Good People in an Evil Time: Portraits of Complicity and Resistance in the Bosnian War

by Svetlana Broz, Laurie Kain Hart, Ellen Elias-Bursać

In the 1990s Svetlana Broz, granddaughter of former Yugoslav head of state Marshal Tito, volunteered her services as a physician in war-torn Bosnia. She discovered that her patients were not only in need of medical care, but that they urgently had a story to tell, a story suppressed by nationalist politicians and the mainstream media. What Broz heard compelled her to devote herself over the next several years to the collection of firsthand testimonies from the war. These testimonies show that ordinary people can and do resist the murderous ideology of genocide even under the most terrible historical circumstances. We are introduced to Mile Plakalovic, a magnificent humanist, who drove his taxi through the streets of Sarajevo, picking the wounded up off the sidewalk and delivering food and clothing to young and old, even when the bombing was at its worst. We meet Velimir Milosevic, poet, who traveled with an actor and entertained children as they hid in basements to avoid the bombing and gunfire, and we hear the stories of countless others who put themselves in grave danger to help others, regardless of ethnic background.

Faced with a world in which unspeakable crimes not only went unpunished but were rewarded with glory, profit, and power, the Bosnians of all faiths who testify in this book were starkly confronted with the limits and possibilities of their own ethical choices. Here, in their own words they describe how people helped one another across ethnic lines and refused the myths promoted by the engineers of genocide. This book refutes the stereotype of inevitable natural enmities in the Balkans and reveals the responsibility of individual actions and political manipulations for the genocide; it is a searing portrait of the experience of war as well as a provocative study of the possibilities of resistance and solidarity. The testimonies reverberate far beyond the frontiers of the former Yugoslavia. This compelling book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the reality on the ground of the ethnic conflicts of the late twentieth and the twenty-first centuries.

Genres: History, War, Nonfiction

584 pages, Paperback

First published February 17, 2004

About the author

Svetlana Broz was a Bosnian author and physician who specialised in cardiology who was the granddaughter of the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito.

Reviews

[Hugo de oliveira · Rating 5 out of 5]

I belong to the generation that, during adolescence, watched Yugoslavia civil wars by television and saw many news about massacres, destruction and genocide, that made me think that that former Yugoslavs were a bunch of savages.
A part of my family, being spanish, also passed trough one civil war (Spanish Civil War), and despite the fact that occured many decades before my birth, some of those stories came to my ears told from mouth to mouth, including the one of my great grand father, that was almost killed by one of the sides, despite the fact that he was in favour of that side, all because one of is closest friends wasn´t fromthat side, and he had the courage to continue to be is friend. Despite their different political views and nationalities (is friend was born in Portugal), they continued to be friends until the end of their lifes, as it should and must be.
Fortunately this book gives a totally different view about the war.
It was writen by the granddaughter of Marshall Tito, that ruled Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1980.
After the war, as a doctor of the Sarajevo Hospital, she travelled trough Bosnia and Hercegovina to interview persons that needed to tell their stories, and the stories about the brave man and women that saved them, and were ignored by the media, that were only interested in broadcasting assassinations, mass graves and genocides.
This book is the result of those interviews in first hand. It tells the stories of people that puting their life at risk, decided to save them, regardless of their ethnic background, from the hands of the assassins that slaughtered, raped and stole people because they had a different religion/ethnic background.
This is one of those rare books that makes you believe in humanity, and one of the few ones that I read again and again from time to time, to remenber that despite all the evil outside, there are things and persons that are worthy to fight for, and change the horrible war reality trough randon acts of kindness and self sacrifice towards the others and a value that must be superior to everything, humanity. I strongly recomend it to anyone, specially the ones that want to know more about the Balkans and Yugoslavia.

[Alejandro Ramirez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy buen libro que, a través de historias de personas comunes en diferentes partes de Bosnia, muestra la crueldad y el sin sentido de esta guerra. Los capítulos y las historias se entremezclan mostrando lo peor y lo mejor del ser humano. Al ser un libro de historias en primera persona, yo recomendaría leer primero un libro más centrado en la historia de las guerras de Yugoslavia para entender el conflicto y comprender mejor las historias relatadas. No le doy 5 estrellas porque la traduccion al inglés me parece demasiado literal, lo que, en mi opinión, a veces hace que la lectura no sea tan fluída.

[Michael VanZandt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chilling collection of stories. Accounts rotate between Serb, Croat, and Bosniak (Muslim) perspectives. Interestingly, the editor of this book, Svetlana Broz, is the granddaughter of Marshall Tito. She clearly believes in the concept of a Yugoslav, an identity that transcends any of the other national identities. The first-hand stories give credence to the argument that this Balkan republic was not destined for bitter ethnic conflict. Neighbors were neighborly, regardless -- and often unbeknownst -- of one's background. Worth reading for anyone interested in this region.

[Emeyté · Rating 3 out of 5]

Desde el punto de vista académico y relacionado con la investigación, este libro es una joya. Da fé de sucesos, episodios y viñetas que forman una imagen de las manipulaciones, sentimientos y razonamientos que hay detrás de una guerra sin sentido como la que se dio en Bosnia en los años 90. Además de esto, el libro permanece como testigo de algunos episodios de sufrimiento totalmente olvidados que la etno-cracia actualmente imperante en este país ha luchado con uñas y dientes por silenciar y enterrar. Por no hablar de que la escritora es la nieta de Josip Broz (Tito). Solo ese detalle ya hace que sea una lectura imprescindible para los interesados en el tema.

Ahora bien, no es una lectura recomendable por puro placer lector o para quien no esté muy, muy interesado en el conflicto. Desde un punto de vista puramente literario es un documento muy extenso (quizá incluso excesivamente), de prosa muy, muy sencilla y, por momentos, tremendamente repetitivo.

Concusión: recomiendo que se lea como crónica de investigación, pero no como novela u otro género literario.

[Annie Mooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books about war I’ve ever read, and it’s because it’s not really about the facts of the war (ie strategy, exact timelines). It’s about the people and more specifically, how people helped each other during the unthinkable. I am grateful to be able to have read these accounts in this book and to keep memories alive of those who lost their lives and continue to remember those who help. Like Mister Rogers said, look for the helpers!!!!!

[Margaret Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

My father was Irish, English and German. My mother had Italian, Venetian, Slovenian and Croatian/Montenegrin grandparents. After World War 2 she identified as Yugoslav and emigrated to Australia. My parents were married when I was born and, due to an abundance of pregnancies, I was adopted as a baby by an Australian couple who were English.

From this family history it is clear that I have no concept of nationalism. As far as I can tell, people of different ethnicities ought to live together.

‘Good People in an Evil Time’ by Svetlana Broz is about how people of different ethnicities do live together, how they cared for each other during the horrors of the Bosnian war of the 1990’s, and how ethnic barriers and hatred whipped up for purely political purposes did not stop courage, kindness and generosity.

I visited Bosnia in May 1985, and this is how I described it in my diary:
The whole landscape is terribly pretty. Villages are set into the greenery of deep gullies and the caps of the distant mountains are snow-covered. There is still snow by the side of the road, although it has turned to ice. Among the hills nestle little towns with one, two or three storey houses and sloping rooves, very much like Austria. The difference is that the people are poor. Hay is stacked in tall, peaked domes, maybe six or seven feet high. Farm animals live inside the rickety hand-made yards: cows, pigs, big black boars, chickens, dogs, ducks. Without the highways, these little towns and farms with their hand made buildings and fences could be taken straight out of the seventeenth century…To this day, I have not forgotten the sight of a woman in Turkish trousers drawing a plough by hand across a field.

This is the country that was destroyed by politicians in order to fulfill their lust for power. Broz writes: ‘When [Slobodan Milošević] realized it was not possible to be a leader of all Yugoslavia in the way he wished, he tried to destroy it and construct a Greater Serbia and Greater Croatia. But it was a problematic project as people were then living decently together.’ It was therefore decided that fear created by nationalism was to be the trigger for war.

A few years ago, I was corresponding with a man in Istria who told me that, during this time, activists had come to Istria from outside deliberately to stir up ethnic hatred. As I read Broz’s book, I learned that the same was true all over the Old Yugoslavia.

I have just begun the many personal stories, and I will write a more extensive review when I’m finished.

[Táňa Sedláková · Rating 5 out of 5]

ťažítko na hárku papiera. od myšlienky nenávisti k činom vojny je vzdialenosť strašidelne krátka. od snahy o porozumenie inakosti k stereotypu o človeku národa, či náboženstva podobne. odviesť sa 9hodín vlakom smerom k hlasnej dychovke a tichým ešte zničeným domom alebo sa aspoň ponoriť do príbehov ľudí tam? ťažítko z mramoru v odtieňoch dobra a zla. na hárku papiera.

"Později jsem se dovědela, že to byl Mile Plakalović, slavný Srb, který během obležení Sarajeva převážel lidi po městě bezplatně, sbíral i raněné a zbité a odvážal je do nemocnice. Pokaždé, kdy mě uviděl, tak mě svezl, aniž by se někdy zeptal, jak se jmenuju. Někdy mě vzal do pekárny. Vždycky mi dal celý teplý chléb! Nikdy nezapomenu vuni teplého chleba, kterým jsem si v zimě hřála tváře." Serafina Lukić, okt1988"

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Berte mě s rezervou, protože já nemám ráda povídkový knížky. Nejde se do nich začíst, nejde (mi) číst dvě povídky po sobě, seru se s tim dycky jak s první láskou.

Tak zaprvé, co měl bejt ten sebestřednej úvod, měla jsem pocit že v ruce držim minimálně druhou bibli. Ty příběhy by mi asi stačily tak tři, měly všechny vlastně stejný schéma. Možná až těch pár na konci trochu přitvrdilo.

Ale možná jsem k tomu taková vlažná protože mě to prostě nepřekvapilo, protože přeci vim, že to nebyla válka všech (a žádná nikdy neni), a protože bych si ráda myslela, že to byly povídky o lidech ze stejnýho těsta jako jsem já. To o tom že jediný co můžem na konci mít je čistý svědomí... a to o tom že zůstat dobrym člověkem je to nejtěžší... z poslední povídky... podle takovýho vzoru chci žít.