Reminiscences- part one

[Bassim]

Dear people.
Please, would you proofread my text.

This windy, snowy and cold winter evening my thoughts go back to the past, to the days which changed my life and the lives of thousands of my countrymen for ever. Something has died inside me. I do not know when that had happened; when the war broke out, when the soldiers arrested us and escorted to the prison camp or when I came as a refugee to Sweden?

Nobody believed the tragedy would repeat again. During the Second World War my country was a place where horrific crimes took place. Germans used to kill one hundred innocent persons for a killed German soldiers and fifty for a wounded one. They eradicated whole villages and killed all their citizens if they suspected they were helping the partisans. And as if all that was not enough, people of my country started to kill each other in a meaningless war which only brought misery to everyone. There is no a piece of the land which was not covered in blood, not a family who did not suffer the loss of their sons and daughters.

After the end of the war, people started to believe in the new society where all injustices and killings would be forgotten and people starting to build the country where religion and nationality would never be important. Communists wanted to create a society where everyone would be equal, God did not exist and millions of the citizens blindly follow the leader on their path to the better society.
However, when the first skirmishes began, we understood we lived in a dream which was going to turn into the worst nightmare. Reason and logic retreated; defeated by the madmen who started to talk about their nations which were under threat. The old uniforms from the Second World War came out of the wardrobes followed by the sharp knives, grenades and guns.

You could feel the smell of death even before the first victims started to fall down on the streets. Fear, hatred, intolerance and primitiveness became part of everyday life. People who had money and understood what was going to happen left the country some months ago, while the poor and those who did not want to believe in human madness stayed at home hopping that everything would be all right and at the end sanity would prevail.

However, sanity was always something far away on the Balkans. For hundreds of years generations had been killing each other and never learnt the lesson. In other parts of Europe mothers are telling beautiful stories to their children before sleep while in my country they were telling stories about killings which happened hundreds of years ago, drumming into their brains hatred which exploded one day and made young people who did not even experience the Second World War war criminals who tortured and raped their victims, committing such ferocious crimes Europe has not seen since the end of the last War.

So, the day when the first gun-fires rattled in the streets of my hometown I knew the turn had come for my generation. We were going to taste blood, to see our neighbours killed, women raped, property destroyed. We all were educated together, we lived together, we went to school together, worked together, married each other without ever carrying of the religious affiliation, celebrated birthdays, read the same papers and books, supported the same clubs and watched the same TV programs until the day when the leaders decided that all this was wrong. "We have to fight against each other, we cannot live together any more," they said and tragedy was the majority started to believe in their words.

To be continued...

[Anglika]

Originally Posted by Bassim

Dear people.
Please, would you proofread my text.

This windy, snowy and cold winter evening my thoughts go back to the past, to the days which changed my life and the lives of thousands of my countrymen for ever. Something has died inside me. I do not know when that had happened: when the war broke out, when the soldiers arrested us and escorted to the prison camp, or when I came as a refugee to Sweden?

Nobody believed the tragedy would repeat again be repeated. During the Second World War my country was a place where horrific crimes took place. Germans used to kill one hundred innocent persons for a killed German soldiers and fifty for a wounded one. They eradicated whole villages and killed all their citizens if they suspected they were helping the partisans. And as if all that was not enough, people of my country started to kill each other in a meaningless war which only brought misery to everyone. There is no piece of the land which was not covered in blood, not a family who did not suffer the loss of their sons and daughters.

After the end of the war, people started to believe in the new society where all injustices and killings would be forgotten and people started to build a country where religion and nationality would never be important. Communists wanted to create a society where everyone would be equal, God did not exist and millions of the citizens would blindly follow their leaders on their path to the better society.
However, when the first skirmishes began, we understood we lived in a dream which was going to turn into the worst nightmare. Reason and logic retreated, defeated by the madmen who started to talk about their nations which were under threat. The old uniforms from the Second World War came out of the wardrobes followed by the sharp knives, grenades and guns.

You could feel the smell of death even before the first victims started to fall down on the streets. Fear, hatred, intolerance and primitiveness became part of everyday life. People who had money and understood what was going to happen left the country some months ago, while the poor and those who did not want to believe in human madness stayed at home, hoping that everything would be all right and that in the end sanity would prevail.

However, sanity was always something far away in the Balkans. For hundreds of years generations had been killing each other and never learnt the lesson. In other parts of Europe mothers are telling beautiful stories to their children before sleep while in my country they were telling stories about killings which happened hundreds of years ago,long ago in the past, drumming into their brains hatred which exploded one day and made young people, who had not even experienced the Second World War, war criminals who tortured and raped their victims, committing such ferocious crimes as Europe has not seen since the end of the last War.

So the day [that/on which] the first gunfire rattled in the streets of my hometown, I knew the turn had come for my generation.it was the turn of my generation. We were going to taste blood, to see our neighbours killed, women raped, property destroyed. We all were educated together, we lived together, we went to school together, worked together, married each other without ever caring about religion, celebrated birthdays, read the same papers and books, supported the same clubs and watched the same TV programs, until the day when the leaders decided that all this was wrong. "We have to fight against each other, we cannot live together any more," they said and tragedy was the majority started to believe in their words.

To be continued...

.

What can one say -

[Bassim]

Anglika

Sweetie,

Thank you very much for the help. The job you are doing here is priceless.
May all your dreams come true!