Bosnian refugees, many from Sarajevo, cling to each other as their Red Cross bus departs for sanctuary in western Europe, Zagreb, Croatia,1992.

GOING OUT OF SARAJEVO
Sometime in June 1994, as part of the project Witnesses of Existence, I came out of Sarajevo for the first time, went to Biel, a small town near Bern. That was the first time I got out. I went with about five artists and the organizers of the exhibition·..To get out of Sarajevo, besieged, shelled and are in a town where normal, peaceful life was going on, where people walked about the streets after nine o'clock, quite ordinarily. It was a bit of a shock, a bit unforgettable·. A woman came, a rich Swiss woman in a fur coat. Prosperous looking, well groomed, you could see she was rich. She looked at our exhibition and we laughing and joking and all at once she began to cry. The crying of that woman made me realize the full force of what was happening to us. I'd never thought about it. Looking at her as if she were me, like I might before the war have visited an exhibition showing some terrible catastrophe that had taken place. Looking at the dreadful and moving pictures of it, of course I would cry. But as a witness of it here was me laughing and she, as a visitor felt the full drama and began to cry. It was then that I became aware of what was happening to us in Sarajevo.
Edo Numankadic'
Painter

Excerpt From: Sarajevo survivor testimonies from OPSADA (The Siege) by FAMA International