Maternity Hospital

“It was horrible, children were crying, women were crying, patients were crying. They would all ask just one thing, through their sobs: ‘Are we going to get out of this alive, or will we be buried here?’ And I remember well that I always answered in these few sentences: ‘You know, the weapons they have are not powerful enough to destroy such a large fortified concrete building as this. It would be different if they had an atomic bomb, but they don’t.’ I think I was partially comforting myself, and partially comforting those women.”

- Srećko Šimić, Doctor, “Koševo” Clinic

“A bullet from shot by a machine gun came through the window of the hospital room where I lay, where I was being treated after the cesarean section. They explained to me that I was not badly wounded. After that I liked to tell people that a bullet that got twisted in the doctors’ bulletin board grazed me. It went through the metal window frame, through some mattresses, the bulletin board, through my three blankets, through the cover that the nurse had put on me because I was cold and just grazed me. But my little Hamza was O.K., and I stayed in the hospital for eight more days. My baby came out alive and well. I left the hospital on my own two feet and went back to work. I was on maternity leave for 18 days and then I started to work.”

- Hatidža Demirović, Director of the Sarajevo City Library

“Can you imagine that at that time we had births going on by candlelight. There was one candle in the whole labor room. One candle for two births at the same time. One candle that gave us some kind of view over the operating area was also the candle that heated the little area where the new-borns were kept.”

- Srećko Šimić, Doctor, “Koševo” Clinic