The story of the Bosnian Muslims in World War II is an epic frequently alluded to in discussions of the 1990s Balkan conflicts, but almost as frequently misunderstood or falsified. This first comprehensive study of the topic in any language sets the record straight. Based on extensive research in the archives of Bosnia- Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia, it traces the history of Bosnia and its Muslims from the Nazi German and Fascist Italian occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941, through the years of the Yugoslav civil war, and up to the seizure of power by the Communists and their establishment of a new Yugoslav state. The book explores the reasons for Muslim opposition to the new order established by the Nazis and Fascists in Bosnia in 1941 and the different forms this opposition took. It de- scribes how the Yugoslav Communists were able to harness part of this Muslim opposition to support their own resistance movement and revolutionary bid for power. This Muslim element in the Communists' revolution shaped its form and outcome, but ultimately had itself to be curbed as the victorious Communists consolidated their dictatorship. In doing so, they set the scene for future struggles over Yugoslavia's Muslim question.

Five major groups fought one another in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Second World War: The German and Italian occupiers, the Serbian Chetniks, the Ustasha of the Independent State of Croatia, the Bosnian Muslims, and the Tito-led Partisans. The aims, policies, and actions of each group are examined in light of their own documents and those of rival groups. This work shows how the Partisans prevailed over other groups because of their ideological appeal, superior discipline, and success in winning the support of large numbers of uncommitted Bosnians, particularly the Bosnian Muslims.

This book explores the relationship between cultural heritage and conflict through the use of new empirical evidence and critical theory and by focusing on postconflict scenarios. It includes in-depth case studies and analytic reflections on the common threads and wider implications of the agency of cultural heritage in postconflict scenarios.

A numerically small Jewish community helped their ethnically embattled neighbors in a neutral, humanitarian way to survive the longest modern siege, Sarajevo, in the early 1990s.

Rwanda and Bosnia both experienced mass violence in the early 1990s. Less than ten years later, Rwandans surprisingly elected the world's highest level of women to parliament. In Bosnia, women launched thousands of community organizations that became spaces for informal political participation. The political mobilization of women in both countries complicates the popular image of women as merely the victims and spoils of war. Through a close examination of these cases, Marie E. Berry unpacks the puzzling relationship between war and women's political mobilization. Drawing from over 260 interviews with women in both countries, she argues that war can reconfigure gendered power relations by precipitating demographic, economic, and cultural shifts. In the aftermath, however, many of the gains women made were set back. This book offers an entirely new view of women and war and includes concrete suggestions for policy makers, development organizations, and activists supporting women's rights.

On April 15, 1941, Sarajevo fell to Germany's 16th Motorized Infantry Division. The city, along with the rest of Bosnia, was incorporated into the Independent State of Croatia, one of the most brutal of Nazi satellite states run by the ultranationalist Croat Ustasha regime. The occupation posed an extraordinary set of challenges to Sarajevo's famously cosmopolitan culture and its civic consciousness; these challenges included humanitarian and political crises and tensions of national identity. As detailed for the first time in Emily Greble's book, the city’s complex mosaic of confessions (Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish) and ethnicities (Croat, Serb, Jew, Bosnian Muslim, Roma, and various other national minorities) began to fracture under the Ustasha regime’s violent assault on "Serbs, Jews, and Roma"—contested categories of identity in this multiconfessional space—tearing at the city’s most basic traditions. Nor was there unanimity within the various ethnic and confessional groups: some Catholic Croats detested the Ustasha regime while others rode to power within it; Muslims quarreled about how best to position themselves for the postwar world, and some cast their lot with Hitler and joined the ill-fated Muslim Waffen SS. In time, these centripetal forces were complicated by the Yugoslav civil war, a multisided civil conflict fought among Communist Partisans, Chetniks (Serb nationalists), Ustashas, and a host of other smaller groups. The absence of military conflict in Sarajevo allows Greble to explore the different sides of civil conflict, shedding light on the ways that humanitarian crises contributed to civil tensions and the ways that marginalized groups sought political power within the shifting political system. There is much drama in these pages: In the late days of the war, the Ustasha leaders, realizing that their game was up, turned the city into a slaughterhouse before fleeing abroad. The arrival of the Communist Partisans in April 1945 ushered in a new revolutionary era, one met with caution by the townspeople. Greble tells this complex story with remarkable clarity. Throughout, she emphasizes the measures that the city’s leaders took to preserve against staggering odds the cultural and religious pluralism that had long enabled the city’s diverse populations to thrive together.

Boston, November 5, 1995 The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina is an unheard-of tragedy. Before the eyes of the entire world, a state is being destroyed, and the people (population) of a nation are suffering the genocide and ethnic cleansing. All the principles of humanity, morals, and international rules have been trampled. The question most often asked is, how could that happen today when the genocide committed during World War II is so well known (the Holocaust) and when the international community had the will and the means to protect the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina? The international community has shown that it is not the enemy of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and that it accepts this state into its membership when it recognized the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on April 7, 1992. With that act, the international community stood up against the Serbian nationalism, which only started to bloody its hands in Bosnia and Herzegovina. So how come that in the fall of 1995, after the innumerable atrocities committed by the Serbs revolted the world, the international community crossed over to the side of the war criminals, giving them 49 percent of Bosnia and Herzegovina with its Dayton peace proposals? Who was the mastermind who succeeded to change the world opinion and what methods did he use? This book answers some of those questions. The reading of this book has to be approached with having faith in no one but a common sense. Besides that, from the reader who comprehends what is truly happening in Bosnia, it is expected that he/she spreads the truth. The ultimate goal is to help in the fight against the forces of betrayal and the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Wishing to arm the Bosnian patriots as soon as possible with the knowledge of what is really happening, this book is being written in a hurry. I still hope that this book will reach Bosnians and friends of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina all over the world before it is too late and while it is still possible to say no to the division of a member of the United Nations.

Vance-Owen peace plan, the tenuous resolution of the Dayton Accords, and the efforts of the United Nations to keep the uneasy peace.

An English translation of sociological, cultural, and medical essays recounts the horrifying testimony of mass rape, sexual enslavement, systematic impregnation, and torture of Muslim, Croatian, and Serbian women and girls.

Focuses on the dynamic and creative aspects of Bosnia's past as well as the contested, tragic and controversial.