"What are you doing here?" "I'm a tourist." "No, what you're really doing here?" "Who do you work for?" "Can I have my passport back?" "She wants her passport." " Let's drink a coffee first." "I have cousin in Australia." "I Sydney." " I live there." "She lives in Sidney." "But I have never been there." "It's too far away mate." " Kangaroos." "How they carry that youngs in those..." "This, how do you call this?" " Pouch." "How do you like it here?" "Yeah, it's a nice place." " She likes it." "Sixth of July, 2011." "This is my list of things that I have to get done this morning." "So, video diary, check." "Finish packing, almost done." "Books, reading material for the flight." "Ivo Andric, The bridge over the Drina." "Nobel prize for literature, 1961." "Fictionalized history of the Balkans." "English-Bosnian dictionary, check." "And tourist guide book to Bosnia and Herzegovina." "By Tim Clancy." "Check." "Have a shower." "I've just had what is known in my mind as the last shower, because it's such a long time until I get to have another one." "Oh, it's open!" "Hello!" "Look at you, you're not even dressed." " You're really early." "I just need to grab a couple of things." " Should I help you?" "No, I'm ok." " I brought you some sunscreen." "Thanks mom!" " I looked it up, it was 36 degrees yesterday in Sarajevo." "Fantastic." " Yeah." "You should've gone to Fiji with your sister." " Everyone goes to Fiji." "You always have to be on your own." "Please, take care of yourself." "Don't do anything stupid." "How much is this?" " Five marks." " Five marks?" " Yeah." "Thank you, I'll take it." "Thank you, bye-bye." "It's a certain thing that we're the people which is..." "Very funny, which likes to welcomes guests in our town." "Which likes to communicate with the guest." "After all, the people recently makes a living of you, people that come as tourists." "Tourist, yes, I'm a tourist." "I have to say that you really look very nice that you're a holiday for boy's eyes." "That you are..." "I almost finished the book, The bridge on the Drina." "And while I was reading today, I was thinking to myself, maybe I'll travel and see the bridge." "Why not?" "It's just like a two and a half bus ride towards Serbia," "And it's in a small town called Visegrad, which is in Eastern Bosnia." "And from there I can just continue on with my Balkan tour." "The Vilina vlas spa resort, just 5 km from Visegrad town has decent accommodation, and it's situated in very pleasant natural surroundings." "A perfect spot for romantic evening." "No romantic evening for me, tough." "Just a table for one." "Hello, I'm traveling to Visegrad and I was just wandering if you had any free rooms this weekend?" "Are you hotel Vilina vlas?" "Sorry, do you speak English?" "I speak english." "Hi, I have a reservation under the name Kim Vercoe." "Passport." " Oh, yes." "Breakfast is from six to nine." "Room 319" "Please." " Thank you." "Cigarette?" " No, thank you." "I don't smoke." "You are alone here?" " Yeah, in Visegrad, yeah." "Where are you from?" " I'm from Australia." "From Australia?" " Yeah!" " Oh my God!" "Australia is so far away." " I know, it's really far away." "You have kangaroo there?" " Yes, we have kangaroos." "You see them?" " Kangaroos?" "Yeah!" "But not in the city!" " You don't see?" "No, no." "They're not in the city!" "In the wood?" " Yeah, in the bush." "Maybe..." "Maybe you can... come with me to drink some drink?" " No, no, I'm really tired." "Just one drink, ten minutes." "No, I got to get back to the hotel, thank you." "I promise you, one drink." "Where you sleep here anyway?" "At Vilina vlas." " In Vilina?" "Never been there." " Okay." "But just one drink!" "One, one!" "No, I have to go now." "Nice to meet you." " I'm Darko." " I'm Kym." "Nice to meet you." " Ciao!" " Ciao, I see you!" "Good day." "Good morning." "Good evening." "Goodbye." "Good night." "In more colloquial fashion you can use the word:" "Zdravo." "Which means both hello and goodbye, rather like 'hi' and 'cheerio'." "She was like a peeled potato in water," "She was at the military camp at Kamenica for 10 days, that mister Milan Lukic took her over there." "You've talked about her appearing like a peeled potato in water" "Can I ask you to describe your observation about her that led you to that characterization." "The lady had been bitten all over her face." "I didn't take the liberty to ask her" "I was able to see that something bad had happened to her." "She was back and blue, bitten all over, and that's because she was raped." "Hey!" " How are you?" " Good, how are you?" " Good." "Yeah, I'm performing on the 18th, but then I'm free on the weekend." "Ok." "Yeah, ok, after the fooley." "But I thought you said they always win if you don't go." "Ok." "Alright, I love you mom." "I see you then." "Ok, bye-bye." "A 17 year old girl, her name is Jasna, and her sister, who is only 15 were picked up from their home and taken to hotel Vilina vlas." "They were locked in separate rooms, one across the hall from the other." "Jasna said she could hear many women screaming and then she hear her sister crying." "She never saw her again." "How can people be so cruel?" "Milan Lukic, this is one of the guys convicted in the Haag." "came into Jasna's room and ordered her to take her clothes off." "She cried and begged for mercy." "He should she should be happy to be with him." "And then there's Jasmina." "I'm sorry." "This is gonna sound awful." "It's our weekend." "Isn't he wonderful?" "It's like he's got no bones in his body, he's totally liquid." "This is my favourite shot." "Wait for it!" "You went halfway around a world to shoot a duck." " But look how graceful it is." "Plain Anas platyrhynchos." "What a sense for timing." "This is the hotel?" " Yeah." "I cannot imagine." " I didn't see any memorial in the city or at the hotel." "Nothing, like nothing ever happened." "What did you think?" "That'd be a sign saying 'welcome to hotel bla bla, death camp'?" "I don't know what I thought." "I'm just disturb by the fact that I slept there the same fucking sheets are still on the bed." "Exactly the same furniture." "I read that the hotel director still lives in the town." "He never got charged with anything." "Dear Tim, firstly let me thank you for your guide for Bosnia and Herzegovina." "I found your guide very useful." "I can sense you know and love the country very much." "I'm writing to you know because of something I discovered when I got home." "I was so shocked when I read that the hotel Vilina vlas near Visegrad, was a notorious rape camp during the war." "A place where Bosnian muslim women were systemically raped and killed." "It made me sick." "I spent the night in Vilina vlas because I found a recommendation for it in your guide, on page 147." "I'm not sure weather you know about the history of this place, or if you thought some things are best left unmentioned." "I also found out that the old bridge in Visegrad the one that I walked on, was a place of many massacres." "I read that it was impossible to cross the bridge because there was so much blood." "Tim, this is a very harsh discovery for me." "If I'd known what happened in hotel Vilina vlas, I would not have booked a room there." "And to be honest, it's very hard for me to understand why this crime scene is still being used as a spa resort." "Please don't consider this letter as an attack." "I just want to know why didn't mentioned it in your guide." "Kind regards, Kym." "29th of October, 2011." "My friends tell me 'You didn't know and it's not your fault.'" "And I mean, I totally know that but I have to say it doesn't make me any better." "I mean I see shit like this on the news all the time, and then I finish watching the news and I go on and make dinner, so..." "I'm just completely freaked out that I slept there." "In the same bed." "And that I did something totally benign, like hang my washing out on that balcony." "And I've been reading all this stuff on the internet, and..." "I just completely never wanted that closeness." "I think I sort of assumed that some way that was used as a concentration rape camp wouldn't exist anymore." "You know, that maybe it would be tore down." "I didn't really know you can just clean up a place and then pretend that nothing ever happened." "But I guess it's not surprising." "This silence." "This denial." "That is really beautiful." " They are dream tracks." "It's about an ancient Aboriginal traveling route around Australia." "Strange time tracks trough the land." "And someone's painting." "That is so beautiful, thank you." "It's really expensive." "I would expect nothing less, thank you." "Line up." " A thousand dollars each, right?" "Thank you dear." "I'm twenty one again." "Where do you come from?" " From Australia." "Australia?" "Kangaroo?" "Are you alone, travel alone?" " Yes, alone." "Alone, big problema." "What sort of birds are these?" "This are perfectly normal Bosnian birds." "Everybody ok?" " We're good." "Just tell me one thing, any mines around here?" "I hope not." " Very funny." "Just kidding." "No, it's all clear." "Hey." " Hi." " This is so beautiful." " Isn't it?" " Yeah, amazing." "You're American?" " Yeah, but I've lived in Bosnia since 1992, so I guess" "I'm Bosnian now." "I wanted to talk to you about your book, your guide." "What interest me, how do you choose what information to include" "It must be difficult." " Generally, it is not easy." "It's impossible to satisfy everybody." "I sent you an e-mail a few months ago, actually." "Yeah?" " Yeah, and included some pretty concrete questions." "Forgive me, I get a tone of e-mails regarding this guide book," "I may have overlooked it, I may have not received it at all, so I'm sorry." "It's ok, I mean I was just saying how much I liked the guide" "It was really useful to me when I was here last time" "I was in Sarajevo then, and I visited Visegrad," "And I spent the night in hotel Vilina vlas." " Oh, that was you?" "Guys, you can just keep going." "There." "Yeah, I really took that e-mail to harm." "Basically when you write a book like this one, you can only write what's good for tourists but also what's good for Bosnia." "All the citizens of this country." "It's a difficult country." "It's a beautiful, fucking difficult country." "I know what happened there." "Monstrosities are hard to avoid in Eastern Bosnia." "But come on, Tim." "We're talking about a place where 200 women were raped for weeks on end, and then killed." "A rape camp." "And you recommend it as a place to sleep." "If I include that information in the guide book, no one will come," "I didn't want to black list the whole community, you know what I mean?" " Yeah." "I just think isolation is not the answer." "There's enough paranoia everywhere as it is." "And I'm trying to move forward." "Excuse me, Edina Omerovic?" "Hi." "Do you speak English?" " How can I help you?" "My name is Kym Vercoe, I sent you an e-mail from Australia with my questions about hotel Vilina vlas, and I was wondering if maybe you have some time to speak with me." "I'm sorry, now is not good for me." "Is there another time which may be good?" "I've read your articles..." " Few years ago a journalist called me and asked me if I could find some raped women for him." "but they would have to speak English and be photogenic." "I'm not a journalist, I never asked for that." "So what are you doing here?" " I'm a tourist, from Sidney." "And why would I waste my time talking with a tourist?" "From Sidney." "I was just hoping to speak with you before I go back to Visegrad." "But..." "I'm sorry, my mistake." "Hey you, I didn't catch your name." "People were killed in the streets, and the old bridge not just at night, during the day as well." "All this killing happened in the first two months of the war." "That was a strategy, this public killings." "Is it possible to set ablaze a house with 70 people in it in the center of the town and that in such a small town as Visegrad no one would know?" " When did you leave Visegrad?" "1992." "One of the war criminals, Mitar Vasiljevic is his name, he was convicted in the Haag," "Served his sentence and came back to Visegrad." "He was greeted as a hero." "A huge crowd welcomed him as he was a football player who came back after winning the game." "Now when you go to Visegrad you can run into him on the street." "What was it like to sleep in Vilina vlas?" "That night I felt weird." "Sort of anxious." "I didn't sleep at all actually." "And then in the morning I was sick and I couldn't figure out why." "When I go back to Australia I goggled the name of the hotel and I found out." "I couldn't breathe." "Why do you want to go back there?" "Hey!" "Hi, do you remember me?" "Kym, from Australia." "Kym?" " Do you remember?" "Back in the summer." " You're here again?" "Yeah, but it's colder this time." " Yeah." "Ok, well..." "See you." "This school looks exactly the same an it did in time when Ivo Andric attended it." "This year is 50 years since he got a Nobel prize." "Yeah, yeah, I know." "Here you can see a postcard that resident of Visegrad sent to Ivo Andric congratulating him on a Nobel prize." "Take a look." "Yes, fantastic." " He copied it." "Snow." "I can show you the town." "I'm a historian." "It won't cost you a lot, five marks." "Did you read Andric novel?" " Yes." "It is like that, you see." "What are we humans?" "Life passes very fast and the bridge stands." "That's the way it is." "The bridge is a symbol of eternity." "Would you like to across to the other side?" " Can we go around?" "Yes, we can go around." "This is the house where little Ivo lived." " How was it here during the war?" "I wasn't here during the war." "Ivo Andric grew up in this house." "During his early childhood an old muslim woman took care of him" "Where were you during the war?" " I took shelter with my family at my sister's place in Serbia." "During that time of madness and destruction I wrote poetry." "I don't know if you're familiar with this, but Andric wrote his greatest works during the Second world war." " No, I didn't know that." "Visegrad was mostly exempt from major destruction." "Military activities were carried out in surrounding villages." "Never can that be told." "For those who saw and lived trough it are lost to gift of words." "And those who are dead, can tell no tales." "Those are things which are not told, but forgotten." "But if where are not forgotten, how could they ever be repeated." "Good afternoon." "Let me take a picture of you." " I don't understand, I'm sorry." "I will take a picture, so the town can be seen." "No, thank you." " I'll take a picture of you." "Go over there a bit." "Now get up." "Get up on the bridge." "A little bit to the left." "Just a little more." "There you go." "Smile now." "December 10, motel Aura." "Only when I come back to my room I can actually talk." "The camera is like a buffer between me and Visegrad." "Seeing Visegrad trough the lens makes it digestible." "When I walk trough the town, every person that I see, I think" "What did you do during the war?" "Did you participate or you just watched?" "And then I hate myself for looking at people in such a way." "I decided never to cross the old bridge in my life so I've been crossing the new bridge when I wanna go into town." "And then I've read that on the new bridge, they killed 150 civilians in one day, and publicly raped women there." "People watched from their houses." "There's this sentence that's stuck in my head." "Sight seeing in the mansions of the dead." "The sentence is sort of like" "It totally discuss me, I think" "And I feel like, and feel like that's what I'm doing now." "I don't feel like that when I come to Bosnia at all, I don't feel like that but but I do feel like that here, now." "It's so different." "Ignorance is bliss." "Like, I just had no idea last time I was here." "And now my head is totally swimming." "I'm a fucking fellow tourist." "Candles down are for the dead." "Up are for the living." "Everybody comes to Visegrad goes to the old bridge." "They're not interested in anything else." "Just the old bridge." "What are you doing here?" " Looking at the old bridge." "Nobody knows who builds that bridge." "Not written anywhere, not in a single book." "Sokollu Mehmed Pasha's bridge." "Did he build the bridge?" "No." "My ancestors builds that bridge." "We, Serbs from Visegrad and villages surrounding it." "Do you understand me?" "Do I make my self clear?" "Serbs from the villages around." "Turks came with horses and weapons and made Serbs peasants to work for them." "That is how it truly was." "My ancestors." "The Turks ruled, and we worked." "Five hundred years." "That is what you need to know." "The truth." "Muslims ruled here for five hundred years." "Is that not important?" "Is that something to be forgotten?" "Me..." "No, we." "have our freedom." "That is what I wanted to say." "because you look very intelligent." "We will see each other again." "This is small town." "I really likes to see you again." "Cheers!" "Hello, good afternoon, do you speak English?" "No?" "Alright, I'm sorry." "I would like a room with one bed." "Tomorrow." "Ah yes, night." "Tomorrow night." "Sorry?" "Ah, Kym." "K-y-m." "and Vercoe." "V-E-R-C-O-E." "Alright." "Oh, excuse me." "I want a room with a balcony." "Yes, ok, ok." "So you have a reservation tomorrow?" "Alright, alright." "Thank you, good day!" "Do you come here very often?" "No, not often." "I mean it's my second time." "Who do you work for?" "No one, I'm a tourist." "You can see everything in Visegrad in one day!" "You're filming like this is Moscow." "You film everything." "What do you film?" "Here you go." " Don't touch me!" "Why am I here?" "We have three reports, that you entered people's property, that you took pictures of people without their permission, that you have filmed sights of military and strategic importance." "You're booked into two hotels room for tonight, motel Aura, and hotel Vilina vlas." "You know what happened in Vilina vlas during the war?" "What is she saying?" "Translate." "Vilina vlas was a hospital for soldiers." "As you know, it's a rehabilitation center." "Rehabilitation center?" "You have no idea what are you talking about." "You're so ready to believe all this bullshit stories what you heard." "He knows, he was there." "I want to call the Australian embassy." "There's no Australian embassy in Bosnia." "Bus out of Visegrad leaves in one hour." "Fuck you!" "I have a reservation." " Passport." "Can I have it back, please?" " When you leave." "I'd like to get it back now, please." "Thank you." "Woman number one." "Woman number two." "Woman number three." "Woman number four." "Woman number five." "Woman number six." "Woman number seven." "Woman number eight." "Woman number nine." "Woman number ten." "Woman number eleven." "Woman number twelve." "Woman number thirteen." "Woman number fourteen." "Woman number one hundred and twenty one." "Woman number one hundred and twenty two." "Woman number one hundred and twenty three." "Woman number one hundred and twenty four." "Woman number one hundred and twenty five." "THE END" "Translated and transcribed by Inglourious @KG"