Bombs in Serbia impact Oberlin student

"Part of me is dead now," sophomore Sanja Petricic said Tuesday. "When I saw half my town be totally destroyed it's like killing half my life."

Growing up in Serbia, Petricic didn't view her life studying the piano as precarious. She came to the United States in 1993 with her mother and father who were working on publishing a book and entered the Conservatory a few years later. By then, the Bosnian crisis was at full throttle and sanctions on Serbia were causing food and fuel shortages.

But the recent decision by NATO to bomb Serbia was also an attack on Petricic's world here. "My first reaction was total despair-total helplessness feeling that I'm here and not there. It is a horrible feeling of helplessness, but I also feel great sorrow. I am very worried for my family and friends: my grandparents are sick and can't even move to the basement," Petricic said.

The magnitude of Petricic's experience the past week and a half is difficult to grasp. From concern about her best friend who is of military draft age, to frustration with the western news media covering the operation, Petricic's life has become consumed with thoughts about Yugoslavia.

"This whole conflict was misrepresented from the very beginning," Petricic said. "It is a terrible mistake and terribly unfair to people from Yugoslavia. Instead of stopping Yugoslav forces in Kosovo, they united people against the West."

Petricic explained the conflict from the Serbian side: "It would be the same thing if Mexicans went to California and said they wanted California to be independent." When the Kosovo Liberation Army became active in Kosovo, Serbians and the West viewed it as a terrorist organization. The KLA is made up of ethnic Albanians, and when Serbian police forces entered Kosovo to thwart their advances, the crisis escalated because other Albanians living in the region became involved in the KLA cause.

"Of course killing is wrong," Petricic said. "But of course, when a war starts, there's no more talking."

Petricic cited NATO's indifference to student demonstrations against Milosevic in 1996 as an example of how fickle the foreign policy is. She is trying to educate people on the Serbian side of the fight. "I do everything I can to at least give another side," she said. "It's sad how people don't even make an effort to take a minute and think about the Serbs."

The war-torn country is not the one Petricic remembers. Despite the age-old roots of this war, the peace-time Yugoslavia was one of the most welcoming countries in Europe. Croatians married Serbians, and Slovenians married Croats. "I went to Yugoslavian music competitions and stayed with Croatian families. We always interacted with each other. But now it has been turned into a living nightmare," Petricic said.

"Whenever I meet someone from the former Yugoslavia, I'm always willing to invite them to my home," she said. "Sometimes people say, 'if we were in Yugoslavia, we wouldn't be friends,' but I am a believer in the old Yugoslavia."

The old Yugoslavia, however, is no longer within grasp. "I used to believe there was hope, but I'm losing my hope. Psychologically and spiritually it has destroyed the people," she said.

Petricic said she is very thankful she is in a safe place, but that she doesn't feel as strong as her family and friends there.

"Even when I was talking to my grandmother I was the one who was bawling," she said.