Routes and Camps YELLOW PIECE OF PAPER BELONGING TO RADMILA ERCEG Zvornik (Bosnia-Herzegovina), 1992 A Journey into the Unknown Every departure is different. For most it is likely to be a rupture that leaves deep marks on their lives. What can we say about this specific moment in which people are forced to abandon their homes? Usually, there is little evidence or record. There might be an official directive ordering or coordinating forced migration. Some people hastily write down a list of important belongings lest they leave them behind. Other items taken along rather symbolise the hope of returning some day, such as the key to a flat or house. The kind of luggage people carry may reveal something about the conditions of departure: did they have time to pack? Were they able to send anything ahead? Almost always, an entire household has been reduced to just a few items. What was more important: food and clothing or family photographs? Involuntary departure, whether sudden or planned, is always a confrontation with painful decisions about what to take and what to leave behind – most likely forever. Radmila Erceg had no time to pack. Together with her husband and two daughters she only narrowly escaped Bosnian-Serb soldiers. In 1991, when war broke out in Yugoslavia, her family were living in the town of Zvornik in Bosnia-Herzegovina, near the Serbian border. Her husband came from a Muslim family, she herself had a Serbian-Orthodox background. There had been hardly any ethnically homogenous communities in BosniaHerzegovina before the war, and like many interrelated people around them, the Ercegs had married despite ethnic and religious differences. In the spring of 1992, Bosnian-Serb troops occupied Zvornik and expelled, abused or murdered its Muslim residents. The Erceg family managed to flee to friends in the city of Novi Sad, some 150 kilometres away. Shortly afterwards, Radmila returned home, risking her life to help her mother-and sister-in-law escape from Zvornik. She also wanted to recover a few personal items her husband had jotted down on a yellow notepad. LUDMILA GELWICH
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