Thirty years after the war ended, the voices of children who, during the Siege of Sarajevo, turned their fears, hopes, and dreams into letters have once again found a space to testify. The cultural-memorial exhibition titled “Sarajevo-from War to Peace. Thirty Years Later” by author and Italian war journalist Franc Giuliano was opened today at the Rector’s Office of the University of Sarajevo, as a powerful reminder that war cannot be forgotten or repeated.
The exhibition is a testament to remembrance, solidarity, and friendship between Italy and Bosnia and Herzegovina during and after the war. Through Sarajevo students’ letters, photographs, interviews, and multimedia content, the experiences of the children who grew up under the siege are brought closer to the visitors, emphasizing the importance of a culture of remembrance, mutual understanding, and the establishment of permanent peace.
With the author’s presence, the exhibition was opened by the Vice-Rector for International Cooperation of the UNSA, Kemal Durić, and the ambassador of the Republic of Italy to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarah Eti Castellani.
Durić emphasized that the outcome of war is not only destroyed cities, but profound consequences for people.
“Those who survived the war know that it does not only result in physical destruction, but also leaves profound psychological consequences. This is why the letters the children wrote at that time carry a great symbolic and true value. At the time, they served as a form of support, hope and mutual connectivity,” Durić said.
Therefore, the University of Sarajevo did not hesitate to host the exhibition, because it not only represents a valuable historical document, but also carries a powerful message of peace.
“In addition to documentary value, we also recognized the importance of the peaceful initiative which is the base of the entire project. The University of Sarajevo is obliged to promote a culture of peace actively and values the peace stands for based on personal experience and everything its students, professors, and citizens of Sarajevo went through,” Durić said.
Giuliano recalled that he first arrived in Sarajevo in 1995 as a war reporter.
“At that time, we reporters had a task to report on how many shells hit the city and how many people died. However, while staying in Catholic School Center, I met students and came up with the idea to report on war using their voices, through their letters. I wanted to convey the experience of Sarajevo differently – through the words of children,” Giuliano said.
The letters of students were published in the Italian magazine “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno,” where he worked at the time, to familiarize the Italian public with the emotional reality of children’s lives in besieged Sarajevo, alongside war statistics.
Those letters were kept in his newsroom desk drawer for three decades. Only after he retired did he decide to revisit them and publish a book featuring a collection of children’s letters, interviews, and testimonies gathered during the war, in both Italian and Croatian.
Thirty years later, Giuliano found five women who wrote those letters as high-school medical students at the Catholic School Center. Today, their stories are an integral part of the exhibition, and visitors can view and listen to their testimonies via QR codes.
Speaking about the reasons behind the exhibition, Giuliano said the idea emerged in 2017, at a time when the world was not facing today’s wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
“I did not want these testimonies to remain locked in a drawer, but to serve as a permanent warning that what happened in Sarajevo never repeats anywhere else. Unfortunately, we witness wars happening today,” Giuliano believes.
He especially highlighted that the exhibition should remain as a warning to current and future generations.
“The young people, who fortunately have not experienced war, must know what happened so they could be the guardians of remembrance and help prevent such tragedies from repeating ever again. Every war comes to an end, just like war in Sarajevo. Today’s wars will end as well, but it is important that we preserve the remembrance, to speak up and to preserve, through messages of peace, what we managed to build after all,” Giuliano said.
During his address, he paused several times, visibly overwhelmed, so journalists stopped filming briefly as he tried to continue his speech.
The exhibition titled “Sarajevo – from War to Peace. Thirty Years Later,” remains to testify that children’s voices, despite the war, preserved the belief in life, and their letters today represent a universal message that remembrance must be preserved so the future will be more peaceful than the past, Fena writes.
