A Month In The Hands of Milan Lukic

“At the very beginning of the war I lived with my family in Visegrad, in a place called Mahala. This is where my tragic experiences began.

One evening I went to the shop. Some soldiers, dressed in camouflage suits, were standing in front of the building. I wanted to go back but didn’t manage to do so. Milan Lukic and his pals stopped me and asked what I was doing. I was instantly aware of what might happen.

He said I had to come with them. They picked me up and took me to the spa hotel in Visegrad. When we got there, he took me out of the car and we walked to the hotel, which was full of soldiers. The name of the hotel was “Vilina Vlas”. I did not know the place.

As soon as we went in, I could hear the screams. I guessed that many women had been taken there before me. There was screaming, crying, everything… But one couldn’t move. There was nothing one could do right then. You went in there and you did not know if you would stay alive…

I couldn’t see anybody else in the Vilina Vlas. I knew there were other women and they were being raped. The men were doing to them what they wanted to do. But nobody saw anybody else. We did not know about each other. All the rooms were closed.

Lukic did not care whether they were old or young – all he cared about was having a woman and doing what he wanted. He would take women for himself and then let others have them. He did not care what those people did to the women.

He took me upstairs to a room and told me to sit on the bed, adding that nothing would happen. It was hard. I was scared and I panicked. I simply do not know what to do with myself.

He then ordered me to lie on the bed and take off my clothes. He did what he wanted. It was my first time with a man. Milan Lukic took away my virginity.

When it was over, he told me not to try to do anything because I would not be able to escape. I realized what had happened. I did not know what to do next.

We stayed in the room until dawn. He kept his gun next to the bed. When he woke up I begged him to take me home. He stood up, put on his clothes and took me with him.

We first stopped by a coffee shop. He wanted to see his pals. He took me by my hand and took off his beret. I had long hair at the time and he stuck the beret on my head. He said: ‘This is my future wife’, adding that nobody should touch me.

He took me home but said I must not go anywhere because he would find me and kill me and my whole family if I disappeared anywhere.

When I got home I felt overwhelmed by fear. I thought he would find me wherever I went. They were everywhere. I didn’t dare go out because if you went out, you could disappear. That is how it was.

He used to come every day. He took me with him and brought me back whenever he wanted. He would come at night and take me away. When he knocked on the door, my mother used to faint.

He used to take me to the pool. In the pool and by the pool…whichever place suited him best. You had to keep quiet and pray.

It went on for a month, this exhaustion. Every day it became more and more difficult. He would take me away and bring me back. For that month he did whatever he wanted to do with me.

In the end I couldn’t stand it. I decided I had to run away, no matter whether I lived or died. I couldn’t longer live with it. It was unbearable.

So I went with my mother to the village of Okrugla, near Visegrad. We walked through the woods before reaching the village of Dobrun. I lived in the woods, spending my time fear because he came there looking for me and asking people about me.

I hid in those woods until I met my present husband who helped me get my life back. Were it not for him, I wouldn’t be alive today. I felt I had been rejected by everybody, the whole world. I was still only 22.

That time changed my life completely. Even today my life appears good for nothing. When I go back to Dobrun, everything reminds me of that time. When I see the Vilina Vlas it all comes back. This is something that cannot be erased.

Visegrad is still a nice town but it entails tragedies, a lot of things… We lived there without any problems until 1992 when the war began. Life will never be as it was. Years can pass and many generations live, but nothing will be as it once was.

I am struggling to go on with my life. I have to hold on for my kids and my family. But no matter how strong I am, I can’t overcome it. I ask: ‘Why did this happen to me? Why did I have to be the one?’

My first child had a shattered brain. The doctors say it may have been due to my fears and to all the things that had stayed in me.

The only consolation for me would be to see Milan Lukic admit his crimes. He must accept the gravity of his actions and admit his guilt. The things that happened to me cannot be forgotten. It is different when someone points a gun at you, but this was different. It was a wound to the soul.”

The Vilina Vlas is located in the woods, about 5 kilometres from Visegrad. A rehabilitation centre and thermal spa, the Hague Tribunal in 1992 described it as the headquarters of Milan Lukic’s paramilitary group, the “Beli orlovi” (“White Eagles”) or “Osvetnici (“Revengers”). A 1994 UN report on rapes in Bosnia mentioned the hotel as a detention centre where girls as young as 14 were routinely raped. Fewer than ten of those detained in the centre survived.

In July 2009, the Hague Tribunal sentenced Lukic to life imprisonment for various crimes committed in the Visegrad area from 1992 to 1994 – but rape was not one of them. The surviving victims have protested against the court’s failure to take note of the numerous rapes committed at various locations in Visegrad, including the Vilina Vlas. (See: Visegrad rape victims say their cries go unheard)

BIRN – Justice Report journalist. [email protected]. Justice Report is an online BIRN weekly publication.

“For the Record” is a special appendix to Justice Report in which we record the life stories of people who survived horrific events in the war in Bosnia.

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network invites you to send us your own memories of the war, which we will consider for publication. Write to us at: [email protected]