“Replacing
tyranny with justice, healing deep scars,
exchanging hatred for hope—the
women in
This Was Not Our War teach
us how.”
— William Jefferson Clinton
Alenka Savic: "If we could live together 50 years, why can't we now?"
Alma Keco: "Men feared being killed. We women were afraid of being caught alive."
Amna Popovac: "The soldiers were normal people, trusting their leaders, in a simple, rural region where people believe what they hear."
Ana Pranic: "My daughter is the only Croat in her school, but she's happy. Another is the only Serb, and she's happy too. The children are not the problem."
Biljana Chengich Feinstein: "We Jews haven't been able to convince the world. It just keeps happening, again and again: greedy people using religion as their excuse for war."
Danica Petric: "Men have had power not because they shoved women to the back, but because we didn't fight for our positions. We have ourselves to blame.
Emsuda Mujagic: "The most horrible acts were never recorded. I sometimes think I'll wake up, and it will have been a nightmare."
Fahrija Ganic: "I still consider all the republics as my country. Whenever I cross a border of the former Yugoslavia, my heart starts pounding. I'm coming home."
Galina Marjanovic: "Despite all our organizing, the government said, "Who cares? They're just women. We have a war going on!""
Greta Ferusic-Weinfeld: "I survived Auschwitz, and I stayed in Sarajevo. Maybe my spirit is inherited, or innate. I don't know. I never was different."
Irma Saje: "None of us chose war; none of us girls wanted to fight."
Jelka Kebo: "Three of us four children married a person from a different ethnic group. I'd say we were raised in the spirit of Bosnia and Herzegovina."
Kada Hotic: "If I knew my Samir was dead, I wouldn't suffer. It would be over."
Karolina Atagic: "There were so many mothers who lost sons and husbands. If my son had died, I wouldn't find as much understanding within myself as they did."
Kristina Kovac: "If you asked everyone, any religion, how much they won or lost in this war, you'd get exactly the same answers."
Maja Jerkovic: "As a doctor, my profession is to love people."
Mediha Filipovic: "Imagine a country doubling its brains, by including women."
Mirhunisa Zucic: "Women do a noble job just existing in this dirt. Coming out of it clean is very difficult."
Nada Rakovic: "Some sick minds caused this war. Not my patients. Not my colleagues. Not me."
Nurdzihana Dzozic: "Even when we saw the barricades, I still couldn't imagine—not in my wildest dreams—anything like this war."
Rada Sesar: "I'm a Serb, so I can say this: only when we're able to face the fact that the aggression was intentional will we be able to cleanse all Serbs of the crime."
Sabiha Hadzimoratovic: "This war was imported to my country. Women didn't start it, but they're the ones who suffer from it."
Suzana Andjelic: "As a journalist I knew: the killing was all in the service of politics."
Tanja Ljujic-Mijatovic: "I didn't even know my neighbors' ethnicity. My friends and I cared about character."
Valentina Pranic: "The people who were waging the war… we didn't know those people. We only knew we were scared."
Vesna Kisic: "Ethnic backgrounds aren't important to us in our work. We understand each other very well. Why wouldn't we? We're all women."
