From notes@igc.org Wed Aug 21 16:11:30 1996
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Date: 21 Aug 1996 12:49:08
Reply-To: Conference "zamir.chat" 
From: gensemer@main.phys.uconn.edu
Subject: http://mediafilter.org/SJ/Pages/Mostar, genocide, photography
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Hello everyone.  I was in Mostar just four days ago, unfortunately only for
one day, and

couldn't get a bus to Sarajeveo.  What I saw there at once made me cry to
see the cruelty

of a genocidal war, and smile with joy at the way I saw people working
together in such

cooperation to rebuild their beautiful city.  I watched with anger as
dozens of destroyed

villages flew by the train window between Split and Zagreb.  I shot 8
rolls of film and

I am working on putting together a kind of book on my own experience, to
share with other

Americans.  I only wish I wasn't limited to English, as I only found a few
people who could

talk with me at length.

  I plan to come back in the future because I found Bosnia to be a
stunningly beautiful

place, and one where perhaps freedom in the end will have triumphed over
fascism -

although the price for freedom is many lives.

  I hope that foreign troops - Croation, Serbian, UN - leave Bosnia soon.
It angered me

to see soldiers who have carved up your country hanging out in cafes
flirting with the

waitresses while a hundred meters away a family is pulling bricks out of
the basement of

their old house.

  I will try to use the pictures I took to communicate to students at my
university

something of the reality of Bosnia, and how blind nationalism can lead to
such destruction.

  Well anyway I thought you might like to know that there are at least a
few Americans

who aren't afraid to go to Bosnia now, and hopefully more will follow in
my footsteps.

I hope to return and do some volunteer work in the future so that I may
come to know

Bosnia better.   La Lutta Continua.

                                    Steve Gensemer

                                    U-46  University of Connecticut

                                    Storrs, CT 06268

                                    USA

                                    gensemer@main.phys.uconn.edu