live there ever since you know 29 years in UK so we came thrown away from everything we had everything that we were used to from our language family were literally planted like a seed in a new country facing new language new culture new way of living everything UK is completely different so when i have a bad dreams and those was reoccurring the soldiers in my dream here they kept coming back and saying we come back for you and this is how can you come back to UK i mean you can I says that we're here and anything negative that happens in my life the conquer you very quickly those dreams whether it's an illness whether it's something happens negative in your family it's like bullets are coming from everywhere and for me to defend myself I'd attack anybody I would smash all the windows in in the street I would roll myself in a carpet and I would stay in a carpet for two days hiding from the soldiers the two families living in a house to hide me from a house over here the PTSD they would chain me to the bed they were neighbours next door they would pick on me he one day gave me a piece of chocolate and when I started eating the chocolate he starts beating me up and then at one point he starts strangling me and then I hit him and I run down and I kept away from from that neighbour it was time to enroll me in school and I was always very hesitant going to school I suffered heavily when I just went quiet I was completely muted from the age of 13 to 16 and anything they would say to me I would just smile at one point there's a kid saying well try to urinate him I bet he won't say anything to the kid start urinating me and I've just looked at them and smiled thinking in my head well he urinating me you think he gonna hurt me the idiots have had two activities he could nades him at hand and I kept quiet there was a boy called Nathan and he was the baddest boy on the planet we called him Tyson and one day he says oh knock him out oh knock him out but the other kids were saying he's fearless he's got no fear in him so there's nothing he can do to put fear in him because he's just always blank so he went running to me and he just punched me and knocked me out and when I put myself together the other kids were doing it more it was a more attraction to bully me there's a guy called Shafic he's constantly asked for money and never had any money because of refugees no money there's a particular situation where the kids were playing basketball and one of the boys decided to be the crap out of me in front of the hall school yard when they've taken my trousers off they were like pink shorts and they were my sisters and the hall school laughed at me and then one of the teachers spotted me and took me to the classroom I said you've just been experiencing bullying and I've seen it we did know what was going on you never spoke and he says you can be released from school for a couple of days of the traumas who've been bullying and I'm thinking in my head mate you don't know what I've been through this is not trauma this is nothing by the soldiers have done to me in Bosnia but obviously that teacher didn't know and following day he'd walk into the school all the girls were laughing at me so he's he's a little boy that's got his sisters on the way and stuff this is a little girl so everybody at war the kids were spitting me they beat me up randomly did treat me like dirt but I was good at receiving pain I could take immense amount of pain I could take anything any kind of beating and I always smiled back now one of the teachers called me to isolation center where I'd have to go and tried to learn English and stuff but communication was next to zero that teacher says does I think it'd be good stand on front of the assembly and speak with the kids and tell them what you've experienced and he said if you can write a few sentences I think that bullying will stop they'll understand you they'll understand why you don't speak and all of that and he said it's it's a massive thing to ask a boy that has a spot for a couple of years stand on front of assembly and speak on front of all the teachers and front of the whole year about his workspins as has been tortured but I made myself strong because I realized the teachers on my side have realized what's been happening to me they want to help me I owe them a lot because the bullying has stopped I went home and I put myself together and I wrote probably half a page what has happened to me he was becoming very close to that Monday when I said I will speak so that day I got up stood up on front of the school assembly and I said to the kids I from Bosnia no speak English I know like war no guns no fighting I want peace and I'm so stuck with reading and looking at this note piece of paper they've written it the looked around and all the teachers were crying all these bullies were crying and everyone when I've stopped and finished assembly I felt like all the kids wanted to run to me to hug me and the same happened to the teachers it's so brave you don't so well we're all proud of you and in every day a different child would turn up to me and with a apologise and says I'm sorry what I've done to you and I would say with a very shaky poor English it's okay fine no problem from that I become probably the most popular boy in school the famous boy in school the boy who said nothing one of my favourite P teachers called Mr. Habdon he said weight training would be good for you because I think you'd be good at sports very discipline you work hard the discovered it was good at weight training sports the age of 16 I've had many aren't it physique they used to say or Bruce Lee quite often because I was very shredded cut up and I was in a gym every day the school had its own gym so all these bullies turn into my best friends quite often I see them and speak to them and stuff he says I bet you would be to stop now you know how strong you are and you've got big muscles and all that I said down now there would never want to bully anyone what I've been through life 15 16 when I started lifting weights then boxing then keep boxing of this covered I can handle things I can I can fight back and then then it becomes quite complex because then you have a demon in yourself and you've got to be careful how you control it if you get out of a control I could be solved destructive or I could I could be very dangerous man the power that human can produce out of the negative energy it's scary it scares me that's what it means being a child from the war it's all about controlling your fear because the fear comes in with the soldiers coming back killing me and I'm still that child I'm still that child in Bosnia then I'm a grown up man living in UK and the soldiers are still after me that fear is still controlling everything I do but you fight you fight the fear because of what I've experienced when my fear hits me I go insane and something inside you tells you you know you can do anything and it becomes dangerous how you control it it comes very dangerous I never never never held a gun in my hands because if I get angry that's all over my sister was attacked in the boss by a knife and jumped into a knife of the person buried him on the floor throwing down the stairs just to protect my sister I don't fear no one like I worked in a nightclubs for 16 years and there was a very very dangerous man we had a scuffle we had a fight in a nightclub and and he said do you know all my uncle is this is a you know mate I don't care it says you show you don't go says I don't care and I confronted him and this is nobody that I know would confront him and he couldn't believe me and he says I'll love you to be because he stood your ground you could have been taken out you could have been but no it's you were completely blank and that's my protection I had no one to protect me I always remember the woman saying to my mother you've tried his ill he cannot speak there's one about 14 and they're drinking coffee in our first house she says your child will never be able to have a normal life have a degree and be married and have kids and I've heard that and I still hear that voice of that woman and that inspired me to say no I'm not ill and I can do things she gave me a mighty task by saying that basically I'm stupid I can't speak and won't be able to get education won't be able to get married to a kid I said I want to earn lots of money I want stability from my family I want to educate myself I want to make myself physically strong and I want to help the kids so there's five things it's kind of mind educating life the way I follow it so but giving myself a mammoth task to try to save the world from bad people save the world from wars save the world from hatred and discrimination I felt there's something I could do to my country and despite all the experiences I need to take something positive out of you can kind of plant it like a seed Bosnia knows thought the way training has helped me to deal with my problems and beat his day so building a gym and uniting everybody together would be kind of hitting two birds with one bullet there were different organizations different charities trying to be set up the Bosnia to bring youth together but nothing works because I felt that people were forcing themselves to unite people it doesn't work like that but I always felt through the sport you naturally took about healthy living how to eating things that every human being needs things about loving and caring and getting kids to respect care and love for each other the way we lived in our village growing up I always thought about keeping healthy and healthy minds so in 2005 my dad we bought in a shopping center a small room I would say and we decided that we're going to set up a gym because we had a famous bodybuilder as a family member figure target always watched him pulling the trailers and hooking him onto the cars full of muscle and I always looked up to him as a child I always went to his gym and I always wait train as a very very young boy so when he was killed during the war and his son was killed there was no gym and there was always gym in the cosard so we set up a gym and they were all together Bosnia Muslims Serbs Croatian Brauma people Ukrainian Polish or all of them together and we started from that little room and we blossomed into the whole floor of a fitness center in cosard as called solid gym from 2005 I used to take all the equipment from UK from the gym that I worked for they've donated gym equipment because our building was getting destroyed in UK they were building a brand new state of art building and the fitness center in Birmingham where I worked since 16 even now I still worked there it says you can take that equipment to your gym in Bosnia so I've taken more all of the equipment to Bosnia and we extended it so we got a full floor so we got typical way training we got martial art room we got absolutely everything and we cater for everyone and our mission statement is that you we want everybody included young old different race different religion everybody coming together it's a charitable organization and my family and myself we donate money to keep it running we have different friends and family support our charity now I work part-time as an actor I make myself available there's some parts that audition for the films and I end up in a villain typical middle European villain I used to do a lot of theatre work and I enjoy drama I enjoy theatre it was from drama Turk a person Dave Henson my teacher from a six-form college to help me to overcome my my mental problems and my PTSD in my nightmares on flashbacks but doing workshops following dramatic strategies to erase the past and kind of bring a bright future and that was my legacy to turn the negative energy into positive and to kind of inject it into the future generation children to give them a bright future to give them hope and peace so I've decided that I wanted to become a teacher after my experiences in the war and what has happened to maybe my own school teacher and I wanted to challenge myself to say the teachers don't do that so I've decided to go back to the same school mostly school where I was a student but it was a bullied and I've joined the team of the teachers they used to teach me and I always had this connection with the kids I could always go on the level and that makes me very proud and that's my legacy at least we're giving a chance to children to have a better future than mine and the successful man we'd done wonderful wife and two children I've got a boy and a girl I have real estate have few properties that are rent out and I'm happy with the life and what I've achieved even though quite often I always get tested because I live with PTSD if I could get all of this trauma's out if I could take all of that bad energy out and make a fresh start but guess what it doesn't work like that all that bad energy all that life experience there's a massive bag in it and it's still there I can't be suicidal I can't be suicidal we're nice to see police in uniform in Bosnia I just shake and I get panic attacks and I feel very vulnerable because they're very instructive the very they use harsh words and language so we I was in a gas station with my dad and they were drinking with my uncle and the police officers my dad's friends but they were saying something to a lad who works behind the bars and annoying he's a boy who trains up my gym and I know anybody tried to hurt the boys or become very sensitive to leave the boy alone and they wouldn't so I had a panic attack where I literally I just smashed all the drinks and my uncle grabbed me by the hand he says you've an idiot what you don't you get us all locked up and stuff and it's the first time publicly I've had a panic really bad panic attack we're turning to a beast and it took everybody by surprise but usually I'm peaceful so when a dad explains to the police officers what I went through and my uncle they were fine by it from that day on they've taken me following they because I literally went mad and they said I've got bipolar so when I'm completely low my wife she's the one who can who can control me who can give me hope who can heal me and she's so good at it since I've been married now for the last eight years I've been stable because the wife controls a lot of things it's absolutely amazing and I've discovered myself we lost our country we lost our people we lost humanity and we left with war criminals walking freely and left with no justice and my country suffered a loss one third of the people been killed one third have been ethnically cleansed and one third have been left in Bosnia of our people now we know the Bosnia Muslims are the ones that got the worst beating why there was no reason to torture little boy there was no reason to take him out and put him in an execution spot and I guess all of my life I'm looking for the answers but I don't think I will ever get them and I always have to find different ways to heal myself to make myself better but there's so many different ways of dealing with it and we have managed this so well as you get that reassuring voices from the community how ill I was and how I was written off to what I have become and that makes me very proud and that's my main motto in life to help more disadvantaged people to help small communities and the kids of mine heroes the kids of mine future the kids are beginning of everything it's like to spring flowers the way you water the flower that's how they're going to grow and blossom still got big aspirations still got big goals yes there is still chance for good people to run the world they are still good people in the world that want a brighter future and I don't want to sound cynical or negative I want the world to change and we can make those changes today's episode featured Mirsad Solakovich if you'd like to contribute to help the Solak Gym that Mirsad helped create and speaks about in the episode you can donate through PayPal at solakjim at hotmail.com that's slakkgym at hotmail.com you can also see the gym and find out more about it on instagram at solakjim that's slakkgym you can also find out more about Mirsad on Instagram at mickey underscore solak and on twitter at mirsad solakovich there you can find links to his memoir the boy who said nothing from wandry you're listening to this is actually happening if you love what we do please rate and review the show you can subscribe on apple podcast amazon music or on the wandry app to listen ad free and get access to the entire back catalog in the episode notes you'll find some links and offers from our sponsors by supporting them you help us bring you our show for free i'm your host wit missile dine today's episode was co-produced by me and andrew weights with special thanks to that this is actually happening team including Ellen Westberg the opening music features the 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