Bosnian Muslim relates horror moments experienced in a prison camp

“We were learning about the Auschwitz and Nazi camps at the” high school, Elesovic said, speaking in Queens, New York, where he has lived since 1997.

Elesovic and his older brothers, Remzo and Jasmin, were arrested along with their father and thousands of other Bosnian Muslim men, or Bosniak, by the forces of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO).

HVO was the military arm of an unknown territorial unit called the Herceg-Bosna Republic, which Bosnian Croat nationalists tried to decide during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia.

Slobodan Pralyak, who died after swallowing cyanid to death in a war crimes court on November 29th, ordered the main staff of HVOCE.

Elesovic's people were divided between three and a half dozen prison camps headed by HVO in Herzegovina, reports “Al Jazeera”, Periscopi broadcast. There was fierce fighting between the Bosnian Army and HVO forces during the summer, the men were arrested, but Elesovic president of the North American Congress now says his family was not connected to any armed group.

Elezovic for “Al Jazeera” confessed his story of his imprisonment at Gabela Camp, where some 1,500 men were placed in three large storage depots until August 1993, according to evidence from former prisoners given to Human Rights Watch.

Beatings and Forced Work

I was like any normal teenager when I was growing up. The first movie I've ever seen in movies is Top GunWhich is still my favorite movie. I dreamed of being a soccer player or a banker one day.

Before the war I had so many friends, and I really didn't know their ethnicity or religion. I grew up to respect good people and to separate them in that way in both good and bad, not from who is Muslim, Jewish or Catholic, or any other religion. But when aggression started, then I began to realize that some of my high school friends in Mostar were on the other side.

I was 18 years old at the time. The members of the army and residents of Croatia came and took me out of my home, along with my brothers and father. I was taken to Gabella concentration camp. I spent 273 days in captivity. I wasn't an organizer or anything; it was just because I'm a Bosnian.

There was no ordinary day at camp. They would come, take some people, beat them. They beat them to a lot of blood. And then the next day, they'd take you for forced labor.

The material they were carrying was made of metal. It was very hot inside and we were on top of each other. It was really terrible.

I was six and a half feet [190 m] tall when I left that warehouse.

Despite all the beatings, suffering and humiliation, without food and water, forced labour, the hardest moment in nine months was when I witnessed the murder of my childhood friend Mujo Obradovic.

The boy who was in charge of the camp, Bosko “Boko” Previsic, ask if anyone had any food. They said no, but my friend, who was 18, had a piece of bread in his pocket, a piece of bread trying to get. I'm guessing it would take this piece of bread to someone inside who probably hadn't eaten food for days.

When Boco found him, he shot Muja to death. That was the hardest thing for me to see as a young man. This was the first time I saw a dead body.

Boko is still hiding in Croatia, not prosecuted. /Periscopi/