On the occasion of Memorial Fund Day, an “Open Door Day” will be held today at the “Tunel d-B” Memorial Complex.
On this occasion, the entrance to the Tunnel of salvation will be free for the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, announced the CS Memorial Fund.
The facility D-B that is also known as Sarajevo Tunnel, which was put into operation on July 31, 1993, is one of the most important cultural and historical monuments from the recent war.
The expert adviser and curator of the museum, Belma Cuzovic, noted that Tunnel D-B is a place of unique historical experience.
“If there was no tunnel, if it was not excavated on July 30, 1993 at 9:00 p.m., we would speak about different history of Sarajevo and BiH today for sure. About two million passages were recorded through the tunnel during the war in less than two years of its functioning. Enough quantities of food, weapons and ammunition were imported into the city through the tunnel, and thus the city and its residents managed to defend themselves,” said Cuzovic.
As she noted, an increasing number of domestic visitors are visiting the tunnel, and they are remembering their experiences, their passage through the tunnel, and the time when the tunnel was the only connection with free Bosnian territory.
“Foreign visitors find it very interesting to imagine the situation in which a city in the middle of Europe in the 20th century was completely besieged, and it had only little hope for salvation, that tunnel – 800-meters long passage that connected the city with the rest of the world, and their questions are usually related to how we managed to survive,” noted Cuzovic.
On the occasion of the 25thanniversary of the Tunnel, special program will be held on July 31, in the Memorial Complex and in the premises of the Fund of Memorial at Kovaci, where a professional symposium will be organized as well. The organizer of this event will be the Memorial Fund and the Memorial Complex D-B.
This anniversary, as well as all the other anniversaries marked so far, will be dedicated to the people who participated in the construction of the tunnel.
“This is a way to thank them for everything they did in crucial moments for BiH and Sarajevo,” said Cuzovic.
The tunnel was excavated back in 1993 under the airport runway, and thus the besieged Sarajevo got its only entry and exit.
Around 4,000 people on average went through the tunnel on a daily basis. Passing through 800-meter long tunnel sometimes lasted for two hours. When the traffic was decreased, people could pass the tunnel in about 15 to 30 minutes. It is hard even to imagine that Sarajevo and its citizens could survive without a tunnel and thus it is no surprise that the communication object D-B is known under that name – the tunnel of salvation.
