Adela: 0:05

Good morning Facebook, friends and family and all other worlds of the nations, if you will. Good morning, good morning, good morning. We'll give you a little minute, maybe not, maybe not. I'm trying to fix this. Trying to fix this. Look at me mama, more mama, not me, more mama, not me, more mama, not me. Good morning everybody. So, first and foremost, welcome my mom today. Hi, this is my mom, sonia, sonia, everybody in the world.

Sonja: 0:31

Hi, everybody, whoever's watching everybody.

Adela: 0:42

So I wanted to give you guys a bit of an insight into what Project H is, what it started out as and stuff, and, uh, how it is, um, what I'm basing it on and what I'm kind of doing it, doing the story on, and then how it um, how it's impacted me, my life and everybody's life, and all that and the trauma and whatnot, the effects of it. You know the whole nine yards of what you, you know go with traumatic um and whatnot the effects of it. You know the whole nine yards of what you, you know go with traumatic experiences. I am nervous as shit, pardon me, because I don't do very well with a lot of stuff, but I also don't have a lot of memory of what happened, and so I have bits and pieces and, due to the fact that it is Mental Health Awareness Month, and it's extremely important, and due to the fact that it is Mental Health Awareness Month and it's extremely important and mental health is an extremely important subject that obviously I'm focusing on right now specifications of PTSD and brain dissociation disorders, because I suffer from both and I know that most people do my mom as well and multiple other people.

Adela: 1:40

And, for those of you who don't know, post post traumatic stress disorder. It happens when you are in an extreme situation of an event, circumstance, life, and you know, honestly, it doesn't have to be extreme in any way. Your, your difference in my difference of an extreme could be. You know this to this, and so it really is. It's a trauma effect or tragedy of some sort or something that's happened to you. Um, and then brain dissociation disorder is where you are as a, your brain basically functions on two levels it either has an A or B switch and it doesn't have, like the, the middle ground, if you will. So about four years ago I was diagnosed with brain dissociation disorder. I had a very, very hard time and very dark time in my life that, um, I couldn't, I couldn't understand, I couldn't process, I couldn't, um, I couldn't figure out who I was, if you will Like, there was literally two people battling, like two people in between, right now, one end and the other end, and there was no middle ground. I was either an emotional basket case or a cold hearted bitch. It was like one of the two. I either had emotions or I had none. Um, so that, and that's very hard to process, to understand, I mean, it's taken me four years to even get the grasp of what it possibly could be, um, so that's the backstory of why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Adela: 3:11

The main reason what I need your support for Project H is that there are children in this country, in this state, in this city, in this neighborhood, right next door probably, who are suffering a traumatic experience one way or another, whether it's through a form of bullying, whether it's a household stuff, whether it's just whatever. The circumstance is okay. And kids like myself who, at the age of 11, come to a country, who have the ability to find their way, who have the ability, or or any age, um, if they've been through something and they don't have the ability to express themselves in any way, they become kind of lost in, a lost cause for so much um in their life. And I was a lost cause basically up until I was 28. I mean no joke, like from from the age that the war happened to me to 28,. I was basically lost cause because I didn't know how to express myself, I didn't know how to talk about it, I didn't know how to feel, I didn't know how to in any way. Um, and then art came into my life and literally saved my life due to the fact of my child, due to art.

Adela: 4:26

Children and art are the key to our success, and my goal, my whole goal, my whole passion, my whole, everything for the rest of my life, is to be able to be there and mentor and educate and give these kids give any kid the ability to express themselves so that they are able to better equip themselves with understanding, knowledge and creativity and tools to not go through the things that I went through, to not repeat the same mistakes that I made, because, believe it or not, ptsd and trauma is in form hereditary and so there's so much that happens through your life cycle, through your lifetime, that, as a kid, that is the most important and most functional and most impressionable anything in life.

Adela: 5:17

And then, if we don't take this moment to say like, okay, so you're fucked up, let's fix it by doing this. How do you feel let's do this? Okay, so you're fucked up, let's fix it by doing this. How do you feel let's do this? I mean to the level of that we're going to be at the point where I was two years ago and ready to slip my wrists in front of my child because I couldn't handle the world anymore and I had no idea how to talk to anybody about it.

Sonja: 5:38

It's not just you, it's hard.

Adela: 5:41

Well, it's not just me, it's hard.

Sonja: 5:43

Well, it's not just me, it's everybody it's battling with depressions and PTSD from especially traumatic experience and situations that three of you were, and especially you because you were only five years old, like we had pretty good life, old, like we had pretty good life. I mean, we build a small house and even hard work in the fields, from first sunlight and to the to the end, it wasn't hard. And then we build that house and maybe two years after that all the wars started happening in Yugoslavia. It's kind of Tito died and they started separating. You can feel it it wasn't around us yet, but you can feel it in the air. You can feel the fear of the people. People are afraid of what's going to happen, how it's going to happen.

Adela: 6:43

Right.

Sonja: 6:44

And you're not prepared for those stuff.

Adela: 6:47

No, and people feed into their own fear, which feeds into their own.

Sonja: 6:52

It's not, but you try to make life as possibly normal that you enjoy, and we were. I mean, that was one of probably best parts of my life those two years when we had that house and everything. And Then in 92, in November, your grandma when she died. It already starts all around. You see people wearing guns, you hear people dying, killing, all of it but you never believe that it's gonna happen right to you, that you're gonna be part of it. I know, like a week ago, before we actually captured your, your grandma's sister, your aunt or whatever however you call that she was on that. She was dying and she died like three days before we were captured and we went for funeral and I remember your dad was in a everybody had to be thing is, doesn't matter which military you're gonna choose, which side you're gonna choose. People would take a gun just to protect what they have because you don't know what other side or whoever around you will gonna do. And muslims and catholics in the croatian or whatever you call that. We never had issue. It was pretty nice, decent, I mean.

Sonja: 8:19

People were people that capture us was just a few days ago having coffee in our house. You never, really, really never believed that it's going to come to that. But that Saturday it was week after Easter in 1993. That Saturday we went for funeral and your dad was passing by. We went through the city, through the Vitesse and everybody was saying something's going to happen. You see all those barricades, people with guns, and you were guys, actually home alone with your Aunt Jana and with Drago, and God Almighty, it was so scary. And your dad says he's going to stop to see what's going on and I just wanted at that moment I always wanted him just to move us. But he never believed. Who's gonna come and take you out of your house? Who's gonna come at your door? Who has right? You know it's, it's.

Adela: 9:18

And just for you tuning in, guys, and before I mentioned that, um, you guys are watching the story with me for the first time too, so you're hearing it with me for the first time.

Sonja: 9:29

And I know that Sunday, april 16, 1993, it was week after Easter. It was actually Orthodox Easter. We had our Easter week before and then they had it and we had colored eggs and we just had fun. We came home colored eggs and we just had a fun. We came home, your guys there, and that night it was so quiet nobody believed I mean I don't know, it was just really really quiet night. You never experienced that. Next morning around six o'clock, all hell will lose. We were rigged with grenades and guns and where our house was you can see city, you can see beat us and it was just like so can I the only like um, just everybody.

Adela: 10:24

It was really hard to do this in therapy when I went to, because this is the only day I really remember, kind of okay, um, like I woke up. Right, I was, I was the. I woke up that morning, didn't who? For some reason, I keep having the memory of me like answering the door, or like me waking somebody, waking somebody up. Like, can you tell me like that, like in my head every time, like I think of that day it's, I open the door and take the kata yeah right, but like it's me opening the door and I don't know if it's like that yeah

Sonja: 10:59

it's a that morning when we wake up, when we were waking up with the grenades, it wasn't Tete Kata, it was Jozo. Okay, jozo, ivana's grandmother's, godmother's, whatever, dad, our best friends. They just lived across the street down from us and our house was out of the village, across from the cemetery. It was just a few houses around. It's not too many, wasn't? It was just a few houses around.

Sonja: 11:26

It's not too many houses, it's just a few houses around and he also came at the door and just he didn't knock. He actually hit the door like, and dad get up. And I just know that what? What happened at that moment was dad get up, he just get dressed, and he had to leave. Because we happened at that moment was dad get up, he just get dressed, and he had to leave Because we knew at that point when war starts, and actually came to our doors. They were killing any man that they find in the house and history that dad had with Muslims or whatever they're good friends but always drinking and fights and all of that.

Sonja: 12:09

He just get dressed. And he left and he told him just go, I'm gonna take care about them and Kata and Anka. They came to their mother, was there sick, came over and you also told Jana stayed overnight to run I was captured with us too, and she said he just says get your kids, get them and let's go down to my house.

Sonja: 12:30

And it was funny because week ago, god, almighty, I, I, I said I was planting watermelons that, no, nobody ever planted there, right, and he also was cleaning the road bushes. And I says this is not gonna end up good, I'm planting watermelons and you clean.

Adela: 12:52

You can't keep anything alive. You know, it was kind of like god, this is not gonna end up good and I just took you guys.

Sonja: 13:00

I didn't. Ivana was 18 months, she was in diapers. I didn't even took nothing, I just took you and we went in yoso's house. We walked down there and we were sitting, but I remember yoso had two grenades and he put them in the outside of the house, in uh, I don't know how to say cut sheet or whatever that pile, and said if anybody survives, right, tell the dad that it's it's there, okay.

Adela: 13:30

So I'm gonna stop here for just a second, because my recollection now of that that whole day, like that morning, is completely different, like I don't remember that at all we were sitting in Jozo's house.

Sonja: 13:46

I mean Adela, you were only Adela, you were close to six years old kid, right. But who has two little siblings, who understands more that two of them did? Dragana was three, ivana was 18 months, but you, your mind probably blocked all of that. You can remember, but you can't remember. I remember you your blonde hair. It was just cut like this and you had that green neck God Almighty neck neck shirts, whatever. Turtleneck, turtleneck, yeah.

Adela: 14:31

And it must have been an ugly green too.

Adela: 14:34

Yeah, and you were just so like in my head, like I even wrote it out, though, like I have sitting there because that day, like for that morning, like like for some reason, like the way I remember maybe it was in between like bits and pieces, but is that dad? You know, dad got up, packed his stuff, he left and then we were packing some stuff Like we had there was some part of it that I remember us grabbing something or not and then some house I I distinctly remember them like coming into the house with guns, like that was happening.

Sonja: 15:15

Okay, yeah, it's when we went in yours house. So that did happen that day, everything that happened that morning, actually around 11 o'clock that left. We went to Yoso's house. It was Yoso's mother, his wife, little aunt, his son, kata Anka, and us Is that?

Adela: 15:41

aunt California. No no no, that's the difference. Okay, I didn't know little anto.

Sonja: 15:46

He helped us to build our house. He was such a great kid hard-working kid no, he wasn't killed, but he ended up in mental institution after that yeah because when we were that morning around 11, I mean we were looking through the window.

Sonja: 16:02

It was scary. A house down there uh was miran. And then and you can hear, you see just the smoke. You see down in the vites or you hear all grenades. You see the smoke and then suddenly down the road how was you here? Just allah waqar, allah waqar, and people coming up and they show up on the door they broke the door and show up in the door on the. So that's what I remember then.

Adela: 16:28

That's where my memory starts like at that moment.

Sonja: 16:30

I guess I hear that is when it kicked in and when they show up, sad thing was people who were our neighbors, who we believe that they are friends. They, they were one with the guns. I mean, they cannot even look at you in the eyes.

Adela: 16:50

Yeah, because they held us in a house that I used to play in front of, Like I played in front of a house that I was held prisoner in, and then take us down.

Sonja: 16:58

They took us out. Zhanna was there too. I mean it was hard. Jana was there too, I mean it was hard. And uh, they take us down the road and uh in a village called pochulitsa, just right down.

Sonja: 17:16

Yeah, we were passing by miran's house. Miros house was all destroyed, burned. Then you can see people that they shot on the on the side of the roads. And when we were passing, how much damage was done in so short time was unbelievable. We were brought in the basement of back dash house. We passed a human's house. He was that's best friend. He was killed in the Križančevo cello that night when it happened. We passed that and then we were locked in the basement and the woman whose house was there she's saying oh yes, you have to get what happened to my family.

Adela: 18:01

We didn't know what happened down at Michi, that people were already killed so, for those of you, um, I'm gonna stop right there for a second and say hi to everybody for a minute so mom can take a smoke break and I could take a mental overload break because, um, michi and my basically my village, vitez, in Portulica, right there was a simultaneous attack on April 16th, that morning, between the two cities, so basically the Muslims and the Croats at the same time decided that and now, mind you, this is two rogues of of extremists, in both nationalities, okay, in both faiths and both that they decided that, that these extremists didn't like each other and that nobody, you know whatever, and that is, they planned a secret attack on village of Michi village like me to those creation extremes.

Sonja: 19:08

Whoever make order wait.

Adela: 19:11

It's great, which which, by the way, if you watch the documentaries, it wasn't a rogue thing. If you watch what it was, it was played at a whole political point. I mean this whole Ahmici and my villages and the surrounding areas was a planned attack by the government's officials themselves. If you watch any of the documents, they plainly stated in there we've made secrets and pacts, we did this, we did this which they decided the murdering whole villages of innocent women and children at. Again, both whole villages, and it is women and children. Again, both sides knew these extremists, knew that they were doing it because both the governments were working together okay.

Sonja: 19:56

Because it was planned. I have to stop you here. It was planned when Tito died, yugoslavia had six small states, like America has 52, or whatever. When Tito died, those three extremities from the Serbs Milosevic, from Croatian Kucman and from the Muslims Izetbegovic, those three extremities were captured in 74 for same ideas that they want to do and is the devil which captured in in, in one of you.

Sonja: 20:28

Once Yugoslavia was taking a pieces they get a chance to do and country was socially in every way devastated and people were honey nom you have, I mean you have someone who promised them God knows what and they already had a plan how they're going to, because all other states you could separate, serbia goes to Serbia, all of them.

Adela: 20:54

But Bosnia, because Bosnia was the centralized of the three nationalities.

Sonja: 20:58

It held the most and it's mixed, most of the mixed marriage. You can separate parents, but how are you going to separate child to which religion belongs? And and when happened? When they did they already separate bosnia. This part is going to become to croatia. This part is going to become to serbia and muslims are not going to get nothing which was it was planned it was planned to, and it planned too, and it starts. Before Ahmici happened, muslims did the same One gruesome murdering in the Croatia village and documented and they killed everybody, kids.

Sonja: 21:39

Nobody left and then same thing Croatian soldier or politics they want to do, they did it to Ahmići that morning. What I want to say is nobody thought about simple people or elder kids. They didn't care who is gonna be sacrificed. They thought, if they do that, kill that village, burned what they did that you're gonna do it over.

Adela: 22:13

He's gonna be over.

Sonja: 22:14

They were gonna surrender. Actually it's not how it didn't happen that people fought back. Everybody, everybody knew what's going to happen, even from dad's military, whatever that side that he was. They sent a guy to your uncle, juban, the night before because they didn't know exactly where our house was. We were out of the village. They sent a guy to tell them that we need to move. That hell is going to happen tomorrow morning and your uncle didn't believe in that. Pretty much half of the Portuguese, croatian nationality was sacrificed. It was 86 of us that was captured that morning. That nobody didn't know for us. So we were just who. Whoever survived, that they didn't kill, we were pulled all in those three houses in the basements. You don't. You have nothing. I remember we didn't have food. We didn't get. Ivana had just one diaper that she wore for all the time were there bars?

Adela: 23:26

I mean, I in my head it's just, it's bars, I mean, and maybe that's just a creation of my mind was there like it was a window. I remember the window like I remember the small window but like to, to me, to the other side of me.

Sonja: 23:40

Like it no it wasn't bar, it was f fence. That was fence because it was Muslim religion house right there, whatever they call it. It was right there and had that fence around, okay, and the day when we were released, we were all sent out.

Sonja: 23:57

And that's probably where my but until then, like when they captured us and put us there that first day, we didn't know what's going on. We heard grenade going on, we heard grenade down, we heard grenade above, where the some of the creations from the village kind of kept post. And then they, when they captured us, they were, they had to surrender, and that's when your dad end up in the prison in the Zenitza on the other side. We didn't know nothing for each other for almost a month, I know.

Adela: 24:31

If he's alive, who is alive?

Sonja: 24:33

who is dead. It was, it was, and those few, few first day or two it was horrible. It's no electricity, we didn't have the covers. It was April was still cold. I know that Jozo's mother has some medication she brought with her. Me and Anka and Kat are leaving you kids with their mother in that basement and they would take us out to go from house to house to see if someone may to open the house, if they, if they put a bomb or something in the house, if someone go first we're gonna die. I, I don't know, from all the war that happened, those few days was hardest mentally days and and in every way we, I would leave you guys and go and I don't know if I'm gonna find you or I'm gonna end up dead in that house that I'm opened or when they put us for the life wall or it.

Adela: 25:46

so I just want to point out to you guys that my mom was like 25, 24, 25. How are you.

Sonja: 25:55

You were young, I was about God, 93. 27. 27. So my mom was I was 27. 27.

Adela: 26:12

With three children and four, really, if you think of her sister.

Sonja: 26:18

Yeah, she was only 13.

Adela: 26:19

13 years old and we sit here, I mean, and I can't Like I said I am, I am like we're here now, like look at this, like we're fucking here, but there's woman right now doing that like it is somebody that some other me right the same situation. Second is we're telling this story.

Sonja: 26:45

They didn't choose for that to happen. Nobody asked me or anybody. The separate men in the one hall where they have dance or whatever was they separated them from us. We would go and if we could find some food in the house for the first few days before they were going to burn the houses, we had hope that we were going to be back and I saw that someone was in the house and I think dad came because he put in that old wooden stove. He put some stuff in that. I that wasn't there and that was the last time that I went in the house. I didn't have one picture I I didn't take nothing. I wasn't even able to take a second diaper, a cotton diaper for Ivana. We were brought back and one day they just said oh, you're not going and you can just see smoke. All houses were in smoke. That was the last time that I saw our home being built until 2000.

Adela: 28:08

Until we went back, when we went back.

Sonja: 28:10

We went back, yeah, and there was nothing when we went back, but a slab Not long after we could hear because they would come in the basement in there because Ahamichi was gruesome massacre. That happened, that we didn't did. But I understand those people too and your victim on the point. You take the trigger, take to be judged and pull the trigger and I Muslims are most of the time victims in that war.

Adela: 28:51

It's not just in the Nevitas everywhere, let me break this down just a little bit on a history lesson. Even through there In Bosnia, since 1300 BC, they have been massacred and all of that. And again this is going back and not. This isn't to excuse anything or to do anything on that.

Sonja: 29:18

It's just that the understanding of level of persecution through people because of hate or because of religion I mean Islamic religion, catholics in that specific area was bad because on the time, like between serbs and muslims 600 years ago before war mus uh, muslims took everything. They had those agas and they have those people. Who was in and what happened?

Adela: 29:46

yeah, what happened? Like the um something, the ottoman empire, yeah, through all that and uh, look that up.

Sonja: 29:53

How was happening was, if catholic person, whoever or orthodox, wants to get married, aga was first one to sleep with his wife. Mm-hmm, that was how it. That's. That's the hate going a long long. Go back and it's never gonna end. It's, it's never gonna end, it's just feeding, because that's how you raise your kids. When you raise your children in the hate in the house that we were, I mean those kids soon as they reach the hand door they hate us. How's that?

Sonja: 30:31

We were in it, that guy was captain and we had actually youngest person that was captured that morning was only 10 years, 10 days. All the baby that Branko and his wife. They lost a girl. She drowned and then she gave a birth on cesarean section just 10 days ago. When they captured us and they captured them too, we were all in basement. They put her up in one room and she was pretty much witnesses. Everything that they talking, that's going on, what's happening. But, however, after they burned those houses and everything, one day because you know how your grandma knows to be sometimes crazy- that's where you get my crazy from.

Sonja: 31:29

Because Zhanna was captured too. They decided they believed to them and our milkman. Find a way for them to come up in the Pochulica. My parents and my brother.

Adela: 31:41

Listen really quick, for as crazy as shit okay, as my family is on some parts, especially my grandmother okay, as crazy as shit as she is, she fucking went to the war looking for us. Like, here's the thing, the strength of a human being to go for their children, okay, to go into something for their children, and not just their children. I mean, yes, my grandmother was crazy. Yes, she made thousands of mistakes. She was not perfect and she's not perfect.

Adela: 32:13

There's a lot of things to say about her and things like that. But the fact that somebody, no regard for your own life, no regard for your own safety, no regard for your own thing, she went into portula, she went into the zone, she found a way because because I'll tell you this right now, grandfather, I love him, I love him to you know what I mean, all that stuff. But I know for a fact, due to the generations of women we have in our family, due to my mother and due to me, that my grandmother, the devil itself was within her to get to where she needed to go for her, for her child, for her children and for her grandchildren.

Speaker 3: 32:52

Like as insane as I is like that is a credit that I don't have to give her, like you have.

Sonja: 32:57

I remember this morning because the thing is much ahead in the real, much ahead in us. From East they were already in that village, right and everywhere, just here. How allow it? But but worst thing is, nobody knows we there yeah, we were how they call that, we were okay, so we were casualty, we were kind of casualty, we were we were the cat.

Adela: 33:22

Okay, we were the casualties of war a little a little. Again, history on the side note on that during the whole 93 through 95 um peace talks and these um going in and out and we're doing diplomatic things or whatever, my you know, vites and all the surrounding little little villages in there, zenitsa and busavacha, and like all of that in there, right, we were the red zone. So if you remember back when, when the um iraq war started, um after 9, 11 and they had um baghdad, it was like the red zone, you couldn't get in, you couldn't get out, like you knew and you saw it on tv. Well, that was, that was us, but we didn't have a tv, we didn't have radio we didn't have anything control.

Sonja: 34:05

Everything was in sarajevo.

Adela: 34:07

Right already took over sarajevo and controlled all of that. So the news, all of that stuff, they sent everything out and that's why first things, and to them everything really quick to them into the world. The wars were ending and we were all in peace talks, while in the midst of that the extremists of all the three governments were in that little village in the red zones we were killing.

Sonja: 34:31

We were in the red zone for 10 months, killing 10 from april from april 93 to february 25th, when no guns was. After that, no bullet was shot. We were in that 10 months in that zone of the hell of the, the killing that you would if you fell asleep you fell asleep with grenade. If you wake up, you would wake up with a grenade.

Adela: 35:12

But it was just like a music that you hate and it's constantly just running around you.

Sonja: 35:15

But I remember one day they brought my mom and dad and my brother, god Almighty, he came with the car. They were like my mother was like peacemaker God. It's not funny, but it came up to it.

Adela: 35:26

Our family. It's not a funny situation, but our family, our family.

Sonja: 35:29

It has this window family that's there and I saw the blue lada because it was. And then suddenly they opening door and shoving my mother in okay, so I have to ask you and they separate dad yeah and bruno with other people, right, because they took the men away.

Sonja: 35:44

They put the men away and then she's trying to make and I'm trying to tell her, to make her to understand that this is not the way how she works that someone's going to because she says, oh hey, how are you? Because the guys like a guy that grew up with your dad, that was best friend, he was actually one who had a gun in us. He was actually one who had a gun in us and she didn't understand that until maybe 10 days in it. They would come in every day or night or they would just pop up with the guns and put us to the wall and say where is your husband? Or where is this, where is that? And you don't know answers. And I came. That's the first time I came to the point of breaking down that one night, when they came, they took Ivana. She was just a little baby. They took her and put a knife under her neck and said, oh, we're going to slap her throat. You need to tell us you can do whatever you want. Anymore I can't. That's it. I don't know. You're going to kill us. Kill us.

Sonja: 36:51

And yours mother I told you has those pills. I actually remember that I makes all pills in a gallon, in one jar. I remember that all that was possible and they were asking me what you're doing and I says nothing, I'm just gonna kill all of us. I'm just gonna give that to my kids and to me and we're gonna end it all because when we were captured, some crazy guy that I understand why he's crazy I mean he lost his family in ahmici yeah, he came and he shot in the that basement. That ben's was captured. That's when your grandpa was shot and that's when she also was killed. That was aunt was injured. It was the other one okay, it was killed, okay.

Adela: 37:40

So tell me, I have to remember, because my men on this part in my head I the only part of that, like that part of them coming in, like when, when grandma and I remember grandpa coming in, or I remember seeing him, remember I gave him a hug. Right, did I did?

Sonja: 37:56

I know you didn't even in my head, yes, but you didn't even see the grandpa. They separate them right away like in my head.

Adela: 38:03

I saw him in my head. I Like literally.

Sonja: 38:07

I no. They took them right away with the guns and they shoved Grandma down in the basement with us.

Adela: 38:15

Because they took them to the trenches too right, they were working in the trenches.

Sonja: 38:17

Right, they take the men as a life role.

Adela: 38:22

Right and put them in there, and one night.

Sonja: 38:27

I remember us hearing such a bad shooting and screaming and then Maria, she, she asked the guy that was their best friends. He was Muslim. What's going on? We just heard that father was killed, son was injured. And the other case son was killed, father was injured and that's yours or sisters son was killed. It's in a one family. Right that happening that morning, that that night. And then we heard that and they just came and they actually put woods on windows. They closed everything. We didn't know nothing.

Sonja: 39:08

I remember a guy. I thought he's gonna kill us, but it turns actually opposite. He was one who actually bring you some food. It was kid from yaitse that was keeping guard outside, who was saying this is not right, I don't want to do that. And then they sent him to down to line, to to wherever they were attacking, and he was killed. But it was kid, maybe 18, 19 years old. I can see his face now. He was just saying this is not right and he was letting the one of those guys in to give you guys some food, because we didn't. For first few weeks we didn't have nothing. And it was not just you. We were afraid. Zana was 13. The other families had girls too. We were afraid that someone was going to come and rape them and something's going to happen and we tried whatever needs to go out or whatever they were pulling people out for life wall or to opening the houses.

Sonja: 40:22

It was one crazy girl. God Almighty, they had us out and her brother was in military. But she says oh, my brother moved the house, put a grenade somewhere and, god Almighty, they sent her straight in. They were standing back holding us with the guns and she needs to go in and open every door, pick up every couch and if it goes up, she's going to go up. That's what they're doing to us and they finally, one day, for some reason, they had all of us women, everything in the house. Two-story house, it was 80 of us in it and just a few men was in the house. Two-story house, it was 80 of us in it and just a few men's was in the bottom. Remember Pero and Maria. Before they brought them, they, they had a man's going on the lifelines to where did they live?

Adela: 41:23

because they don't marry Ali to the, to the?

Speaker 3: 41:26

right of us. They had a little, it's all right they have a villana villana, and they had that little boy Boris.

Adela: 41:33

Boris say yes, they were tired of the of the pathway they were coming and washing their clothes on my right, they would run, yeah, okay and I remember they pull all of them and you buns that there and we asked where is they started?

Sonja: 41:52

talking that someone ran away when they were getting them out to dig trenches and everything. They told them if they tried to run because the other line was just maybe 100 yards there.

Adela: 42:04

Right, because they were on the line, literally. So you guys, guys, war is not like oh my god, we're miles away like war is literally house to house, like it was house to house for right.

Adela: 42:15

Here was them and one house line imagine, oh imagine your fence, imagine your fence being the trenches, like your fence is your line and the safety is across that fence. And if you could just make it there like that is your saving hope, if you could just make it there like that is your saving hope, if you could just make it there like that and that is your chance, like that's not your survival, that is your chance to survive.

Sonja: 42:37

And remember people are going through that right now, and they were, they were they were telling them if they tried to run because they brought Ljuban's dad back and he was beaten Me and God what his name is. Just two of us were able to go down there and give them food and I went in and we were asking Ljuban's where's the others? And then he couldn't talk to say who was killed, who was shot. What's? Happened. I didn't know that grandpa was already taken that hospital down that captured him.

Sonja: 43:22

We just heard what happened but we didn't know what happened and who is involved. And I went there and I he also just said, oh, pero run. They told him they're gonna kill. But Pero was one and he was drunk, he, he was amazing gold guy. He just took the chance and that's the. He saved us pretty much because once he ran down to Croatia side, he told them that we were captured and what creation military done? Have a. Oh, they captured a hundred other people. That was actually family related. They treated some of the village II that they captured us and instead of killing us, they involved the Red Cross. And that's how Red Cross, that's when we were put in one house. That's when we find out that Pedro ran. We still didn't know who was killed. But Maria, yours was five. She has that feeling, that something you know you have a feeling when someone that you love that's gone, when your heart just breaks.

Sonja: 44:32

And Red Cross came. And this is sad and funny part. Red Cross came that day. They registered all of us and they were bringing Drago down that's not your uncle Dra, who was only 16 years old. He was in our house but was left before they burned picking up pictures and they captured him, and then your grandpa gave a lamp and whatever, because your grandpa was respected and he knew those old people, and he was captured that day, registered with Red Cross, and somehow they let him go.

Sonja: 45:10

Drago said I'm not gonna leave you. I says, no, you're gonna go right, whatever happened to us, you're gonna go. You have to go. He had to go. And when Red Cross came, they brought some diapers, they brought some food for us, some milk for the kids, but I mean 80 people in the house, no water, nothing, and I don't know if it's adrenaline or you just don't think that way and one of the guards captain, guards his wife, javier, captured down there. That's when they started talking about exchange. However, because of situation that your dad was and how he was as young, he always drink and he always fight with them so mouth.

Sonja: 45:59

Yes, and regarding that, in that village we have two brothers meet.

Sonja: 46:06

You have two brothers, suffolk and siever they had a huge like conflict right their last name was siever, but it was suffolk and uh god, what is his name? Another one oh my god, I can't think my brain is fried, but two of them. And I remember that one night they told us that guy came in, beho. Beho came in and said to me if you go for exchange, you cannot go to vites. And he told me that night that me and you guys, three of you girls were marked to never get exchanged, so we were not meant to be really. No, they took us into in that one in the basement has the other room with some kind of shelves or whatever Right, and he took you guys and me and he shoved us under that's any head shells. And he does because he knew that Red Cross coming but we weren't supposed to be alive and once we were registered it was different story.

Sonja: 47:20

When Red Cross started involving we survived that night somehow. It wasn't meant for us to go, but when we were taken the after that for the exchange, I was told to not go to get this because down the road it was already planned for us to be pulled off the bus and executed and I decided we're going to go to zenta because they took all 80 of us out in a field in front of the house, in that backyard actually front yard and has cemetery, muslim cemetery, and you can see all those bags, people that was brought from Ahmici to be buried and we were just left there standing for six hours, so much. And then they brought men's that were there and it was yours on me seeing grandpa was missing, pair was missing, aunt, I was missing all of them. And that's when Maria broke and which it's so hard to keep someone from not screaming when losing someone, when you have all guns around you and you know that that people I mean that people suffer same yeah, like it's a no.

Sonja: 48:38

There's no difference between what happened to us to what happened to them.

Adela: 48:42

We were just like those.

Sonja: 48:45

Those innocence were just the casualties, as we were those and whether we live or die, and those kids didn't do absolutely nothing. They didn't choose that, mm-hmm, they were just casualties, same that we were planned to be. How we were saved, god knows, but we weren't, because half the village is gone. We weren't supposed to be one that lived Right, right, and Red Cross brought the buses and we went to Zenca. The other people went to Vitez and your grandpa was already there, drago was there with Maria in their house.

Adela: 49:29

With Vitez and Maria. Yeah, yeah we were.

Sonja: 49:31

We were down at grandma's house and that priest came for chai Josh, that priests were gonna be killed after, but priest he would, he was our, was he, he was our priest, like yeah, yeah, that's a little bit right he came and that that's the first time that I find out that that is live right, cuz it was like, yeah, I was, and what's a cure that would say you're dead. You're dead guys. Was your dead real name? Was you pro?

Sonja: 50:00

but, his baptized name was you get set and then everybody knows you miss is that, when they release you in when they released him, they figured out that they released actually a person that they wanted to kill.

Adela: 50:13

So, and you'll let me know for my story a little bit, a little bit on that story, that the day my dad was in prison, on that they called by name, literally by name, every single person they were executing and took his friends, family, whatever was with him His friends, everybody knew Everybody.

Sonja: 50:33

They couldn't say that you called and guess what?

Adela: 50:35

And guess what? Every single one of them that died too, they all knew. I mean, they all knew that, they knew him, they knew the names, they knew all that stuff. And every single one of them and those sacrificed their lives.

Sonja: 50:48

They never, said no no again.

Adela: 50:52

The amount of it amazes me and we think that there's no good humanity in the world. It amazes me what if we open our mouths or we close them, how we can save either take or kill it literally with with opening your mouth.

Adela: 51:10

If my uncle had said, hey, like they're coming. If he would have said, hey, they're coming, we were warned, you got to get out that night. Okay, we either would have been dead in the woods somewhere because we would be caught in the aftermath, right, or we would have never had to go through that in in that sense, but that possibility of a chance, of something of a hope now not to say that we didn't, we weren't meant to go through all of that, but again it goes to that.

Sonja: 51:37

And then the people sitting with my dad who knew his brother was there too they were gonna die anto was there too, and yet Anto Vrvolo that had that kafana that he gave me that restaurant that we hold. Where was that? Vrvolo? They had a, the restaurant they gave us prior to the war Right.

Sonja: 51:59

I rented a restaurant for a year and that's how we built our house and everything. He had a son that was killed after that in the war too. But I remember that day when I priest told me that they gonna released grandpa. Came home he was shot in the leg. He was devastated. He looked the user just getting shot straight in the head and he says he's had just came like this and that was it. He had always straight in the head. And he says his head just came like this and that was it. He had always head on the head and that had just come like this. And he remember a regional guy, yoso's cousin, was shot all the way in the back but they let him to bleed out. They didn't give them help.

Sonja: 52:44

And I remember that day when I went to get dad. I saw him. He had red. They gave him a pants red pants and cocky shirt something like on it and had a cafe bar that I was always on the street where I grow up in Zensa and I saw him coming down this down, god Almighty, he was so skinny. But we went to Grandma's home and then we find out too that we have to leave because they find out and they find for us. We went to visit Maria. Wow, we were a wanted family guys we went to visit maria in straniani.

Sonja: 53:34

Grandpa was there and that's the when I decide to take three of you and drago jana stayed with grandma and dad's gonna go to the woods right and we were gonna meet up afterwards right because nevinka's house was same. They were all up in the kuchagora right in that village. Everybody escaped and maria was saying no, you're not gonna go. But grandpa said you have to go right, I mean, it's not just all of us we're gonna be yeah, and I took three of you. You had Venom, your shoes.

Adela: 54:14

No wonder. No wonder I love him so much.

Sonja: 54:18

I Remember having I had the jackets like it's not letter but it's imitation jacket and I had one bottle milk in one side, the other bottle milk in the other side for the vana. Nothing for you guys. We didn't have nothing. I couldn't bring nothing, I was just.

Sonja: 54:39

I didn't have documents, I didn't have absolutely nothing, no, nothing and it's about eight miles walk from Maria's house to Gucagora, where everybody escaped. When Nevenka was and everybody escaped, I took three of you. Drago was coming with us and it was hills, it's kind of going through the mountains to get there. I was carrying Ivana, dragana was walking and you were. Your feet were bloody in those shoes. Drago tried to carry one, each you little bit, a little bit, raghana, and we came to the post when Muslims controlled, god Almighty. I will never forget that. And what we was advised to say was that we're going to call the family to come back, that we can stay there. We couldn't say that we were from Počulica, because it's still Počulica. Nobody knew exactly what's happened to those people, to those 86 people.

Adela: 55:38

Yeah, we were still close.

Sonja: 55:40

It was kind of like, and guys stopped us. They had a big bean on the road. Guys stopped us and I was telling them. I said I'm going to go, I just need to find some family to see that I can stay there and we're going to be back. And they says, yeah, you have bus at 4 o'clock that's going to pick up everybody. Better come back. And Drago says, oh, we will see if you're going to come back. And I stepped on his foot 16-year-old kid.

Adela: 56:11

God Almighty, I wanted to Even then, even in the midst of war, you can still be a smartass.

Sonja: 56:15

We passed them and we went maybe 300 yards. It was one house that Catholic people, croatians, people were still there. They didn't left and after, after that, all those people who left were going to be killed. That's what happened. But we stopped there and that lady gave you guys some prune, prunes, jello, jello spread on the bread and god almighty, you and dragana were suffocating yourself with it.

Sonja: 56:48

It was the best jelly sandwich I must have ate and not even two minutes after that, bosnia-herzegovina army, whatever car was pulling in driveway, I died. I says okay, they came after us, but they just asked something people and they left. We pretty much run three miles all the way up the hills and we came to the point, shushan cellar, where village, where actually croatia flag was there and you can see croatia soldiers right and everything.

Sonja: 57:26

I don't know if ever in my life that I cried like I sat on the concrete asphalt on the road and I just braked. I I couldn't believe that I was able to get there, we get there, and it was lots of creation people in our family. Nevin cut it a, all of those cut out, all of the lots of creation people in our family. Nevin, katete, all of those kata, all of lots of people that we have there, and, uh, nevinka's husband ivica. He was alive at that time. Everybody was there he okay.

Adela: 57:58

So I have to ask right there, before we get into it is that where he died?

Sonja: 58:01

no, he died in vites.

Adela: 58:03

He died he died in vites.

Sonja: 58:04

He was first casualty of sniper casualty.

Adela: 58:07

Sniper casualty right.

Sonja: 58:08

Actually second. First was a judge, vites judge, and he was second casualty of the sniper on the road when he was right, right right.

Adela: 58:16

He died in.

Sonja: 58:16

July and it was after he was dying in July. That time I was in hospital, yeah, but we're going to get to there, but he died in July. He died in July. First sniper shot killed. He was pretty much our first family victim of murder. That's going to follow up after that. And they brought us up there in that village and suddenly, because Darko Kraljevic and all of them that was dads, Nobody knew what happened to them for dad or us.

Adela: 58:55

And Pikan Pikan found out that we are alive. Is he in your vest? Oh yeah, hi Pikan, he's in Paris, he's in Paris.

Sonja: 59:01

Paris, paris and Pikan, they all found out about us. And then suddenly, two days after we were there because it's still a long way to the Vites to get there suddenly cars show up and they're looking for us and they took us in Kuchagora in the church above they had military base, whatever they that thing that they control, yeah, control room, command room or whatever and they took us there and they question, kind of to tell them what's happened, who survived, how right, because nobody knows nothing on it.

Sonja: 59:49

And that's when the how many of us were there? 86., 86.

Adela: 59:54

The 86 forgotten people of the Bosnian war man. What a story.

Sonja: 1:00:01

And then they sent the car and they took us in the Vitesse and they took us into school where was military base for dad's, for his friends, and Pican was there, they just told me. I know dad told me too Once I get there, to find Pican. Pican was great guy. And he is.

Sonja: 1:00:25

And I went there and I find Pichola and I find Pican and it was pair and one of their guys we can was asking where's the dead? What's happened being he was drunk hangover sorry, that's how it is. That's the only way did they could cope.

Adela: 1:00:46

I mean, you gotta could cope too.

Sonja: 1:00:48

I mean you've got to like. I mean, we all had those experiences. But actually soldiers, and that's coming to here to America soldiers too, nobody understands they think PTSD.

Sonja: 1:01:02

They think medication. Nobody understands bodies. Until you see, and until you feel to see that your body is blown, that you half-way blowed away and you survived. No pills can cope with that. That's actually was ended. My and that's marriage pretty much. You live with that every day, you, you, you go to sleep, you dream, you see those friends and that's friends. Only few of them survived of the 55 of them in the group. Mm-hmm, maybe watch and okay.

Adela: 1:01:41

So going back to this, so what we're gonna do, we're like we'll stop the story here today because I want to talk a little bit on there. We'll continue the story, part of it on there. Things that soldiers have to live with being the last thing that somebody sees, or or having the guilt that their friend didn't say anything to save their life and they're alive now um, that's something that we don't understand that's something that we will never understand.

Sonja: 1:02:18

That's the thing that you think that you should die same absolutely and why you survived and how you're gonna look to the family. It's, it's a every of them. I don't think that has any person who had to take a gun and take alive. That is not a cool pv that easily because no matter what that people did, you know you have to kill him before he kills you by any conscious the person has you dream about that kill.

Adela: 1:02:58

So you, you live with that yeah, it's it and then you come back and you're living in a freedom world where you're free, you don't have to worry about somebody shooting you in a second. But the fact that you have lived in in months, years, years of of of combat or of a situation and the amount of people you actually had to kill, and again the understanding of why you did it me or him any day understands survival instinct. That, on that level, completely comprehensive, comprehensible, completely, even even adjustable to, to retrain your brain into, into just thinking that. But here, knowing that you took somebody's child, somebody's mother, you're putting a humanity to something it's a whole different conscious level you're putting a humanity to something.

Sonja: 1:03:45

It's a whole different conscious level of ptsd when you are in the war. When you're in the war, your adrenaline is up, you don't think too much. But thing is, what's happened after you came and everything is okay. You don't need to worry anymore. Oh, is it gonna shoot? What's gonna happen? But the point is that people who are in the war and who never were, who lives like here or anywhere in the world, that it's peace, that safety, safe people, realize reality of life, that life is not just that, that everything can be taken in second, mm-hmm, like and Like, and how people and what it's most, gary's, how people don't appreciate what they have Not at all, that whatever money can buy, it's not worth it, that in a second you can lose all of it.

Adela: 1:04:36

And what people think that they're entitled to.

Sonja: 1:04:38

They think that, oh, I that hate and that everything that's happening I'm just talking now here in america, but it's happening in europe, anywhere in the world. You have everything and you're still ungrateful and you still want them more and you still are mean and hateful yeah, and like you don't know what people pass, that people still don't have. You have bathrooms. You have nice houses, nice car. People live still outside. They don't know what is the electric stove they don't know what after war, when we were in vites.

Sonja: 1:05:15

God almighty has a family that everybody talks about that lived in the ite. They didn't have electric stove. They always had wooden stove. They tried to put fire in the stove and says why it's smoking, why it doesn't go out, why it's smoking in the house. They didn't know that it's electric. Kids that walk miles to school. They don't have a food. They think if they're going to wake up in the morning they don't have a food. They think, if they're gonna wake up in the morning, parents who that for a few days don't even eat anything. And that that's the point of all of it.

Sonja: 1:05:55

What happened to me and you guys? We, we survived and that's what changed me here, and they don't understand. I had such a bad, such a tremendous PTSD and depression that when I was younger I was able to cope. I mean, when you're younger, you deal with it. But in 2009, I mean, even in the war that we skipped, I tried to cut my wrist. I couldn't take anymore. I couldn't wait for the moment that something's going to happen to any of you and I have to live on that Right. I just want to end my life and I don't know, I don't see whatever happened After that, when I think, when I survived, that I didn't have right to do that. I didn't have right to do that, I didn't have right to leave all of this on you, but that's the moment when you, you person's- mind is great, that mind takes over.

Adela: 1:06:55

Basically, the mind says you are not, you're not strong enough anymore to fight this, you're not, you can't handle, like after. It's so funny and it's not funny, but it's so. It's so amazing to me to think that when we get to that point of absolute no like, not necessarily, no, no fear no danger no no, no no, I'm talking about your environment.

Adela: 1:07:15

Okay, listen, like your environment, when you get to that point where you're free and you're out of it and and you're away from that and all of that stuff because of your fighting instinct. Okay, because the fact that you're in immediate danger, right, you can fight because at that moment you want to live. Right, you want to live because you know, you absolutely know, that it is not going to be your second, second. Okay, right, you know that if somebody has a gun to your head, you know that in, in a second, you're dead.

Adela: 1:07:42

Okay, but when you're alone and you have nothing but your own mind, it's it's so much more powerful than that gun. It is so much more powerful than that gun because you are the one pulling the trigger now, you're the one telling yourself now that you're not good enough, that you don't deserve to be in this world, that your life, your value, your anything is not worth it. So, like you, it's how? How the peace? How peace can kill you. Basically, how, like the peace that's why, when you can kill you come back here and everything.

Sonja: 1:08:19

They're having a hard time adjusting to the peace of life because they saw it right, they've lived, they like this, this right here here is, and this is why that's happening there, why everybody can live just in the piece, or should?

Adela: 1:08:33

be all or by, or or or like, for all of you who don't understand this part.

Adela: 1:08:38

When you have soldiers who are your friends, or when you have friends who are going through things or are in the military, like that, when you start complaining how ungrateful you are how terrible, how your life is hard, like, and they're here listening to you bitch about how you couldn't do something on saturday night, or how some bitch screwed you over, or how, how, uh you know like, or even, or even, on a more serious note, how, like you know, we can't right this moment. It's so hard because we can't afford to pay our rent or we can't, and those are stressful. I'm not saying they're not, but when we complain on a level of things like that to somebody, especially a soldier, okay, that value of your and again, it's not saying that your value of your problems is not justified at that moment.

Adela: 1:09:22

For you, okay, okay. But when you look at a bigger picture, who cares, this is just a house.

Sonja: 1:09:27

Right they're. They have been in a place.

Adela: 1:09:29

They have been in a place where again, like you said, they have seen it, where they don't even have the ability to have a roof over. They don't have basic needs of the life like they have nothing and we complain about every single thing. We are so ungrateful about the dimmest things Like my car is not the coolest color. Or I don't have. Ac in my car. Fuck bitch, sweat your ass off.

Sonja: 1:09:52

I don't understand. Whatever money can buy. People don't understand Whatever money can buy can be sacrificed Like that. You don't need that. Go on. Life is you can't buy a life is you can't buy a life you can buy the peace. When I started telling you about, like in 2009, when dad and I were gonna get that process of when we're gonna end our marriage after 24 years, which was so hard I mean we have six kids of you guys and it was hard moments. It was good moment. We went through hell I mean hell but both of us came to the point that depression and everything is taking so much toll on us. In one relationship, he turns to do alcohol and pills.

Adela: 1:10:48

He's still living in the mind of what happened there right he wants to do in that reality.

Sonja: 1:10:51

I don't want to go back. For me that life is over, I couldn't take any more and help is out there. I decide to look for help. I went to the doctors. I Help is out there. I decide to look for help. I went to the doctors. I try any possible. I think depression pills, that is out, everything. I had it, pill it and then this is go to counseling.

Sonja: 1:11:17

I go to what he's going to, what counsel is going to tell me that I don't know. I know all of it, that I don't know. I know all of it, but I needed the strength in me to pull that out. He can tell me talk open, be open. I can talk all day about it, but when night comes, when I close my eyes, I go through all of that and it's just repeating and repeating and repeating and killing you. I decide, after all those fail, depressions and everything. I find a great psychiatrist that was here, the psi, and I researched it a little bit and I went to. I find electroshock therapy and I spoke with me. We had great conversations about that and I knew what it's going to be side effects. And you, you have to decide are you gonna go through that or you don't see any more life. Your life doesn't go any more else. That's it. I came to the point or end it or leave it. No, I love my kids more than anything, but it's it. He's just couldn't be any more able to go.

Adela: 1:12:38

Mm-hmm, didn't have any more.

Sonja: 1:12:40

I can't, I can't because my life became nothing.

Adela: 1:12:43

My life became just have any more of yourself. I can't. I can't because my life became nothing. My life became just, and not just that. You as a self, as a human being. Everything you've been through was taken away from, like every. You were taken piece by piece through your life I didn't have any more strength you didn't know who you were.

Adela: 1:12:55

You never got a chance to learn who you were. You never got you. You never had the even an ounce of an experience to understand a self. Somewhere we go through our teenage stage, our adult stage, our, our, you know our promiscuous stage, or that you didn't have anything.

Sonja: 1:13:11

And when I come into this point is and I can believe that 90% of soldiers feel same I came here, it was peace and I don't know how to live in that. It was peace and I don't know how to live in that, because I get used to it you to be, to be in danger, on the edge, to be always ready to move, I mean. And then suddenly came peace. Here I can sleep and I'm listening those people just complaining and god almighty, and I decided to go through electroshock therapy, which everybody knows from long time ago. That's cuckoo thing. They fried your brains and it did. I knew side effects and it's so sad to tell that my brain is rebooted like a computer and has an update. But I was able to move with life.

Adela: 1:14:13

But sad thing is, your brain functionality is reversed state that I get disconnected. Which is your brain association?

Sonja: 1:14:24

You see, when I'm with you guys, that's why I'm calling, that's why I'm saying always if I don't call you, when you don't call me for a few days, I start losing even knowledge that I had you.

Sonja: 1:14:40

And I'm looking at those pictures and I'm looking at those pictures and every day that I go through life now it's like from the movie 50 Days, 50 Dates, adam Sandler. It's like that. I wake up in the morning and I cannot associate with nobody. And that's what your dad couldn't understand. He was battling his own depression. What your dad couldn't understand. He was battling his own depression. But I had to do that to be able to be on this earth. And it's so hard. Now I can talk about war and everything without any emotions. But when it's come like to to you, to everybody that I know, my family, my friends, I know them, but it feels every day new day. I have to learn about them. I love all of you, but it's it's that emptiness in me, in my brain it's just, it's looking and I can't feel like right.

Adela: 1:15:46

It's the separation of your emotions and your reality like I can't. You can live day-to-day basis. You can do all that stuff, but to dwell in the most interesting trying to get everything in the day possible every day. It is a video today.

Sonja: 1:16:00

I can't like with the stress and everything you remember when you told me I'm blocked. Yes, I can. As soon as it starts things happening, my brain blocks, mm-hmm, I don't know what you say. I don't know how to. I just said I can't and can't and now I have to pull back. But I'm grateful I was able to get back to school again to get what I want. And look at me today I working and I can. I.

Adela: 1:16:29

Know that it's from four years ago. Mom, you couldn't even work. No, there's five years five years, four or five years ago.

Sonja: 1:16:36

You couldn't even. I was from 2009 to 14. I was on full disability, mm-hmm, and People wants to stay on disability. I was one who wanted to run. I was one who tried to. I just knew that I can do more. If I'm going to live this life, I have to do more. I have to be able to. I never was able to say okay, that's it, no or whatever. I always try to please everybody else, whatever they want, however they want. But now I'd like to take some credit in that. Now I can say, okay, that's it. But worst thing, that hurts. And you see, it hurts now and in a few hours after this it's going to be like it's never happened. Oh, I know, that's it hurts now and in a few hours after this it's gonna be like it's never happened.

Adela: 1:17:31

Oh, I know that's the things that I can't change, see, like, but at least give me a life, some kind of life. See, the electroshock therapy did that to you. The brain dissociation was, was the aftermath of that. The brain dissociation for me was what happened to me from beginning. It's developed in children who suffer from trauma.

Adela: 1:17:48

So, like, instantly, and basically what you do is you, you take yourself, your whole self, and you dissociate yourself from that environment, which is why I have no memories. Okay, it also is that that association creates multiple personalities and multiple memories and multiple, that that association creates multiple personalities and multiple memories and multiple identities and and things like that. Because and so for me, that's why I have I have so many different memories of so many different pieces and they're pieced together into two big days, like those little bits, because, like I said, I don't remember you, yours, all right, I don't remember that part, but I remember them coming in the house and see, now that I remember that part, maybe for me as a child, I didn't understand the level of severity when dad had to leave that morning. Do you know what I mean?

Sonja: 1:18:30

I didn't understand the level, or when I heard the bomb.

Adela: 1:18:33

Well, I didn't hear. When I heard the all of that maybe I didn't understand that level of like what it was, but when I saw them, that fear, so it's so PTSD, dipd, dip. All of this stuff, like, in a sense, is your body, goes into this, this hypersensitive mode where every single nerve ending in your body and your brain and everywhere is unlike. It goes from like standard right here where we are to, to literally up here and that's when memories Just imagine like it was happening somewhere else.

Adela: 1:19:10

Now too, all of it, aleppo, I mean right now all of this is happening at this moment Just think about like before Kishanchevocello happened.

Sonja: 1:19:19

It was Christmas 93. Christmas Eve 22nd. There Kishanchevocello happened on 22nd or 23rd December, on 93rd, I'm not sure exactly on that day. But I remember Christmas Eve when we escaped and we were put back to the Vites. When we came there which is sudden things they put us with Muslims in the house. It was. You can't even explain that, but that Christmas Eve we didn't have nothing to eat. I find some rice and I made pita from rice, some flowers and some rice.

Adela: 1:19:56

Which is why pita is always my favorite.

Sonja: 1:19:58

Everybody, all village was already gone there because Khrushchev was always right behind us and Muslims took that line and the Christmas Eve then should be most happiest day in the year. I had to take three of you with Drago. We had that what is called a barrel barrel. Yeah, barrels barrel. I put Ivana and Dragana in barrel and you were walking and we walked three miles in the rain, in the snow, all around to get from that village. That was taken, that we didn't know if Anto survived until Anto was run hit there Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah we didn't know.

Sonja: 1:20:42

I had to take all of you walking to get to the other side. I mean constant running to try to save your most precious things, your children to, to save those lives. What you go through and in that moment, just that adrenaline, everything you don't think. You don't think about bullets, you just hear them all around you. Just think about saving Just to get out, just try to get out.

Sonja: 1:21:15

I mean I Just can say, if people say, or you're gonna go heaven or hell or whatever it's when I die, I don't know, I don't care. Nobody came back and tell us this is heaven, this is hell, but I know what life hell is and how you have to find that string and you don't know where it comes. But how we're getting older, things are running out. You don't have any more. You just get so full, like, be so full. And I wish that everybody, every human being here, everywhere in the world, understands that yes, I'm gonna pay rent, yes, it's my responsibility. We all have to work. Without work, you can't have nothing. It's nothing is gonna come on the pound. But when it's come, situations to choose between my family, happiness and everything, or house or car or whatever, who gives a crap? It's just a house. I can live in carton box outside. So far I know that everybody's safe. But it's not priority, it's not what you have, it's who you are. It has a reason for everything.

Sonja: 1:22:34

Every child, when it's born, didn't said I want to come in this life. I chose to have you guys. My life was hell and you know we're gonna get to that the next another time. My life of growing up was hell. I was born sick. I lost a breast to the kind of cancer when I was a child. Two months I had radiation. I survived all those hell. I decide, and we don't. What happened with my mother, with rape, everything. When I decide to have you, which every parent should, every mother and father, but especially mother, when you bring child in the world, you, it's not anymore about you, about parties, about what you missed. It's sacrifice better, do not have the child. And if you don't make all efforts to break a circle of bad things that happen to you, we says kids are bad. They're not. They're looking at us, kids, looking at us. Every child wants to be.

Sonja: 1:23:45

And if every child reacts differently on how they ask me for help, some would stamp, some would become quiet, someone scream so a different way of expression and you need to know your child and when you see first time that something wrong that child doesn't smile same way he stamped you have to step in right away. Mm-hmm, because when you, if it's you let it go, that kids were gonna go and ask for help somewhere else and the person person who's gonna help them.

Sonja: 1:24:22

If they're lucky, it's gonna be good. If not, it's gonna be drug, it's gonna be killing. It's gonna help them. If they're lucky, it's gonna be good. If not, it's gonna be drug, it's gonna be killing, it's gonna be. Kids are not bad. They're reflection of how we raise them, what we teach them and what is more important them or us, right? I don't want to go for the party. I don't want to. Yeah, I was 28. You have kids. Oh, I didn't see nothing, I didn't do nothing. But hey, you decide to have that child. Better, don't.

Sonja: 1:24:47

Until you're ready, don't have it, and so many of those kids can be saved and all we have to do is so many, just just when they come to you or they says, oh, they're teeth, they're bad family, yes, but that kids growing up like that and I know that I always said purpose of my life and everything that I went through. If whoever hears this, if just one person decides to change and to save one child, my purpose, is fulfilled. I did it. Yeah, it's yeah. I did it, yeah it's yeah. Yeah, guys, I mean, we can go on this. It's so many things. We can go on this, don't worry.

Adela: 1:25:32

We have two months to tell you our story. We have two months We'll be doing this once a week where we're going to get together and do this and share this so that you understand what Project H really is about. Project H, project Human, is about our humanity and about us understanding our humanity and how we can change the world just because one we can, and through art, through being able to give these kids a way to express themselves kids like me, and not just kids, but adults, young adults, anybody but the ability to be a mentor, to be a leader in a community, just because we choose to be, is what the whole goal and hope is for. So thank you for tuning in and learning the beginning of my story as well with me, because I've had no idea and, as you can tell, I'm shocked at some of the things I heard, because that's not what I've replayed in my head. My whole life, like my whole life, is a lie, if you will.

Adela: 1:26:28

I can you know what I mean like, but my whole life, my whole life of what happened to me is a lie and that's so hard to process because, again, it's what I've, because I've dissociated so much and gone and we'll get into more of that because I have to go to say and what's your mind telling you?

Sonja: 1:26:44

and most of the time we deprive your brain, push right bad things outside and it's gone right, subconsciously right, and then start coming out and you have to deal with it and you don't know, because it's just compact in it.

Adela: 1:27:02

It's.

Adela: 1:27:03

We said our brains are like computers, but we'll talk more about that.

Adela: 1:27:07

Go to my May Mental Health, wellness or Mental Health Book Challenge group if you want to be part of that. We're doing that. We're going to be talking about mental health, illness and illnesses and disorders and any of that stuff of any kind, and again, it stems down through anything and I want to see how, um, we can open up this conversation about the emotion, the extreme emotional and conscious level of our choices and our decisions, which is what the whole project is about, and the understanding of that. So, um, go to the um event ticket or go to the tickets uh link and get your tickets today for again the event. Go to the go ticket or go to the tickets link and get your tickets today for again the event. Go to the GoFundMe so we can fund this project and we can push this whole mentoring program off the ground and this whole way to help these kids in these schools and underprivileges in there, go get the magazine, because the magazine is going to have more stories of this.

Sonja: 1:27:59

It's going to be more into this and details of part of that and again all of that is going to be donating at least 10, 20 dollars. Some kids going three days without food, and why couldn't we go just one lunch?

Adela: 1:28:16

but we will spend it on, you know coffee and stuff like that, which again it's we're privileged to do that, we're told to do that, and all that stuff it. It doesn't matter, but it's time for our community. We can't do it it's so hard for me to say this, but there's not much we can do out there in that sense. But we can physically, with our hands, minds and feet and every part of us, do something here in Jacksonville and change some things, and that's what I want to do.

Sonja: 1:28:46

I want to change the way we think about our communities and the way we view each other through the real estate. At the end of the day, you cut yourself. We all bleed the same. Everything is happening the same. It doesn't matter how you look, who you are, what do you have? You can have billions. You can have nothing when it hits you, you lose your child or something. No money can buy you that, and that's always what I always said. Whatever money can buy, it's not important, it's not worth it.

Sonja: 1:29:14

You buy one car you lose, it it's going to come.

Adela: 1:29:17

But when you lose your child, when you lose someone that you love, that's you can't buy back so I'm going to go and process all this information because I don't know yet how I feel about it and so I'm a little bit on my little spectrum of my hate. Your emotional, my disorder is coming out because I'm going my emotional level so, um, I love to eat.

Adela: 1:29:42

You guys later on how I'm feeling and processing that and once I go over this, um, but thank you for letting me to say well, I think the fact that, because we are the the whole and again learning and this is something I learned today being that 86 people in a nine, in a war where hundreds of thousands and almost a million people were murdered, murdered mercilessly, in 86, this little piece of number, nobody knew, nobody, knew, nobody knew anything about four weeks that we even existed.

Adela: 1:30:19

And you know what else. According to the papers and the death certificates in the Bosnia, we are officially declared dead. I've seen my name. We are officially declared dead. And to have a part of your identity that you don't even know die before you even had a chance to explore it, like for and this is for my side. Now you know what I mean.

Sonja: 1:30:43

It's so my, I just remember us when we came here, because when we went to get decide to come in America I mean, when I show up that even I was 18 months old, here having big registers as a Red Cross, as a prisoner of the war we, it was just like that. We show up today, this has come tomorrow. You could just go and we landed in New York in a JF Kennedy. I had about $25, whatever it was. That was first time you guys were introduced to burger.

Adela: 1:31:14

Oh yeah, we had. What do we have? Mcdonald's, Right? Yes, we, okay. So my post for coming to New America, like coming to America, my first meal in America and my freedom was McDonald's. So, thank you, mcdonald's, and I remember you, god, we were so scared.

Sonja: 1:31:32

I was only three months old and I had just one suitcase. That's how we came in America. I didn't have ID, I didn't have driver's license, passport. I had Red Cross ID paper with just the pictures of us. We landed and I was got so scared I mean unbelievably it and I remember you that I will never forget. You're only 10 years old, not even 10 already. Yet it was May when we came and you, july, will be 10 and you were holding me and telling me in my language how whatever happened to us and how we survive has a purpose and no matter what, that we're going to be okay. It's meant something for it. It's showing just your spirit. You, you believe your. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. That kid who is that age? But a lot, a lot, and I know that you have a lot of that that you remember and you saw it, but subconsciously push it and it's just popping up as pieces like a puzzle yeah, that you can't put together yet to get that to finish to get that final piece.

Adela: 1:32:46

Yeah, I will find your picture, so anyway. So we're gonna find out what kind of human I am. July 14th 2017, so you better be there, anyway. Thank you guys, so much for tuning in. We'll catch you guys next week on there. We'll do this again and I appreciate you guys support let's, let's spread the word in the conversations of love, peace and happiness and kindness and change the world for the better.