Nostalgia | War | Trauma | Childhood | Subsister
A Homeland Lost
War Torn Memories
Often, we are asked, “Where do we come from?”. It sounds like such a simple question. Knowing and understanding one’s heritage forms a powerful part of our identity. Our culture, our values, what we name our children, even down to the food we eat.
But ask me where I come from, and I pause. One side of me is Swedish but the other is from a place which no longer exists. Erased from a map over two decades ago. I belong everywhere and nowhere.
My grandparents left Yugoslavia when it was still that. They came to Britain to seek a better life after the Second World War, sparing them from living through the atrocities that ripped through and consequently destroyed their homeland in the nineties.
As a child, we would return for family holidays of which I have fond memories. Taking for granted the freedom of movement for we had family scattered across the region. Serbia and Croatia may have been separate republics but together they formed one country.
War changed all that as did Western attitudes towards my family. My Grandmother would be abused by neighbours in the street, spat on, and threatened. Told to “go home.” When Belgrade was bombed by NATO in 1999, the West cheered. My family…
