The male interviewee, born in 1946 and with a Serb background, tells how, in economic terms, his life was good before the war in the 1990s. He tells how few Croats were living in his area and how he did not experience any animosity between different ethnicities. In the area he lived war went by rather unnoticed, except for the citizens that went to the battlefield. The narrator describes how fear and division took hold of people’s lives after the killings in Diviselo. He tells about his membership of the political party Social Democratic Party (SDP). The narrator recalls the events on the day Operation Storm started, on August 5, 1995. He tells about he had to flee his town together with his family which he describes as a very intrusive experience. During their flight they passed through Banja Luka in Bosnia to end up in Inđija in Serbia with relatives. He describes the hardship they suffered as refugees. He tells how it was here that he barely escaped forced recruitment by Arkan’s army. Upon return to Croatia, he found out that his house was ruined and he tells about the reconstruction.

Date Submitted: 2013-09-24