Table Of ContentOUT OF THE SIEGE OF
SARAJEVO
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OUT OF THE SIEGE OF
SARAJEVO
MEMOIR OF A FORMER YUGOSLAV
Jasna Levinger-Goy
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First published in Great Britain in 2022 by
PEN & SWORD MILITARY
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
Yorkshire - Philadelphia
Copyright © Jasna Levinger-Goy, 2022
ISBN 978 1 39909 862 5
The right of Jasna Levinger-Goy to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by
her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.
Front cover collage © Emanuela Cusin & Unidentified Artists, Untitled (2014),
courtesy Emanuela Cusin
‘Može li čovjek biti Bosanac?’ & ‘Kratka povijest holokausta kroz dva telefonska imenika’
© Miljenko Jergović
Ivo Andrić, PISMO IZ 1920. GODINE / A LETTER FROM 1920 © The Ivo Andrić
Foundation, Beograd, SERBIA
‘A Letter from 1920’, in translation from The Damned Yard and Other Stories © Celia Hawkesworth
Quotations in Addendum by permission of:
www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/partisan_fighters_01.shtml © BBC Commercial,
Rights and Business Affairs & © Dr Stephen A Hart
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For Ned, the one and only, who helped me stay sane
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When things go well ’tis easy to be good.
In suffering is it seen who is the hero.1
U dobru je lako dobar biti,
Na muci se poznaju junaci.2
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Contents
About the Author viii
Acknowledgments ix
Author’s Note xi
Chapter 1 Prelude to the Events to Come 1
Chapter 2 Blind Denial 15
Chapter 3 Reluctant Recognition 52
Chapter 4 Rude Awakening 66
Chapter 5 Recovery 107
Epilogue 137
Addendum Yugoslavia in the Second World War 141
Appendix A 2021 Update of Family Members and the
People from Sarajevo Mentioned in the Text 144
Appendix B Excerpt from a Story by Ivo Andrić 149
Endnotes 150
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About the Author
Jasna Levinger-Goy was born in Sarajevo, former Yugoslavia. She has a BA
in English Language and Literature from Sarajevo University, an MA in
Linguistics from Georgetown University, Washington DC, and a PhD, also
in Linguistics, from Zagreb University. In the former Yugoslavia she was a
university lecturer at Sarajevo University and later at Novi Sad University.
In the UK she was a lector in Serbo-Croat at SSEES, University College
London and a tutor in interpreting at London Metropolitan University.
She has published a number of articles and translations both in Serbo-Croat
and in English. While in Sarajevo she translated Emily Dickinson’s poetry
in cooperation with Marko Vešović, published by Svjetlost Sarajevo in 1989
and by OKF Cetinje in 2014. She moved to the UK during the Bosnian civil
war and married Edward Dennis Goy, a Cambridge University Slavist. They
worked together on various translations, including translations into English
of the Yugoslav novels, The Fortress by Meša Selimović and The Banquet in
Blitva by Miroslav Krleža. In the early 2000s she qualified as an integral
psychotherapist and has her own practice in Cambridge.
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Acknowledgments
This book traces a difficult personal journey but writing about it gave me
much pleasure. I sincerely hope readers will share some of that pleasure or, at
least, find the story interesting. However, my pleasure would have been hugely
diminished had I not had so many generous and supportive people around me.
It is not easy to mention them all, but I would like to mention those who stick
out in my mind.
Firstly, many thanks to Emanuela Cusin who kindly gave me permission to
use the collage on the front cover which I believe reflects the place I was in
during the ten years of my troubled journey. I also owe special gratitude to a
group of close friends and family: Dianne, Dodo, Goran, Henika, Jenny, Julia,
Nina, Tatjana and Zvonko. Many of them even had the patience to read my
first rough draft which was far too dense and raw and definitely not an easy
read. They all made pertinent comments which gave me a necessary early
impetus to carry on working.
I owe enormous gratitude to another group of friends who helped and
supported me in various ways. Deborah Evans gave me the initial push to
start writing. She believed in my ability to write this book (rightly or wrongly)
more than I did. Patrick Miles was hugely generous with both his time and
advice and was there for me whenever I needed him, and it was not seldom.
He was my ‘guru’ and without him this book would likely have never left
my computer. Piotr Kuhivchak provided the first specific and very helpful
suggestions that radically changed the early shape of the manuscript, and for
the better. Bogdan Rakić read the revised version and pointed to a significant
underlying thread in the text of which I was unaware and motivated me to
further expand on it. Jane Qualtrough supported me the way only a true
friend can. Among other things she spent an enormous amount of time and
energy not only reading my manuscript, but also editing it thoroughly after
I introduced the first post-copyediting amendments. Her understanding of
the text and consequently her appropriate suggestions were of immense value.
I would also like to thank Miranda Bethell with whom I have a virtual
relationship, not an unusual phenomenon these days. We have never met but,
by strange coincidence, she encouraged and supported me online which gave
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