Elma Softic

Everyday life in the besieged city of Sarajevo was filled with terror, death, and hardship. As the Bosnian Serbs tightened their hold on the city, most Sarajevans became increasingly desperate. In the following excerpts from her diary and personal letters, Elma Softi?c describes her life in Sarajevo during the war. When the war began, Softic was a thirty-year-old philosophy teacher living with her middle-class family. Almost overnight, her life changed radically. In her writings she describes the gruesome deaths and mutilations that resulted from Serb bombings of the city and her emotional reactions to what she experienced. Softic survived the war and now works as a secretary for Marie Stopes International, a United Nations aid organization based in Bosnia.

Editor's Note: The original editor and translator deleted portions of Softic's diary and letters to omit repetitions or information of...