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The walls are peppered with bullet holes, while the
remains of the blown up mosque act as a wood store. A young lad stops and looks down the street in both directions, comes closer but then turns away. After a few steps he spins round, comes back and says: "Everyone here knows what happened to the Muslims. They all know about the mass murder, but nobody can bear living with it." He then walks quickly away and disappears round a corner. A stop in the killing and a media withdrawal doesn’t mean the Balkan war is at an end. Jens Olof Lasthein’s book deals with daily life in the shadow of a war. Between shellings, after ethnic cleansing or before a shot is fired. Jesper Lindau My father was three years old when Denmark was occupied by the nazis in 1940. At eight the enormous rebuilding of Europe got underway. It was the photos and stories that served as a way into that period for me. I met Magda in Sarajevo, spring 1996. The Dayton agreement had just been signed and the war in Bosnia was over. She had kept on living in her apartment throughout the war even though it was quite literally on the frontline. Magda told about a German diplomat she recently met at a dinner. He jovially said farewell with the words, "See you in the next war". To which she replied, "Yes, maybe in your country". During my journeys in former Yugoslavia I received real insights into the realities of war and its aftermath. The reluctance of the surrounding world to get involved has made me realise it can all happen again. Jens Olof Lasthein Jens Olof Lasthein was born in 1964, grew up in Denmark and now lives in Stockholm, Sweden. He works as a freelance photographer and is connected to Mira picture archive. He has held exhibitions in Sweden, Denmark and Italy. |