Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Postcards from the Grave

Rate this book
In May 1992, while Serb nationalist forces ‘cleansed’ the towns and villages of the Drina valley in eastern Bosnia of their formerly majority Muslim population – as part of Slobodan Milošević’s criminal attempt to carve an expanded Serbia from the successor states of the former Yugoslav federation – thousands of fleeing, desperate people converged on the small town of Srebrenica in search of refuge.

For many of them this would prove to be a fatal decision. Serb forces besieged the town for three years, undeterred even when it was proclaimed a ‘UN Safe Area’. As more and more refugees fled to Srebrenica from the surrounding villages, conditions there became unbearable: near-starvation, daily death, degradation of civilized life. The victims themselves were caught up in the dialectic of violence. Finally, after three years of agony, and as those sent to protect them stood by, Srebrenica was destroyed. In just a few days in July 1995 Bosnian Serb forces murdered some 8,000 people.

Against all odds Emir Suljagić survived, while the lives of nearly every man he had ever known – and those of many women too – were wiped out. His haunted record of those terrible times offers a fitting monument to those who died.

Afterword by Ed Vulliamy, Guardian journalist and author of Seasons in Hell: Understanding Bosnia’s War.

Emir Suljagić was born in 1975 in Ljubovija, Yugoslavia (Serbia), but spent his youth across the river Drina in Bratunac (Bosnia-Herzegovina). In April 1992, along with thousands of other Bosnian Muslims, he sought refuge in Srebrenica. After the war he read political science at the University of Sarajevo, and from September 1996 worked as a reporter and staff writer for the Sarajevo-based weekly magazine Dani. Between 2002 and 2004 he reported from The Hague on the Yugoslav war-crimes trials, as a correspondent for Dani and for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting. He lives in Sarajevo.

196 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2005

8 people are currently reading
847 people want to read

About the author

Emir Suljagić

4 books15 followers
Emir Suljagić je bosanskohercegovački novinar, književnik i političar. Rođen je 21. maja 1975. u Ljuboviji, SFRJ, (danas Srbija). Kao dijete živio je u Bratuncu, odakle je sa roditeljima, za vrijeme rata u BiH, prebjegao u Srebrenicu, gdje je radio kao prevodilac za UN, te preživio genocid u Srebrenici 1995. godine.

Suljagić je pisao za magazin Dani od 1996-2002, gdje je kratko bio član uređivačkog kolegija. Dvije godine je bio dopisnik iz Međunarodnog krivičnog suda za bivšu Jugoslaviju, londonskog Instituta za ratno i mirnodopsko izvještavanje.

Završio je Fakultet političkih nauka u Sarajevu, a doktorirao 2009. u Hamburgu na Institutu za mirovna istraživanja i sigurnosne studije. Bivši je član Socijaldemokratske partije Bosne i Hercegovine. Bio je ministar kulture i obrazovanja Kantona Sarajevo, do 2012. kada je podnijeo ostavku. Na Općim izborima u Bosni i Hercegovini 2014. godine kandidat je Demokratske fronte za člana Predsjedništva Bosne i Hercegovine iz reda bošnjačkog naroda.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
110 (45%)
4 stars
83 (34%)
3 stars
41 (16%)
2 stars
7 (2%)
1 star
1 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
Profile Image for Marziyeh Mirhadi.
57 reviews41 followers
May 21, 2018
وقتی کسی اینطور حی و حاضر
از یه نسل کشی زنده بیرون اومده و سال های جنگ رو تعریف می کنه
هرچقدر هم تلخی جنگ رو خونده باشیم و دیده باشیم
باعث نمی شه ناراحتی و تلخی حس ش تغییری بکنه.

مشکل اونجاست که در تمام طول کتاب ذهنم هی بهم یادآوری می کرد اینا واقعیته :|
که باعث شده بود عکس ها و ... توی ذهنم دوباره یادآوری بشه!
و وقتی کتاب تموم شده بود توی ذهنم تموم نشد!

کتاب اینجوری شروع می شه:
من زنده ماندم، خیلی های دیگر زنده نماندند
من همان طوری زنده ماندم که خیلی ها همان طوری مردند!!

Profile Image for hiba ☕︎.
92 reviews61 followers
August 21, 2024
We were destroyed in more than one way, scattered, completely lonely wherever we were, not ready for feelings because since the fall of Srebrenica, all feelings were somehow half-hearted, almost burdensome. Ever since, I cheat on the new men and women in my life. I cheat on them with the dead. And for some reason, only there—among memories, among shadows—do I feel better.

I am writing this and there are tears in my eyes and knots in my stomach and a lump in my throat. I feel sick. Reading a memoir is so very different than reading a historical collection of events. I wasn't emotionally or mentally prepared for what I had encountered in this memoir. I thought—so stupidly I thought—that I would get a historical recount of the Bosnian genocide, that I would understand what happened, what built up to it, how it ended. The pain, the test of oppression and war, of how it either dwindles the flame of your humanity or makes it burn more furiously, was not something I was expecting. The hunger, the famine, the love, the people, the loss, the brutality, the utter inhumanity of it all was unbearable, it was so unbearable.

There is this particular chapter where Emir's morality is tested, where he does something so selfless that I couldn't help but cry and cry, not because of the pure-heartedness of it, but rather because of the weight of this gruelling question: Would I have done the same thing if I were in his shoes? I don't like to ponder too much about this question.

I think of these people, my brothers and sisters, separated and torn from their families, wives and daughters and mothers leaving their aching and bloody hearts in the hands of their husbands and fathers and sons. Of the elastic band of kinship, of love, of family being stretched and stretched and stretched by distance and murder until it snapped. Bosniaks, thousands of them, lined up and shot. Bosniaks, thousands of them, starved to death, bombed to death, their remains having to be scraped off the ground and walls. Bosniaks, thousands of them, put into empty schools and warehouses, executed, burnt alive. Bosniaks, thousands of them, thrown into mass graves as if the earth and dirt could ever cover the inhumane crimes of the Serbs. Bosniak women, raped and tortured in a hotel-turned rape camp that is, to this day, open and marketed as a resort by the Serbians. Bodies and bones still being recovered, still being identified. Family members dying before they can bury their dead.

I don't know what to say. This was a very emotional read for me. Emir writes so beautifully, so painfully. I suppose my only critique would be to read the afterword before you start the memoir (not after) for it gives a lot of context that is vital to understand the events Emir talks about.

Throughout the course of this memoir, I could only hope that Allah سبحانه وتعالى burns the oppressors in the same vicious and heartless way they burned my brothers and sisters; that Allah stacks them on top of each other in Jahannam in the same way the oppressors stacked the thousands of bodies of my brothers and sisters in mass graves. And how perfect is my Lord's punishment; how perfect is His Justice.

They have their life, I have mine. If I cry, I would die of heartbreak, so I don’t. Instead, I fix my house, I eat something, I drink some coffee.
Profile Image for Sunny.
874 reviews54 followers
July 13, 2024
Stunning, emotional, thought-provoking, moving and simply written book. This will bring you to tears at times. About a 17 year old at the time Bosnian Muslim (Emir Suljagic) who happens to know a bit of English and gets to act as a translator for the UN forces. It describes the 3 year assault on the Srebrenica district (the town itself as well as the collection of surrounding villages) culminating with the final liquidation/genocide/decimation/annihilation/eradication/obliteration/destruction/killing (whatever word you want to give it) of over 8000 Muslims by the Bosnian Serb forces over a period of a few days in July 1995. Around the time I was probably happily playing cricket and stressing about my A-level exam results and getting work experience, kids no doubt of a similar age there were going through a living hell. There is an afterward in the book that summarizes the events of the final few days in July 1995 which is shockingly and yet simply written. What shocks the most is the friction between the way in which thousands of people who although in the jaws of war attempted to continue a pseudo normal life - living daily on the brink of starvation and dependent on manna from heaven style UN packages that fell from the sky. The failure of support form the UN forces, covering an area that had been declared a UN safe haven, is unforgivable. Ranks along Elie Wiesel’s Night as one of the most tear jerking books I have ever read.
Profile Image for Juliet.
220 reviews2 followers
January 6, 2013
Extraordinary historical memoir of the siege, fall and massacre of Srebinicia. You can sense Emir growing older as the years go by, even though the vignettes are not linear. Emir's prose is beautiful and captures the sense of disbelief the Bosnian Muslims felt throughout and since the genocide. Moving and affecting and a reminder that even in recent memory we have allowed innocent lives to be taken in war.
162 reviews24 followers
January 22, 2020
Božemeoprosti, nas su toliko navikli na ratni diskurs, da nam je sad potrebna strahovito jaka doza da bismo nešto osjetili. A, ova ne baš vješto napisana ispovjest, strogo kontrolisana i politički korektna, ne predstavlja ništa novo nit drugačije da bi se na bilo koji način istakla u moru sličnih priča.

Onima koji o Srebrenici ne znaju mnogo toga, a željeli bi čuti priču nekoga ko ju je proživio i preživio, knjiga bi se možda i dopala. Iako Suljagić, ruku na srce, nije naročito vješt u pisanju. Ali, meni, koji o Srebrenici slušam otkad znam za sebe, ovo i nema neku težinu. Možda zvuči strašno, ali tako je.
6 reviews1 follower
June 3, 2019
خاطراتی از یک نسل کشی تقریبا فراموش شده در حق مسلمانان بوسنی
داستان وقایع مستند و تقریبا تکان دهنده ای داره و اشاراتی به افراد بسیار مهم در این نسل کشی داره که خود نویسنده بهشون برخورده مثل ناصر اوریچ(فرمانده پارتیزان های مسلمانان سربرنیتسا) و راتکو ملادیچ(فرمانده چتنیک های صرب) که ساختار اخلاقی تاریک و روشن سردمداران این جنگ رو به ما معرفی میکنه
داستان ساختار انچنان منسجمی نداره که معلوم نیست مشکل از نویسنده هست یا مترجم به طوری که دنبال کردن داستان سخت نیست اما دنبال کردن افراد چرا
در کل خواندن این کتاب میتونه ادای دینی به کشته شدگان این جنایت باشه
Profile Image for Bahar.t.
92 reviews17 followers
May 4, 2019
روایت مسلمان کشی در سربرنیتسا
مسلمانانی که به کدام حکم و به دستور چه کسی کشته شدن،بماند
کتاب روان و خوش خوان هست اما من نیمه های کتاب دوباره به اولش برگشتم و یک جور دیگر خواندمش.و این دوباره خوانی توی فهم کتاب خیلی بیشتر کمکم کرد.
سربرنیتسا هنوز هم این روزها شاهد کشف گورهای دسته جمعی هست
Profile Image for Nadia.
75 reviews18 followers
August 14, 2019
هيچي اندازه اينكه كتاب همه اتفاقاتش ساخته ي ذهن نيست و متاسفانه واقعيته انسان رو ازار نمي ده
در همين سال هاي نزديك در همين چند دهه قبل. نسل كشي اتفاق مي افتاده و دنيا در سكوت كامل ..

اگه روحيه قوي دارين و مي دونين بعد خوندن اين كتاب افسرده نمي شيد شديدا پيشنهاد مي كنم
Profile Image for AmirHosein.
137 reviews43 followers
July 27, 2019
تمام تلاش نویسنده این هست که ما بفهمیم هر یک نفری که کشته شده یک زندگی بوده.. نه فقط آمار!
متن روان و نوشته جسورانه است. اما اگر دل ندارید نخوانید.
Profile Image for Hana Kazazovic.
241 reviews48 followers
June 21, 2019
Nakon čitanja knjiga sa ovakvom tematikom, uvijek mi se nameće zaključak da čovjek nema pojma šta sve može preživjeti. A druga stvar koja mi se vrti po glavi je da je pitanje šta preživljavanje u stvari znači. Teška, ali zaista upečatljiva knjiga.
Profile Image for Amila.
174 reviews17 followers
March 17, 2022
Teško štivo, ali važno štivo – opkoljena Srebrenica i njen pad iz perspektive mladića iz Bratunca, svojevremeno mog profesora na fakultetu, koji je u njoj proveo rat kao UN prevodioc. U vrijeme dok nam je predavao nisam znala da je 12. jula 1995. stajao pred osuđenim ratnim zločincem Mladićem i odvažno tražio nazad svoju žutu karticu prevodioca, vjerujući da mu je ona ujedno i karta za život.
Profile Image for Anna.
3,522 reviews192 followers
April 8, 2011
Author is a surivior of massacre in Srebrenica in former Yugoslavia. He shows life and death during three years - from 1992 to 1995 - in enclave. Great book.
Profile Image for Abbas Afkhamian.
53 reviews
December 6, 2019
🔹برشی از متن
ما با لباس های پاره بزرگ شده بودیم، با کفش های به غنیمت رفته، با شلوارهایی که از خانه های هنوز سالم مانده از آتش سوزی به یغما رفته، با نانهای تکه تکه شده که روی شان جای دندان های فاسد معلوم بود... اما چه فایده! کلا همه ما به یک اندازه برای بقیه بی اهمیت بوديم.

🔹نظر بنده
یکی از مسلمانان بوسنی می‌گفت در جنگ اول خدا ما رو نجات داد و بعد ایران، ب نظرم جفا بود که در کل کتاب حتی اشاره‌ای به کمک‌های دولت و نیروهای ایرانی نشده بود.
جا داشت کمی هم اشاره‌ای به معنویت نیروهای مسلمان شود، ک�� اگر بگوییم نبوده؛ دور از عقل حرف زدیم.
Profile Image for Olrus.
12 reviews1 follower
December 8, 2024
Ciężka, ale wartościowa lektura
Profile Image for Amra Pajalic.
Author 30 books80 followers
July 10, 2018
Emir Suljagic was a refugee in Srebrenica after Serbs attacked his hometown of Bratunac. He lived through the three years of harsh deprivation and hardship while the Serbs tried to starve the town. In this beautifully written memoir titled Poscards from the Grave he writes postcards about the things he witnessed and survived, from the enforced conscription of civilians to the front lines, to attempts to maintain a connection with civilisation with three youths writing a newspaper that they typed individually in batches of twenty copies that were handed from citizen to citizen. As a UN interpreter he survived the massacre at Potocari and bears witness to what happened to Srebrenica and what its citizens endured, until its final bloody chapter. The epilogue is particularly poignant as he writes about those who dared to return to Srebrenica and their surrounding villages, an area that is now a republic of Serbia, and how some of the survivors endure in the hope of finding remains of their loved ones.
Profile Image for Blerina.
56 reviews1 follower
July 12, 2021
Tienduizend mensen, tienduizend grafkisten, tienduizend grafstenen, kom op zeg, tienduizend! Over die dood is inmiddels alles bekend, of we slagen er tenminste in om te doen alsof we er alles van willen weten. Toch doen we de dood van al die mensen geweld aan in onze krantenkolommen, waarin we onszelf nooit de vraag stellen naar hun levens. Niets weten we van al die mensen, die niet meer of minder mooi, goed of slecht waren dan anderen. Die net zo mooi waren als ze menselijk waren. Voor zover ik ze heb gekend. p. 14-15

Waarom weet ik niet, maar ik begrijp dat we vernietigd zijn, als individuen nog veel meer dan als gemeenschap. We zijn vernietigd op meerdere manieren, in alle richtingen verjaagd, ongeacht waar we zijn terechtgekomen ten prooi aan een verschrikkelijke eenzaamheid, niet voorbereid op emoties, omdat die vanaf de val weifelend zijn geweest, een last bijna. Sindsdien bedrieg ik de nieuwe mannen en vrouwen in mijn leven. Ik bedrieg hen met de doden. Om de een of andere reden voel ik me beter in hún gezelschap, tussen de herinneringen, onder schimmen. p. 130
Profile Image for Javier de la Peña Ontanaya.
306 reviews19 followers
February 1, 2025
Un poderoso testimonio sobre las barbaries ocurridas en Srebrenica por el propio autor que vivió aquellos días como cualquier adolescente que se vio inmerso en la vorágine. Salió del paso como traductor por sus conocimientos de inglés, lo que le permitió asistir a conferencias y a tratar directamente con las Naciones Unidas, concretamente con el UNPROFOR y los cascos azules holandeses y su increíble pasividad.

El relato está exento de cualquier tipo de persuasión política o étnica, en este caso. Obviamente está denunciando la limpieza étnica cometida contra los musulmanes bosniacos por parte de los serbios y serbobosnios, pero, a diferencia de otros testimonios que he leído, desde una prosa serena, ordenada y diría que fría por momentos. En un conflicto siempre hay bandos, pero aquí el lector observa los hechos casi neutros, sin carga propagandística o adoctrinante, que es lo que más he agradecido.
Profile Image for Katherine.
Author 2 books69 followers
September 16, 2019
*3.5 stars.
"She probably had no choice, but the soldiers who exploited her cruelly, as cruelly as only war can dictate, did have one. However, as always during those years in Srebenica, the choice they made was the wrong one" (128).
"What happened in Srebrenica during those few days in July 1995 is one of the biggest betrayals of humankind" (143). *We really shouldn't be called humankind.
"'If I cry, I would die of heartbreak, so I don't. Instead, I fix my house, I eat something, I drink some coffee'" (193). -Sija Mustafic
Profile Image for Semra Aganovic.
3 reviews
April 29, 2025
"Razglednica iz groba" je jedna teška, ali istovremeno jako važna knjiga. Napisana autentično, bez uljepšavanja, jer jedino tako i može biti napisana istina.
Suljagic je samo jedan od mnogih koji su imali priče, sjećanja, radosti i tuge u Srebrenici. Nažalost mnogi od njih nikada neće napisati svoje knjige, i mi ih nikada nećemo pročitati.
Ovo nije samo knjiga o ratu i stradanjima, ovo je knjiga koja poziva na opominjanje, sjećanje i vlastita preispitivanja.
Profile Image for Zahra-T.
148 reviews31 followers
August 7, 2024
داستان کتاب که نوعی مستند نگاری است از وسط واقعه شروع می شود و کسی رو که با وقایع سربرنیتسا آشنا نباشد کلافه می کند. پرش های زمانی هم به این کلافگی دامن میزند.
در نهایت خواندن کتابی در مورد این نسل کشی هولناک، که مشابهش در حال حاضر در غزه در حال وقوع است، از زاویه دید یک نوجوان پسر، خالی از لطف نیست.
Profile Image for Pedro Pascual.
45 reviews1 follower
September 10, 2020
Tremendo e impactante. Emir narra de primera mano los 3 años de sitio de Srebrenica y de cómo sobrevivió (y no) la comunidad bosnia al ataque serbio. Sin duda un libro imprescindible para comprender el mayor genocidio en Europa desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
52 reviews
August 24, 2021
Un'analisi lucida, fredda e quasi asettica sui fatti di Srebrenica. Un libro assolutamente da leggere se si ama la storia, se si vuol dare una continuità al tema della Shoah per esempio o anche solo per non dimenticare.
Profile Image for Filip.
416 reviews6 followers
October 10, 2019
Vrlo teško i potresno svjedočanstvo o životu u opkoljenoj Srebrenici!
Profile Image for Lucia.
13 reviews
August 17, 2022
Tanta l'emozione quanti i dati e la precisione. Ci vogliono più giornalisti di questo tipo.
36 reviews
April 6, 2020
در پادکست #چنل_بی جمله جالبی در مورد #نسل_کشی_رواندا در آفریقا شنیدم. "در شرایط عادی وقتی کسی می‌میرد، اطرافیانش میگویند قسمتش بود بمیرد. اما در #رواندا بلایی سر قوم #توتسی آمد که اگر کسی از آن ها پس از #نسل‌_کشی زنده می‌ماند، می‌گفتند قسمتش بود زنده بماند." در سربرنیتسای بوسنی هم دقیقاً همین وضع پیش آمد و قسمت امیر سولیاگیچ این بود زنده بماند.

امیر سولیاگیچ 17 ساله در سال 1992 به شهر #سربرنیتسا، که توسط سازمان ملل شهر امن اعلام شده است، پناه می‌برد و پس از مدتی به عنوان مترجم با نیروهای سازمان ملل همکاری می‌کند. همین همکاری با سازمان ملل سبب می‌شود در هنگام سقوط سربرنیتسا در 11 جولای 95 و کشته شدن تمام مردان شهر، فرار کند و زنده بماند.
همکاری امیر سولیاگیچ با سازمان ملل و نزدیکی به فرماندهان مسلمان مانند #ناصر_اوریچ و جلسه با #ملادیچ که به قصاب بالکان مشهور است، سبب شده روایتی ناب و دست اول از جنگ #بوسنی در #کارت_پستال_هایی_از_گور بخوانیم که در کمتر کتابی در این حوزه دیده می‌شود.

دو سال پیش که این کتاب را خواندم، در پایان کتاب نوشتم: اگر قرار است تنها یک کتاب در مورد #جنگ_بوسنی بخوانید انتخاب خوبی است.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.