War Child Museum

One of the hardest museum I have ever been to is the War Child museum in Sarajevo. It portartys the violence of war through the stories of simple everyday objects that belonged to children of war. It has asked children from wars around the world to donate objects along with a story of what that object meant to them during their childhood. They are simple things like a paperclip with a smily face drawn on it, or a teddy bear, a worn shirt, or a piece of orange peel tapped to paper for 30 years because the taste of that one orange during the 3 year siege on Sarajevo tasted that sweet.

It is as if your eyes and heart are playing tricks on you. They've colluded to show you an illusion, only it's not an illusion, it really is that bad. There you are looking at a harmless orange peel, safe and secure and you drop your guard and open your heart to curiousity, then you read a story of destruction and deep truama and your heart finally catches up to whats happening. Living in a war zone really is that bad.

When we see viloence first it gives us time to close our hearts, and limit curiousity to I wonder what they did to diserve this or how could I avoid that. This museum eroded your guard and opened you up, to whitnesing the reality of war with your heart.

We happen to be here during the 30 year aniversay end of the war in 1995. They have also recently recovered the remains of 7 more victims of Srebrenica genocide and held a memorial for them while we were in Sarajevo. It is very clear where Bosnia and Herzogovina stand with the current situation in Gaza. There are multiple art and photography exhibits around town that juxtapose images of Gaza and Sarajevo. We have also seen many protests in support of freeing Gaza. You get a sense that they see them selves more easily in the postion of Gazans than most do.