Rescuing the future: a chance for the Bosnian students.

For me, what is happening now in Bosnia brings to mind memories of a time--fifty-four years ago--when my parents and I waited in Vienna for relatives in the United States to rescue us from the Nazis. Because there was no way for Jews to earn a living, we relied on American soup kitchens for our one hot meal of the day. Finally, after eighteen months, the treasured invitation came. But there were still anxious moments at the U.S. consulate, where we had to prove that we were in good health and could support ourselves. Because of childhood polio my father walked with a pronounced limp. Fortunately the doctor who examined us was interested in photography, my father's profession; so, in fluent English, my father explained to the doctor the features of a new camera, thereby demonstrating his ability to make a living. Finally, with tickets supplied by HIAS, an American relief organization, we three boarded the Italian ship that brought us to New York harbor and the welcoming torch of the Statue of Liberty.

Now, seeing something very close to a new holocaust taking place in Bosnia, it is frustrating to realize that the official U.S. reaction has been as grudging and skeptical as it was fifty years ago. Once more I'm learning that bureaucracies lack empathy and respond poorly to crises; one must look to individuals and private groups to keep us human. In my own case it was the New School for Social Research in Manhattan where I took my Ph.D. In 1933 it had set up a "University in Exile" that saved some two hundred European scholars from the Nazis.

A few months ago, I was offered a chance to repay my moral debt. I learned that there were nearly 600 Bosnian students hoping to continue their education in the United States. Stranded in Croatia, Slovenia, or Serbia, out of contact with their families, they were indubitably refugees, but U.S. embassies routinely denied them immigrant status. They could, however, obtain student visas, a chance to survive and study, if an American college or university would admit them and if they could show they would not become dependent.

A rescue operation was organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), an ecumenical antiwar group in Nyack, New York, and by the Jerrahi Order of America, a Sufi Muslim organization. In response to an appeal from FOR, I called friends who contacted others; each of us jumped at the chance to approach colleges in the area. One friend, a professor at Tompkins-Cortland Community College in Dryden, New York, was sure the college president would offer a scholarship. FOR had sent us the papers on Jasmina Burdzovic, a twenty-two-year-old woman who had completed a year of university work before her family was forced to flee by Serbian soldiers. They had taken her Muslim father to a concentration camp.

Sure enough, Eduardo Marti, the college president, immediately offered a tuition waiver. He had himself fled Cuba in 1960 as part of the "Peter Pan Brigade" that brought children to the United States. Catholic Charities had responded to his parents' call for help in getting an education; he became a biology teacher, then a college administrator. "Now it's my turn to help," he said.

Jasmina would still need a place to live, expense money, a network in the community. In less than a week, twenty people--from Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, and Muslim backgrounds--jelled into a cohesive support group: The Bosnian Student Project of Ithaca. Jerrahi supplied the air fare for Jasmina. One of our friends, a linguist fluent in Serbo-Croatian, offered temporary housing and an "Affidavit of Support," required by the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, where Jasmina's family had found refuge.

Six weeks later, on February 4, about twenty of us, including Dr. Marti, welcomed Jasmina at the Ithaca bus station. We knew her story: the confiscation of her family's house and possessions, the arrest and torture of her father, threats to abduct her and her sister, their hair's breadth escape to Turkey. But what was most memorable was her refusal to fit the stereotype of a victim.

"I am only part Muslim," she said. "My father is Bosnian, but my mother a Christian Serb." She had no desire for revenge against all Serbs. Indeed, she said, it was a highly placed Serb officer, a friend of the family, who had gone the rounds of the concentration camps until he found Jasmina's father, whose breath rasped through crushed ribs. The officer brazened the father's release from his captors to his own custody, so that he could spirit him to a hospital in Belgrade.

Jasmina confirmed that Bosnians had constituted one of Europe's most cosmopolitan societies. Jews, Christians, and Muslims had lived close to one another for generations; something like a quarter of them had intermarried. Yet the fanatic nationalists, mostly Serbian, had been able to whip up religious hatred against the Muslims, even those who were thoroughly secularized. Jasmina's home had been taken over by the family's Serbian maid, who just moved in because her family needed more room.

Jasmina settled into her new life quickly. After her arrival was reported in the media, no fewer than twelve families offered their homes. She chose to live with a therapist in a house with two other college students, on the bus route to the college. Even though she began classes two weeks late, at midterm she had earned a B in English and A+ marks in two other subjects.

Samir Kulenovic, a twenty-five-year-old engineering student from Bihac, was the next case referred to us by FOR. He had been an honors graduate in civil engineering from Zagreb University in 1991, winner of a prize for his design of a bridge over the Sava River. Then the Croatians began to expel the thousands of Bosnian students living among them. To avoid being arrested, or, worse, being impressed into the Croatian army and forced to make war against his own people, Samir went into hiding.

Samir's chief rescuer turned out to be Zellman Warhaft, a member of our group who is a professor at Cornell. The university needed transcripts and other documents to admit Samir and grant financial aid. Here modern technology made a difference. In 1940 it had taken weeks to reach our American relatives by mail held up by the Nazi censors. This year our requests reached Samir by telephone and the necessary papers were delivered instantaneously by fax. Professor Warhaft signed the required statement assuring that Samir's other expenses would be covered. Within a month the news was flashed to Samir through third parties in Slovenia, where he was hiding, that Cornell had admitted him to graduate school, waived his first year's tuition, and offered him a teaching assistantship in his second year. Thus armed, Samir was able to obtain a student visa.

From Samir and two other Bosnian students we met in Nyack we learned more about the shattering of their once-secure lives. Bosnians with any property were robbed by Serbian neighbors. Some were blackmailed into paying huge sums to avoid being harmed. They were allowed out of their houses only if they wore white armbands and were on their way to work. but most of them lost their jobs and were effectively under house arrest. Some were taken to concentration camps, where women were raped and men tortured. Students and intellectuals were the special targets of ethnic cleansing. Those we talked to were convinced that the sociopaths who have performed the most inhuman acts against Bosnians are acting in accord with a Serbian master plan. When one takes into account that more than 200,000 Bosnians have been murdered and a million survivors driven into exile, comparisons with the genocide carried out by the Nazis seem to me justified. As one sixteen-year-old Bosnian refugee put it, "They destroyed our mosques and museums--our past. They are killing our people--our present. Now they are murdering our students and teachers--our future."

If this war is ever to end, and if these people are to have a decent future, the students will be needed to facilitate the healing of their people. So far, four dozen of them have come to this country through FOR. It is a slow, person-to-person rescue effort, but in the absence of action by Western governments, it is the best thing going.