EUROPE

Zlata Filipovic

War Survivor Works for Peace Through Reconciliation

“I'm always thinking about Sarajevo and about all my family and I'm waiting for everything to be over… We were afraid each day. Imagine how it looks when you're afraid constantly for three years”

Zlata Filipovic was a 10 years old Bosnian schoolgirl when she began keeping her Sarajevo diary in 1991. She wrote about everyday activities—school, piano lessons, skiing, parties, and watching her favorite TV shows. Then the chaos and terror of war shattered her world.

In spite of tragedy and deprivation, Filipovic kept writing in her diary, carefully chronicling the claustrophobia, boredom, resignation, anger, despair, and fear war brings. With vision beyond her years, she wrote that the "political situation is stupidity in motion."

After the war's end Filipovic’s diary was published by UNICEF, then in France and the United States. After experiencing war so closely she now uses her spare time to work for peace and helps foster communication between different peoples. She has been part of UNICEF and UNESCO projects and is studying Human Sciences at St. John's College, Oxford, England.