Peter Maass

When the Bosnian Serb Army conquered a Bosnian village, it would "cleanse" from it all Muslim inhabitants. Serb soldiers would force the Muslims from their homes and either kill them or relocate them to concentration camps. Serb residents who remained in the village were then encouraged to take over the houses and apartments of the cleansed residents. In order to gain support for the cleansing, the Bosnian Serb Army frequently used radio broadcasts to tell fellow Serbs living in Bosnian villages that their Muslim neighbors posed a threat to them.

In the following excerpt from his book, Love Thy Neighbor, Washington Post staff writer and acclaimed foreign correspondent Peter Maass recalls an interview he had with two Serbian women living in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka. The mother and daughter had recently taken over an apartment that had been...