Od Patricka McCarthyja, autora knjige After the Fall: Srebrenica Survivors in St. Louis (2000), u koautorstvu sa Akifom Cogom najesen stiže nova knjige o bosanskohercegovačkoj dijasporskoj zajednici u St. Louisu. U ovom razgovoru, Patrick McCarthy kazuje o nastanku knjige Bosnian St. Louis: Between Two Worlds, kao i o njenoj važnosti za dokumentovanje života bh. dijaspore u SAD-u.
Inspiracija za pisanje knjige
Patrick McCarthy: Sjećam se da sam jednog dana došao kod Akifa Coge i rekao mu kako imam ideju o tome da pokušamo na neki način ispričati priču o Bosancima i Hercegovcima u St. Louisu. Akif je moj mlađi kolega, rodom iz Zenice i sa dugogodišnjim novinarskim iskustvom. Već dugo vremena sam poznavao Akifa, pa sam mislio da bi mogao biti zainteresovan da na ovom projektu radimo zajedno. Ljudi ovdje znaju za Bosance, jer je zajednica prilično velika, ali ono što je manje poznato jeste to kako su oni dospjeli ovdje? Ko je bio ovdje prije? Kako je osnovana bh. zajednica u St. Louisu? U našoj knjizi, mi u jednom smislu pričamo hronološki organizovanu priču počevši od toga koji su bili prvi Bosanci koji su došli u St. Louis. Zašto su oni došli? Šta se dogodilo kada je ogroman broj ljudi počeo dolaziti zbog rata u BiH? Zatim pričamo o tragediji koja se dogodila sa Selmom Dučanović. Posvetili smo pažnju i bivšoj Jugoslaviji, prije i poslije. Govorimo o odnosu Amerikanaca prema bh. dijasporskoj zajednici u St. Louisu, koja je svakim danom rasla. Razgovaramo o tome kako se zajednica organizovala; kako su se riješavala različita organizaciona pitanja; kako su se uspostavljale vjerske institucije. Danas postoje tri bosanske džamije u St. Louisu, a mi u knjizi objašnjavamo kako su one nastale. Opisujemo politički angažman Bosanaca u SAD-u i njihov napredak u američkom društvu. Knjiga uključuje intervjue sa ljudima poput Enesa Kanlića, ortopedskog hirurga, koji je u St. Louis stigao 1991. godine. Veliki dio podataka za našu knjigu došao je u saradnji sa Bosnia Memory Project-om, na Univerzitetu Fontbonne. Međutim, kada god su postojale dileme o zaštiti privatnosti, korišteni su odgovarajući pseudonimi kako bi se zaštitili preživjeli i kako bi im se omogućilo da svoje priče ispričaju tačno i istinito.
Porijeklo bosanskohercegovačke zajednice u St. Louisu
Patrick McCarthy: Započinjemo našu knjigu pričajući priče o ljudima poput Stipe Prajza, Muharema Basića, Ibrišima Dedića i Smaje Čehajića, koji su već bili u St. Louisu kada je počeo rat u BiH 1992. godine. Bili su to ljudi koji su već poznavali engleski jezik i bili su voljni da pomognu izbjeglicama koje su dolazile. U februaru 1993. godine došlo je prvih pet porodica koje su uglavnom bile sa područja Bosanske krajine i ljudi koji su preživjeli strahote logora u BiH. Čak i mnogo prije postojao je Međunarodni institut, koji je već više od stotinu godina pomagao izbjeglicama imigrantima koji su se doseljavali u St. Louis. Oni su bili dio mreže za preseljenje izbjeglica i zapravo su predali informacije State Departmentu SAD-a, IOM-u (Međunarodna organizacija za migracije) i drugim izbjegličkim organizacijama, koje su koordinirale većinu preseljenja izbjeglica iz Evrope. Međunarodni institut je uradio svoju zadaću i otkrio da ima ljudi ne samo iz bivše Jugoslavije, nego zapravo ljudi porijeklom iz Bosne i Hercegovine koji su već ovdje u St. Louisu. Iako su mnogi od njih bili muslimani porijeklom, bili su povezani sa katoličkom Crkvom sv. Josipa, koja je okupljala Hrvate u St.Louisu. Jedan od ljudi koji je pomagao prvim ljudima koji su stizali iz rata u St. Louis je bio Stipe Prajz, porijeklom iz Kotor Varoši, koji je u St. Louis došao 1951. godine kao politički disident iz Jugoslavije.
Stipe, Katolik, bosanski Hrvat, bio je ključan u pomaganju bosanskim izbjeglicama koje su dolazile tokom rata. Posvećivao je jako mnogo vremena da im pomogne. Uklonio je sjedišta u svom kombiju i postavio drvene klupe kako bi moglo stati više ljudi kada ih je odvodio na preglede kod doktora, da ih upiše u razne kurseve i škole i gdje je to još trebalo. Svoj podrum je napunio odjećom i namještajem koje je kupovao na raznim rasprodajama, kako bi sve to mogao podijeliti izbjeglicama koje su dolazile. Imao je instaliran trosmjerni telefonski sistem, što je omogućavalo da on prevodi razgovore bosanskim izbjeglicama koje u to vrijeme nisu poznavale engleski jezik. Stipe je bio primjer čovjeka, koji je već bio ovdje i koji je bio spreman pomoći. Tu je bio i Muharem Basić, koji je bivšu Jugoslaviju napustio držeći se za vagon voza koji je išao za Sloveniju. Nakon Slovenije je putem Austrije otišao za Njemačku. Iz Njemačke je 1968. godine došao u SAD. Prvobitno je bio u Clevelandu, a kasnije je došao u St. Louis. Muharem je došao u St. Louis zajedno sa još jednim čovjekom, Smajom Čehajić, porijeklom iz Sanskog Mosta. Stipo je pomogao Muharemu i Smaji da se zaposle u St. Louisu, kada su došli ovdje 1960-ih. Bio je tu još jedan Ključanin, Ibrišim Dedić koji je također već bio u St Louisu. Bilo je nekolicina ljudi iz Bosne i Hercegovine, koji su dolazili u različito vrijeme u periodu nakon Drugog svjetskog rata i koji su bili spremni pomoći izbjeglicama iz rata u BiH 1992-95.
Ovdje u St. Louisu je bila jedna mala grupa ljudi iz BiH, različitog porijekla i oni su poznavali jezik i bili su motivisani da pomognu zajednicu, jer su vidjeli šta se dešavalo tokom rata u BiH. Jedan dio knjige je posvećen pričanju te priče, na osnovu naših intervjua sa Stipom i Muharemom. Stipe je preminuo dok smo pisali knjigu, a Smajo prije samo nekoliko sedmica. Muharem i Ibrišim su još uvijek živi, a i od Ibrišimove sestre smo dobili mnogo podataka o samim počecima. Bili smo jako sretni jer smo uspjeli zapisati te priče dok su njihovi sudionici bili još uvijek živi da ih ispričaju. Iskreno, da nije bilo nekoga ko je bio dovoljno motiviran da pronađe sve te ljude, njihove priče bi bile zauvijek izgubljene. Izbjeglice su počele dolaziti i stvarno su dolazile masovno, bilo direktno iz BiH ili su preseljeni iz drugih zemalja, poput Mađarske ili Hrvatske. U početku su se ljudi povezivali sa onima iz istog grada. Dakle, bila je jedna grupa iz Kozarca, jedna iz Sarajeva. To su bili ljudi koji su se poznavali od ranije, još iz BiH. Ali sada, zbog veličine zajednice, imamo ljude iz gotovo svake veće općine u Bosni i Hercegovini, pa čak i iz većine sela i manjih gradova.
Naseljavanje u četvrtima St. Louisa
Patrick McCarthy: Postoje određene četvrti St. Louisa u kojima su se prvobitno naseljavale izbjeglice iz BiH. U to vrijeme ovi dijelovi grada su bili stariji, dotrajali, a nakon dolaska Bosanaca oni su procvjetali. Vlasnici stanova su bili zaprepašteni time kada su njihovi podstanari, Bosanci počeli da popravljaju stanove. Stanovi bi im bili u boljem stanju i čistiji nakon iznajmljivanja. Bosanci su svoj najam plaćali u gotovini i na vrijeme. Plaćali su lično, a nerijetko su vlasnike stanova koje su iznajmljivali pozivali na kafu, da im upoznaju cijelu porodicu. Reputacija Bosanaca u St. Louisu je postala vrlo, vrlo pozitivna, a zatim se dogodila tragedija 1998. godine. Te godine je mlada Bosanka Selma Dučanović prvo kidnapovana, a nakon toga ubijena. Zajednica je zaista izgubila prvobitni osjećaj sigurnosti i onda je počela napuštati grad. Ali ne samo iz tog razloga, tražili su bolje uslove za stanovanje, bolje škole, više mogućnosti. Došlo je do migracije iz grada u vanjska predgrađa, južno od grada St. Louisa. Ti dijelovi grada su sada većinom bosanski, a školske četvrti u ovim, novim predgrađima čine 80% bosanska djeca. Bosanska zajednica je imala ogroman uticaj na grad. Cijela populacija grada Saint Louisa je 350.000, a u ovom gradu živi preko 60.000 ljudi porijeklom iz Bosne i Hercegovina, što je veliki broj.
“Svijet je pun ljudi koji će umrijeti na mjestu gdje nikada nisu očekivali da će živjeti.” – Aleksandar Hemon
Priče o sjećanju i gubitku
Patrick McCarthy: Knjiga uključuje historiju nastanka bh. dijasporske zajednice, ali postoji i narativna linija koja se provlači kroz cijelu knjigu o sjećanju i gubitku i tom osjećaju postojanja u dva različita svijeta. Zbog toga smo knjigu i nazvali: „Bosanski St. Louis: Između dva svijeta.” Jedan citat Ive Andrića koji koristimo u knjizi govori o tome kako kada živiš u dva svijeta, imaš dvije domovine, a kako zapravo nemaš nijedne domovinu, kako se svugdje možeš osjećati kao kod kuće, ali uvijek biti stranac. Mislim da je i ovo univerzalno pitanje o tome kada napuštate neko mjesto, bilo zato što ste prisiljeni, ili ako sami odlučite da odete. To sve postaje umotano u vaš identitet i osjećaj pripadnosti, a mislim da zaista postoji ljudski impuls ka pripadnosti. Živimo u eri raseljenja i izbjeglica. Širom svijeta postoje mnogi ljudi, koji će, kao što to Saša Hemon kaže u uvodu knjige “umrijeti na mjestu gdje nisu očekivali da će živjeti.” Taj osjećaj “pomjerenosti” je vrlo duboka i značajna stvarnost za mnoge ljude, a u njemu se sažimaju mjesta sjećanja, sjećanja na prošlost, sjećanja na prošli život, a u isto vrijeme imperativom postaje živjeti na nekom novom mjesto, gdje je sve nepoznato.
Priče o hrabrosti i istrajnosti
Patrick McCarthy: Ono što pokušavamo sa knjigom jeste ispričati jednu ljudsku priču o mnogim tužnim iskustvima, ali i o mnogim dostignućima, mnogo otpornosti, istrajnosti, ponovnog ustajanja, stajanja na vlastite noge nakon objektivno veoma teških životnih okolnosti. Znate, jedna osoba iz ove zajednice, koju veoma volim i poštujem se vratila u BiH, a i nakon njenog povratka naše prijateljstvo se nastavilo. Ta osoba je u Srebrenici izgubila muža i školovala se samo do šestog razreda. Mislim, ona je porijeklom iz sela u blizini Potočara, nadomak Srebrenice. Međutim, ona je jedna od onih ljudi koji posjeduju duboko znanje o tome kako se živi kvalitetno, o tome šta je važno, a šta nije važno, a uvijek je veoma duhovita. Njen pristup životu se zasniva na tome da se mora nastaviti koračati, korak po korak i nastaviti dalje, jer nema nikakve magične formule. Ona je jedna od najmudrijih i najpametnijih ljudi koje poznajem. Sve što ona kaže u potpunosti poštujem, jer mislim da postoji jedna društvena sofisticiranost u bosanskohercegovačkoj i općenito u južnoslavenskim kulturama, koje su vrlo usmjerene na čovjeka. Ono što je evoluiralo u ovim kulturama kroz vijekove, jeste da ljudi znaju čemu da pridaju važnost, a šta je to što dolazi i prolazi.
U knjizi imamo poglavlje o dvije mlade žene koje su bile djeca i odrastale tokom rata. Obje su izgubile očeve u ratu. Jedna od njih svog oca nikada nije upoznala, jer joj je majka bila trudna tokom pada Srebrenice, a ona rođena nekoliko sedmica nakon toga. Tijelo njenog oca nikada nije pronađeno, a ubijen je u 21. godini. Na svoj 21. rođendan, ta mlada žena vidi svoj život kao nastavak života svog ubijenog oca. U knjizi pričamo o te dvije prekretnice – gubitku oca, kojeg nikada nije upoznala, ali i svom vlastitom odrastanju. Ovdje smo pokušali ne samo da se fokusiramo na sve užasne stvari, već i da kroz sve te priče stavimo focus na hrabrosti, snagu, otpornost i sposobnost da se nastavi dalje. Mislim da je to nešto na šta su izbjeglice u suštini prisiljene, jer mislim da im i nije dat izbor. Moraju dalje nastaviti živjeti svoje živote.
Dokumentovanje iskustva bh. dijaspore u SAD-u
Patrick McCarthy: Postoje već neke knjige napisane o životu bh. dijasporske zajednice u SAD-u, a mi se nadamo da će nastaviti rasti interes za ovu temu. Knjiga koju sam objavio 2000. godine, a na kojoj sam radio krajem 1990-ih, vjerovatno je jedina knjiga fokusirana na bh. zajednicu St. Louisa, koja je obrađena kroz priču jedne velike porodice iz Srebrenice. Naša nova knjiga je važan doprinos u tom smislu da bi ove priče bile izgubljene da ih mi nismo na vrijeme zapisali i sačuvali od zaborava. Imao sam prednost što sam poznavao veliki broj ljudi o kojima se govori u našoj knjizi, a i sam sam učestvovao u tim događajima. Naša knjiga ne predstavlja sveobuhvatnu priču i neke ljude smo morali nažalost izostaviti, ali ono što mi kažemo jeste da naša knjiga predstavlja dio priče o Bosancima u St. Louisu. Naša knjiga može pomoći u poticanju budućeg rada i istraživanja u ovoj oblasti. Nadamo se da ćemo ostaviti nekoliko tragova, kako bi se u budućnosti ljudi mogli vratiti i nastaviti istraživanje o ovoj temi. Čini mi se da je sada, nakon što je prošlo skoro trideset godina, bh. zajednica spremna da svoju priču ispriča od svojih početaka do danas. U St. Louisu svakako postoji veliko interesovanje da se sazna više o Bosancima, o svemu što su ovdje postigli i čemu su doprinijeli.
Učenje od bosanskog St. Louisa
Patrick McCarthy: Mi u SAD-u imamo mnogo toga za naučiti iz pozitivnih iskustava zajednica kao što je to bh. zajednica u St. Louisu: šta je to što se dobro uradilo, a šta ne. U St. Louisu sada žive ljudi koji su došli iz gradova poput Sarajeva, Banjaluke i Mostara, ali i ljudi iz vrlo malih sela Istočne Bosne, dosta ljudi iz Podrinja, koji su došli nakon rata, iz Žepe, iz Srebrenice, Goražda i iz okolinih gradova i sela. I onda kad odem u Bosnu i kažem, ja sam iz St. Louisa, svi imaju prijatelja, rođaka, brata koji žive tamo.
Patrick McCarthy je poznavalac bosanske imigracije u SAD i historije Bosne i Hercegovine. Radio je sa bosanskom zajednicom od 1993. godine, pružajući pomoć pri preseljenju izbjeglicama koje su bježale od rata i genocida u Bosni i Hercegovini 1990-ih. McCarthy je otputovao u ratom zahvaćenu BiH 1994. godine da dostavi humanitarnu pomoć. Iste godine je osnovao Bosnia Student Project u St. Louisu, koji je pružao stipendije za bosanske studente izbjeglice na lokalnim fakultetima i univerzitetima. McCarthy je koautor sa fotografom Tomom Madayom knjige After the Fall: Srebrenica Survivors in St. Louis (2000), knjige koju je pratila jednogodišnja izložba u Istorijskom muzeju države Missouri. Takođe je koautor i generalni urednik časopisa Ethnic St. Louis (2015). Počasni je član Bosanskohercegovačko-američke akademije umjetnosti i nauka. McCarthy je bio saradnik putujuće izložbe Prijedor: Životi iz genocida u Bosni. Osnivač je i moderator Radne grupe za Bosnu i Hercegovinu, zagovaračke organizacije koja promovira sigurnost, demokratiju i vladavinu prava za Bosnu i Hercegovinu i njen narod. McCarthy je profesor i Dekan biblioteka na Univerzitetu Saint Louis, gdje vodi Biblioteku Medicinskog centra.
Akif Cogo je historičar i arhivista za St. Louis Bosnians Inc., neprofitnu organizaciju koju je osnovao 2011. godine. Organizacija pruža dobrotvorne, kulturne i obrazovne programe i provodi zagovaranje na lokalnom, državnom, nacionalnom i međunarodnom nivou za bosanske Amerikance. St. Louis Bosnians Inc. održava online bazu podataka stlbosnian.com , koja prikuplja, čuva i čini dostupnim informacije o bosanskohercegovačkom narodu u St. Louisu za edukaciju i uvid u ideje i stvarnosti koje su oblikovale živote ljudi porijeklom iz Bosne i Hercegovini. Rođen je u Zenici, Cogo je preživio rat i preselio se u Sjedinjene Države 2001. godine, nakon što je kratko živio u Njemačkoj kao izbjeglica. Dodiplomske i postdiplomske studije završio je u St. Louisu, gdje i danas živi. 2016. godine je Cogo prepoznat od strane St. Louis Business Journala kao jedan od „40 mlađih od, 40“ najutjecajnijih poslovnih ljudi u regiji St. Louis. 2017. godine je dobio nagradu Immigrant Professional projekta Mozaik St. Louisa, kao jedan od najuticajnijih poslovnih ljudi imigrantskog porijekla u St. Louisu.
Bosnian St. Louis: Between Two Worlds, by Patrick McCarthy and Akif Cogo
From Patrick McCarthy, the author of After the Fall: Srebrenica Survivors in St. Louis (2000), a new book co-authored with Akif Cogo on the Bosnian community in St. Louis to be published in fall 2022. I sat down with Patrick McCarthy to discuss Bosnian St. Louis: Between Two Worlds and its significance for documenting the BiH diaspora experience.
Inspiration for writing the book
Patrick McCarthy: I remember coming up to Akif Cogo, one day and telling him how I have this idea that we should try to write something that tells the story of Bosnians in St. Louis. Akif is a younger Bosnian man from Zenica with a journalism background. I had known Akif for a long time and thought that he might be interested in working on this project. People here know about Bosnians, because the community is quite large, but what is less known is how did they get here? Who was here before? How was the community established? In one sense, we tell a straight line chronologically organized story of who were the first Bosnians to come to St. Louis. Why did they come? What happened when huge numbers of people started coming from the war? Then we talk about this tragedy that occurred with Selma Dučanović. We talk a little bit about the former Yugoslavia before and after. We talk about the response of Americans to the growing community in St. Louis. We talk about how the community organized; how it got settled; how it established religious institutions. There are now three Bosnian mosques in St. Louis and we tell the story of how they were established. We discuss how Bosnians began to flex their political muscle in St. Louis and of how they’ve prospered. The book includes interviews with people like Enes Kanlić, who is an orthopedic surgeon and who had arrived in St. Louis in 1991. Much of the information for our book came in cooperation with the Bosnian Memory Project at Fontbonne University, but whenever in doubt regarding privacy, appropriate pseudonyms were used to protect the survivors in telling their story with accuracy and veracity.
Origins of the Bosnian community in St. Louis
Patrick McCarthy: We start the book by telling the stories of people like Stipo Prajz, Muharem Basić, Ibrišim Dedić and Smajo Čehajić, who were already in St. Louis when the 1992 war in Bosnia started. They were people who had language skills and they were willing to help the incoming refugees. In February of 1993, the first five families came and they were mainly from the Krajina area in BiH and were concentration camp survivors. But before that, there was the International Institute, which has been in St. Louis, helping immigrants and refugees for over a hundred years. They were part of networks for resettling refugees and they had actually filed information with the US State Department and other refugee organizations, such as the IOM (International Organization for Migration) that coordinated a lot of refugee resettlement from Europe. The International Institute did their homework and found out that there are people from not only the former Yugoslavia, but there are actually some people from Bosnia and Herzegovina who are already here in St. Louis. They were connected with St. Joseph’s Croatian Catholic church, even though many of them were Muslim. One of the people who were helping the early arrivals from the war to St. Louis was Stipe Prajz, originally from Kotor Varoš, who had come to St. Louis in 1951 as a political refugee from Yugoslavia.
Stipe, a Catholic, a Bosnian Croat was instrumental in helping when Bosnian refugees came during the war. He pretty much devoted himself full time to helping them. He removed the seats in his van and put these wooden benches in, so he could jam more people into his van and take them to doctor’s appointments, getting them signed up for school or wherever they needed to go. He filled his basement with clothing and furniture that he had bought at house sales and estate sales. He had a three-way phone system installed, so he could call the phone company, and then you would have the Bosnian person on one of the threads of the call and he would be interpreting back and forth. Stipe was an example of the kind of people who are here ready to help. There was also Muharem Basić, who had also left the former Yugoslavia by holding onto the under carriage of a train that went to Slovenia. Then he made his way to Germany, first to Austria and then to Germany. From Germany, he came to the US in 1968 and was originally in Cleveland, and then came to St. Louis later on. Muharem came to St. Louis together with another man, Smajo Čehajić, who was originally from Sanski Most. Stipo helped Muharem and Smajo get jobs in St. Louis, when they came here in the 1960s. There was also another man from Ključ, Ibrišim Dedić who was already in St Louis. There were a handful of people from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who had come at various times in the period after WWII and they were ready to help refugees coming from the 1992-95 war in BiH.
There were a relative handful of Bosnians of different backgrounds here in St. Louis and they had the language skills and the motivation because they saw what was happening in the war and they wanted to help the community. One part of the book is we just tell that story, based on our interviews with Stipe and Muharem. Stipe passed away while we were writing the book. Smajo passed away just a couple of weeks ago and Muharem is still alive. Ibrišim is still alive and his sister also gave us lots of information. We basically captured those stories of how the Bosnian community in St. Louis was started at a time when these stories were almost going to disappear. Honestly, unless there was somebody who was motivated enough to find all those people, their stories would be lost. We managed to capture their first-person accounts. The refugees started coming and really coming in droves. They were either resettled directly from a second country, like Hungary or Croatia. In the beginning people did tend to affiliate with those from the same town. So, there was a group from Kozarac, people from Sarajevo, who had known each other from before. But now, because of the size of the community, we have people from almost every major municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina and even from most villages and smaller towns.
Settling in neighborhoods of St. Louis
Patrick McCarthy: There are certain neighborhoods where they were initially resettled. At the time these areas of town were older, deteriorated. And then the Bosnians started moving in and landlords were like, wow, these people are fixing up apartments. Our apartments cleaner than when we rented them to them. They pay their rent in cash on time. They pay it in person. They have me over for coffee. I get to meet their whole family. The reputation of Bosnians became very, very positive. Then there was a tragedy in 1998. There was a young Bosnian girl named Selma Dučanović, who was kidnapped and murdered by a sexual predator. The community really lost its initial sense of security and then began leaving the city. But not just for that reason, they were looking for better housing, better schools, more opportunities. There has been migration out of the city into an outer ring of suburbs that are south of the city of St. Louis that are now heavily Bosnian. The school districts in these new suburbs are 80% Bosnian kids. The Bosnian community has had a huge impact on the city. I mean, the population of the city of Saint Louis is 350,000. If you have 60,000 Bosnians, that is a considerable size.
“The world is full of people who will die in a place where they never expected to live.” – Alexandar Hem-on
Narratives of memory and loss
Patrick McCarthy: The book includes a history of the manifestation of the community, but then there’s a narrative line that runs through the whole book about memory and loss and this sense of being in two different worlds. That is the reason we entitled the book: “Bosnian St. Louis: Between Two Worlds.” There is a quote we use from Ivo Andrić about living in two worlds, having two homelands, but really having no homeland, to be home everywhere, but to be always a stranger. I think that this is also a universal question about when you leave a place, either because you’re forced to, or you make an affirmative choice, what it’s all wrapped up in your identity and sense of belonging. And I think there is a human impulse to want to belong. We’re living in an era of displacement and of refugees. The human community is filled with people, who, as Saša Hemon says in the introduction of the book “The world is full of people who will die in a place where they never expected to live.” That sense of displacement is a very profound and significant reality for so many people, but it is what then becomes the place of memory, memory of the past, memory of a past life. Living in a new place where everything is unfamiliar.
Stories of courage and resilience
Patrick McCarthy: What we try to do in the book is to tell this human story of many experiences that have included a lot of sadness and sorrow, but also a lot of accomplishment and a lot of resilience and a lot of getting back on your feet. You know, one of the people that I just love and respect from this community is actually the one who moved back to Bosnia, but we’re in regular touch with each other. She lost her husband in Srebrenica and she had education only to the sixth grade. I mean, she’s a rural person from Potočari, from a village outside of Srebrenica, but she was one of the people who had so much human knowledge of how to live a good life and what was important and what wasn’t important. And she was just always very funny. Her approach to life was always about having to just put one foot in front of the other and just keep going on. I mean there is no magic formula to it. She is one of the wisest, smartest people that I know. Anything she says I completely respect, because I think there is a social sophistication to Bosnian and South Slavic cultures that are very human-centered. What has evolved over centuries is that people know what to prioritize and what comes and goes. Getting to know more about that world has been tremendously rewarding.
There’s a chapter on a couple of young women who were children during the war and their reflections on coming of age in a time of war. And they both had lost their fathers. In the case of one of the women, she never met her dad because her mother was pregnant during the fall of Srebrenica and then she was born a few weeks after. Her dad has never been found and was killed at the age of 21. On her 21st birthday, she connected the life that she was living as a continuation of his life. She related those two milestones of losing her father, whom she never met, but then also turning 21. Here we tried to not just focus on all the horrible things, but to also honor those stories as a way of including the courage and resilience and the ability to continue on. I think that this is something that refugees are essentially forced to do. I mean they are not really given a choice. They need to continue living their lives.
Documenting the BiH diaspora experience
Patrick McCarthy: There is some published literature on this subject, but we hope this scholarship continues to grow. The book that I had done in 2000 that I worked on at the end of the 1990s is probably the only book focused on the St. Louis community, but a smaller subset of this extended family from Srebrenica. Our new book is an important contribution in the sense that if we hadn’t told this story, it likely would have been lost and there wasn’t going to be a way for people to recreate it in ten years. I had the advantage of knowing a lot of these people and I participated in a lot of these events. It is not a comprehensive story and we are bound to leave some people out, but what we are saying is that our book represents part of the story of Bosnians in St. Louis. It may help foster future work and research in this area. We hope to leave a few breadcrumbs that people could go back and find later to pick up the story. It seems to me that the community is ready to have its story told in this initial form 30 years after. There certainly is a lot of interest in St. Louis to learn more about the Bosnians, about everything they have accomplished here and what they have contributed.
Learning from Bosnian St. Louis
Patrick McCarthy: We in the US should figure out from the positive experiences of communities like the Bosnians in St. Louis, what works well, what doesn’t work well. We have people coming from cities like Sarajevo, Banjaluka and Mostar, but also people from very tiny little villages in Eastern Bosnia, lots of people from the Podrinje region, who came after the war, from Žepa, from Srebrenica, Goražde and from the surrounding towns and villages. And then when I go to Bosnia and I say, I’m from St. Louis, everybody’s got a friend, a cousin, a brother living there.
Patrick McCarthy is a specialist on Bosnian immigration and the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has worked with the Bosnian community since 1993, providing resettlement assistance to refugees fleeing the war and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s. In 1994, McCarthy traveled to wartime Bosnia to deliver humanitarian aid and support. That same year he founded the St. Louis Bosnian Student Project, which located scholarships for Bosnian refugee students at area colleges and universities. McCarthy is co-author with photographer Tom Maday of After the Fall: Srebrenica Survivors in St. Louis (2000), a companion volume to a yearlong exhibit at the Missouri History Museum. He is also co-author and general editor of Ethnic St. Louis (2015). An honorary member of the Bosnian Herzegovinian American Academy of Arts and Sciences, McCarthy was a contributor to the traveling exhibit Prijedor: Lives from the Bosnian Genocide. He is the founder and facilitator of the Working Group for Bosnia and Herzegovina, an advocacy organization that promotes security, democracy, and rule of law for Bosnia and Herzegovina and its people. McCarthy is a professor and associate dean of libraries at Saint Louis University, where he directs the Medical Center Library.
Akif Cogo is the historian and archivist for the St. Louis Bosnians Inc., a nonprofit organization he founded in 2011. The organization provides charity, cultural, and educational programs, and conducts advocacy on local, state, national, and international levels for Bosnian Americans. The St. Louis Bosnians maintains the online database stlbosnian.com, which gathers, preserves, and makes available information about the Bosnian people in St. Louis for education and insight into the ideas and realities that shaped the lives of men and women of Bosnian descent. Born in the central Bosnian town of Zenica, Cogo survived the war and moved to the United States in 2001, after briefly living in Germany as a refugee. He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in St. Louis, where he lives today. In 2016, Cogo was recognized by the St. Louis Business Journal as one of the “40 under 40” most influential business and community professionals in the St. Louis region. In 2017 he received the St. Louis Mosaic Project’s Immigrant Professional Award as one of the impactful immigrant professionals in St. Louis.