The "Breaking Borders" episode where they were in Sarajevo mentioned two people - two victims - of the Siege of Sarajevo that I thought warranted their own entry. I had heard about them before this episode - I watched a documentary on it for the 20th anniversary of their deaths. They are known as the Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo. Her name was Admira Ismić and she was a Bosniak (a Bosnian Muslim.) His name was Boško Brkić (Cyrillic: Бошко Бркић) and he was Serbian Orthodox.. They were both born in 1968 and lived in Sarajevo when the Siege began.
The following is an article published by the NY Times on May 8, 1994 with more of their story:
"If you watch "Frontline" Tuesday night on PBS you will see the story of two ordinary young people, Bosko Brkic, an Eastern Orthodox Serb, and Admira Ismic, a Muslim, who met at a New Year's Eve party in the mid-1980's, fell in love, tried to pursue the most conventional of dreams, and died together on a hellish bridge in Sarajevo. The documentary, called "Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo," achieves its power by focusing our attention on the thoroughly human individuals caught up in a horror that, from afar, can seem abstract and almost unimaginable. It's one thing to hear about the carnage caused by incessant sniper fire and the steady rain of mortar shells on a city; it's something quite different to actually witness a parent desperately groping for meaning while reminiscing about a lost daughter. For viewers overwhelmed and desensitized by the relentless reports of mass killings and mass rapes, the shock of "Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo" is that what we see is so real and utterly familiar. We become riveted by the mundane. Bosko and Admira could be a young couple from anywhere, from Queens, or Tokyo, or Barcelona. We learn that they graduated from high school in June of 1986 and that both were crazy about movies and music. Admira had a cat named Yellow that she loved, and Bosko liked to play practical jokes. Admira's father, Zijo, speaking amid clouds of cigarette smoke, says, "Well, I knew from the first day about that relationship and I didn't have anything against it. I thought it was good because her guy was so likable, and after a time I started to love him and didn't regard him any differently than Admira." For Admira and Bosko, of course, love was the answer to everything. While Bosko was away on compulsory military service soon after high school, Admira wrote: "My dear love, Sarajevo at night is the most beautiful thing in the world. I guess I could live somewhere else but only if I must or if I am forced. Just a little beat of time is left until we are together. After that, absolutely nothing can separate us." Sarajevo at the time was a cosmopolitan city coming off the triumph of the 1984 Winter Olympics. With a population of Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Jews and others, the city had become a symbol of ethnic and religious tolerance, a place where people were making a serious attempt to live together in peace. But civilization is an exceedingly fragile enterprise, and it's especially vulnerable to the primal madness of ethnic and religious hatreds. Simple tolerance is nothing in the face of the relentless, pathetic and near-universal need to bolster the esteem of the individual and the group by eradicating the rights, and even the existence, of others. When the madness descended on Sarajevo, Bosko Brkic faced a cruel dilemma. He could not kill Serbs. And he could not go up into the hills and fire back down on his girlfriend's people. Says his mother, Rada: "He was simply a kid who was not for the war." Bosko and Admira decided to flee Sarajevo. To escape, they had to cross a bridge over the Miljacka River in a no-man's land between the Serb and Muslim lines. Snipers from both sides overlooked the bridge. It has not been determined who shot the lovers. They were about two-thirds of the way across the bridge when the gunfire erupted. Both sides blame the other. Witnesses said Bosko died instantly. Admira crawled to him. She died a few minutes later. The area in which they were shot was so dangerous that the bodies remained on the bridge, entwined, for six days before being removed."
These two innocent people show what Bosnia was like before the War (inter-ethnic and peaceful) and they also show what the country became during the War (ethnic cleansing.) Their story has become world famous, but it is also famous around the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and especially Sarajevo so much so that no side is willing to admit who actually killed this couple. To admit that guilt would admit to being completely inhumane monsters on par with the Nazis or Khmer Rouge. The only thing that is known is that Ismić and Brkić grew up together, died together and are buried together. In a country like Bosnia and Herzegovina where the country is split between a Serbian republic and a Croat/Bosniak republic and where schools and cemeteries and segregated being buried together after being killed in a senseless war shows that there is still hope.
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