Not My Turn to Die: Memoirs of a Broken Childhood in Bosnia, by Savo Heleta

by Savo Heleta

“We are all Yugoslavians.” That’s what Savo Heleta was told growing up in a predominantly Muslim city in Bosnia. Situated in a scenic river valley, his hometown, Goražde, was small, inviting, peaceful, and safe. As children, Savo and his younger sister, Sanja, played outside in a spacious yard they shared with all the children who lived in twin apartment buildings. Like his parents, Slavko and Gordana, Savo counted Muslims among his close friends. Besides, the Heletas, Serbs, were Eastern Orthodox Christians by tradition rather than in practice.

Savo’s carefree boyhood ended in May 1992, at age 13, when, in the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the ethnic fighting raging all over Bosnia finally reached Goražde. Savo’s parents refused to believe that politics could drive neighbors and friends to hate and kill one another. “We’d never made enemies,” Heleta reflects. “We didn’t expect anyone to harm us, so we decided to stay in our home.”

In NOT MY TURN TO DIE: Memoirs of a Broken Childhood in Bosnia (AMACOM 2008), Savo Heleta relives his two-year nightmare of living with terror, starvation, and humiliation. He also describes his life-saving transformation from an angry young man desperately seeking revenge to a dedicated activist for reconciliation. Told in vivid, intimate, unflinching detail, Savo’s story is a testament to the human will to survive and to the healing power of forgiveness.

“As Serbs in a Muslim-controlled city under siege, we’d had reason to fear for our lives, both because of the relentless Serbian attacks on the city and because of our ethnic differences from the people in charge,” Heleta explains. “The Muslim majority saw us as the enemy within their city walls, not victims of the same guns that were killing their families.”

A gripping chronicle of an innocent teenager’s wartime experience, NOT MY TURN TO DIE is filled with terrible acts of brutality and cruelty, searing accounts of suffering and degradation, and uplifting moments of courage and compassion. Putting a human face on a complex ethnic conflict, NOT MY TURN TO DIE is a profoundly affecting and, ultimately, hopeful account of war and its aftermath.