As war tore their country apart, ordinary Bosnians struggled to understand what was happening. One Bosnian Muslim spoke for his people when he said:

When I think back now,... I am haunted by questions: Why? How? Why did it happen? How could neighbor turn against neighbor, friend against friend, relative against relative? In Bosnia- Hercegovina we are so intermingled that there is hardly a single family which does not number Muslims, Serbs, and Croats among its members.

Vahida Kartal, a Muslim from Osave in eastern Bosnia, had grown up surrounded by Serb neighbors. For the first year of the war, she and her family believed that all would be well. Then, everything began to change.

"Our Serbian friends assured us they would protect us. But after that the occasional killing and regular theft started," she explained. Soon Vahida's Serb neighbors thought nothing of walking...