There are now four generations of individuals in Bosnia and Herzegovina whose lives are affected by traumas from the country’s violent past. Grandparents and parents who lived through the wars of the 20th Century and experienced atrocities firsthand have been passing on their traumas and worries to their children and grandchildren born during and after the violence, according to experts.

Young people living in Bosnia are affected by the experiences of their parents and by the broader societal context, which remains highly divided, according to a 2016 study about the emotional experiences of post-war youth in the country by Natalya Paulsen.

Those who were only born after the war can inherit the traumas of mothers and fathers who were witnesses, victims or perpetrators of violence. This can make young people prone to violence or anti-social behaviour, but also cause them to experience a variety of other problems, such as frustration, guilt, anger, poverty or social exclusion.

“In Bosnia, children growing up in the shadows of their parents’ traumas are in risk to internalise these complex emotions without a direct experience of the triggering event – war,” said Mirza Buljubasic from the Criminology Department at the University of Sarajevo.

“This ‘inherited trauma’ can manifest as heightened anxiety, depression, or even aggressive tendencies. The challenge is that while these children are reacting to a trauma, they haven’t personally experienced it, making it harder for them to understand or articulate their feelings,” Buljubasic added.

Children of war criminals suffer too

Psychologist Branka Antic-Stauber, president of the Women Power Association, who works with women and children affected by the war in Bosnia, told BIRN a decade ago that transgenerational trauma can cause psychological, behavioural and health issues.

“Problems with studying, drug abuse problems and running away from reality are some of the possible problems. We also have the consequences of tendencies towards prostitution and alcoholism,” she said in 2013.

Speaking ten years later, Antic-Stauber said that the same problems persist today. She also noted how children of war victims as well as children of war criminals can suffer from transgenerational trauma.

“These kids [children of war criminals] are traumatised in the same way as kids of victims. Both groups of children carry the same symptoms: anger, isolation, stigma. But perpetrators’ children maybe even more since society has no empathy for perpetrators and their families,” she said.

She recalled how her association worked with three children whose father was a convicted war criminal. “He was sentenced to 25 years in jail. They were born during his time [in prison],” she said. “They are angry that they are deprived of a father. They are also confused since he is portrayed by some as a war criminal and by others as a war hero. They don’t know what to believe. They are isolated and stigmatised, and after working with us for few years, they stopped coming to our therapies.”

In Bosnia, little is known about the children of war criminals. Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic’s daughter Ana committed suicide with her father’s gun in 1994, while the war in Bosnia was still ongoing. Some media reports claimed she killed herself because she was depressed about his role in the war.

In contrast to his sister, Ratko Mladic’s son Darko has praised his father’s actions during the war. Addressing a rally after Mladic’s arrest in 2011, his son described him as a “defender of his people”, media reported.

Similarly, Sonja Karadzic-Jovicevic, the daughter of Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic, adores her father, who like Mladic was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes and is currently serving a life sentence. Karadzic-Jovicevic, who worked for her father during the war, has insisted that he is innocent and that the Srebrenica genocide was “fabricated”.

Given the post-war political and societal landscape, where war criminals can be celebrated and atrocities denied, this is perhaps not surprising. “Here, children of convicted war criminals are proud of their fathers,” Dusko Tomic, a lawyer from Sarajevo who has represented war crimes defendants, has said.

But the reality is always more complex. Some convicted war criminals, in contrast to what is being expected by their ethnic elites, will admit guilt to their children. One convicted war criminal, who has been released after serving eight years in prison, explained how he spoke to his daughter about his crimes.

“I sat down with her one day and told her about me. She was 12. I told her that she will read on the internet about me and the crimes I committed and wanted to tell her about them before she has done so,” said the man, who asked to remain anonymous.

“She was confused. She knows me and the person that I was describing to her was the one before she met me. She was very confused after I told her my story because she cannot connect me with the person who committed crimes in the past,” he said.

Another child of a father currently in prison for committing war crimes told BIRN: “It is a terrible experience. I would never wish it on anyone. Each time we visit my father, my mum cries.”

Many war criminals, however, do not want to admit guilt, for various reasons, one of them being their wish to protect their children from the truth or construct an alternative reality to deny their past.

Damir Ivankovic, a war criminal convicted of murdering civilians at Koricanske stijene, pleaded guilty in court but after his release, he insisted he was innocent. Asked what he has told his son about why he was in prison, Ivankovic responded: “I’ve told him everything, he knows his father is not a murderer.”

Children are likely believe their fathers but even if not, they will often use denials, rationalisations or justifications as protective mechanisms so they do not have to confront the terrible reality that would compromise their image of their fathers.

“A parent who committed a crime morally erodes in the eyes of the child, and the child’s mental state struggles to accept this fact. They must find a way to assimilate this painful and difficult process,” said Vladan Beara, a psychologist and psychotherapist.

“The children will raise questions such as, ‘Dad, how could you do that? Dad, who are you? Dad, you are not a human being!’ The image of a parent as being a positive figure who loves and provides security is shattered,” Beara continued.

“Instead, another image of the father as a perpetrator, dangerous and callous, perhaps even a psychopath emerges. It becomes difficult to associate this new image with the father and maintain an affectionate relationship with him.”

Denial becomes easier if the broader societal climate endorses and promotes the denial, rationalisations or justification of war crimes.

Children of wartime rape traumatised

The Vilina Vlas hotel in Visegrad, where many captive women were raped during wartime. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Aleksandar Bogicevic.

Victims of wartime sexual assault also sometimes remain silent about what they went through during the conflict.

“Many women never told their husbands and children that they were raped. They are trying to protect them from trauma,” said Lana Jajcevic from Foundation United Women, an organsation that campaigns against gender-based violence and promotes gender equality.

Children who know that they were born to mothers who were raped during wartime often suffer if it becomes publicly known. Ajna Jusic, who was the first child to be registered as born of rape during the war, has recalled being targeted for discrimination and bullying as a child because her father’s identity was unknown, while insults were directed at her mother.

Jusic told Reuters in 2019 that “the stigmatisation of raped women in our society” makes it difficult to reach children who were born as a result of wartime rape, leaving both the mother’s and the child’s traumas unaddressed.

For children born of wartime rape, finding out about or hearing about their parents’ past is a very complex experience as children are split between ‘victim’ (mother) and ‘perpetrator’ (father). Much more research is needed to understand these complex scenarios and how young people deal with them.

Some children simply do not want to hear their mother talking about what happened to them during wartime. “My son does not like me talking about my experience,” said Lola, a Bosnian woman who was gang-raped in 1992 while she was being detained with her three young children and spoke about it in a televised documentary made by Serbia’s TV Happy. “When I am on TV talking about my experience in the detention camp, he leaves the room.”

Alma Taso Deljkovic, a Bosnian psychologist and family and trauma counsellor, said that there is no one correct answer to the question of when and how children should be told about a traumatic experience survived by one of their parents or close relatives.

“From the sociological point of view, talking about trauma is important. Either silence about a traumatic experience or its narrative can significantly contribute to the emotional and psychological formation of people’s identities,” said Deljkovic.

“However, the topics about which we don’t talk, we need to approach carefully. If a person decides to tell their family members about their traumatic experience, that needs to be done in a safe space, in which trust and understanding prevail and if possible, expert assistance and support is available,” she added.

Ethnic divisions exacerbate problems

A mural glorifying Ratko Mladic as a ‘hero’ in his Bosnian hometown, Kalinovik. Photo: BIRN.

In Bosnia there are now three widely different stories of the past – three official histories of the war – which dominate official discourses. It seems impossible to find a middle ground between the three ethnic groups and no work nor effort is being put by the state or other official entities into reconciling the largely divergent views.

The collective traumas emphasised in public discussions and discourses are highly selective, focusing only on each respective group’s victimisation, blaming ‘the other’ and denying other’s suffering. Young people, be it children of perpetrators or victims, grow up with the image of ‘the dangerous other’ as their main frame of reference.

Such historical selectivity and exclusivity along ethnic lines resonates through society, where war traumas are still very much alive even within those who did not experienced the war first-hand, and can possibly play a role in the radicalisation of young people.

“In Bosnia, children growing up amidst their parents’ war traumas might not directly become extremists, but the interplay of inherited trauma and societal normalisation of far-right ideologies can shape their outlook,” says Mirza Buljubasic.

“These children, influenced by parents’ pain-laden narratives, may find resonance with groups that echo this inherited anguish, not necessarily because they endorse extremist views, but due to emotional identification,” he added.

Buljubasic said that currently there is “no standardized, state-driven approach to addressing transgenerational trauma. However, clinical psychologists and psychiatrists may incorporate specific strategies in their individual practices, depending on the needs of the patient,” he added.

Deljkovic said that some NGOs have done work on the issue but was not aware of any programmes that are specifically tailored to work with transgenerational trauma.

“I think we need to talk more about this topic and work with young people and children,” she said. “It is important to raise awareness and explain the possibility of trauma transfer from generation to generation in terms of risk prevention and consequenses that such transfer may trigger.”

Buljubasic said that more information needs to be gathered about the issue in order to addresss it properly.

“Comprehensive research is crucial to effectively address the issue of transgenerational trauma, as well as raising awareness about transgenerational trauma, [which is] is essential for its recognition, understanding and effective culturally and ethnically sensitive intervention,” he said.

Barbora Holá is Senior Researcher at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement and Associate Professor at the Department of Criminology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is currently leading a five-year project to explore how legacies of mass atrocities are being transmitted to young people and what role transitional justice plays in shaping these legacies. For more information, see: www.atrocitylegacies.com.

Olivera Simic is an Associate Professor at Griffith Law School, Griffith University, Australia. She is the author of the recently-published book ‘Lola’s War: Rape Without Punishment’.