FBU-2006-11-16

She was born and raised in the village of Čarakovo, municipality Prijedor. There were only 4 Catholic families in the village, and the rest of the families were Muslim. She was born to a Muslim family but was not religious. She remembers all ethnicities getting along before the war. The Serbs came to the village at night and began burning houses, arresting people, and killing every male. This lasted three days, but she states it mainly was finished after the first day. There was no consistency or strategy. The Serbs just killed all the males everywhere. After three days, the surviving villagers were loaded onto busses and taken to Ternopolje Concentration Camp. There were 3,500 people in the camp. After two days, she gave birth to her youngest daughter in a former hospital with no medical equipment. She remained at Ternopolje from 03OCT1992-18DEC1992. There was no food, no hygiene products, and she was given a cardboard box for the baby. Following her release from Ternopolje, she went to Gamjenica to her grandfather's house, who had died seven days after arriving at Ternoploje. On 24DEC1992, she left and travelled to Zagreb. She had travelled with 11 family members. They all went to stay with her mother's Aunt in Samobar, outside Zagreb. Her husband was working in Croatia when the war started, and she later found out that he had joined a militia unit that went back to Bosnia to feed. She learned that he was killed fighting in Derventa in June 1992, attempting to make his way to Prijedor. After two months in Samobar, her brother-in-law living in Germany came and took her and her children to Germany. She spent seven years in Germany. After seven years, she knew she could not go back to Bosnia, but she had to leave Germany. She applied and was accepted to the United States. It wasn't easy, but she states that she had to be strong for her children and give them a better life.