Hakija Topić

MASSACRE IN THE MARKET PLACE

The crews went to do some work, and we waited for someone to bring a camera in working order. At that time, we heard that shells hit the Cathedral near the market. And since my whole family and all my relatives lived at Bascarsija, by the Cathedral, I immediately called home; my wife answered the phone. She was crying, she was not able to speak. I wanted to know whether the children were all right. She said that they were fine, she said dead people were being taken away by trucks because a shell hit Markale. I took a camera, the one that was there, a battery, a tape and I left because I wanted to shoot some scenes. Since the market was far away and I had to walk for a long time to get there, and I did not want to arrive too late, I tried to stop a car. People did not want to stop, so I stood in the middle of the street and made one car stop. The driver took me to the Eternal Flame. He did not feel like driving any further. He was afraid that another shell might fall, so I got out of the car and started shooting my film. There were many cars with foreign plates. There was much confusion. I turned on my camera. I was running. At first, I was not paying due attention, and I did not notice the dead bodies lying all around me. I was only paying attention to the camera and I did not want to make a mistake. I knew that a second shell follows the first. And then I decided to keep on shooting, no matter what. I was only concerned about the red light of the camera. I saw those terrible things. And from that moment, I was not aware of what I was filming. I just wanted to register what was in front of me. I recognized my neighbor's two sons. And later on I recognized some other neighbors. All of them were people from the Old Town. Later I found out that the families had gotten some cigarettes. And they came to the market to exchange them for food. Usually, mothers and fathers and wounded soldiers would come to exchange those cigarettes. But they stayed there. They got killed. So, I don’t know, I don’t know what to say.