"War changes everything... Innocent people suffer, no matter which side"
Former Iowa lawmaker's new book aims to build empathy, bridges among children
For 28 years, Anesa Kajtazovic never talked about having fled the war in her Bosnian homeland to become a refugee in America.
Not to her classmates or teachers in Waterloo, Iowa where her family was eventually granted asylum when she was 10. Not to the voters who made her the youngest woman ever elected to the Iowa state Legislature 14 years later. Not even to her parents, who needed to focus on the daily necessities of life here, sometimes working two jobs at a time and trying not to look back.
It wasn’t that people didn’t ask. Some classmates were curious about where she came from, but some of their questions – such as if she’d TV in her country - reflected a knowledge-gap she wasn’t sure how to overcome -- like “they thought I came from a jungle.”
“It’s not their fault, of course,” she added. But “how could I explain I once had a life just like theirs, filled with toys and birthday parties - until war turned it upside down?”
When, five years, ago a third-grade teacher invited her to a class to share her refugee story, Kajtazovic just couldn’t do it. Where to begin to bridge the gap, and how to handle those reopened wounds? As time passed, though, guilt about turning down a chance to educate and help build empathy among children stirred something else inside her. If she were able to build a narrative tailored to people in her age group when her world turned upside down, it might open pathways for both sides.
So Kajtazovic, who has a master’s degree in health care administration and works in community development for nonprofit organizations, started writing down memories in the voice of her childhood self. The upshot is a beautifully written and illustrated children’s book to be released today on United Nations Word Refugee Day. Part of the objective is to show the normalcy of life before the 1992-95 Bosnia-Herzegovina War upended that.
Titled “Anesa, No Skola Today: A child’s true story of escaping war in Bosnia,” the book is being previewed today at a reading in Waterloo’s Grout Museum District though its official release is June 24. It has garnered some glowing advance reviews including a 5-star Readers Favorite rating. Kajtazovic can’t promise to get through a reading without crying so she may ask someone else to do it.
Childhood photo courtesy of Anesa Kajtazovic
The story begins on her seventh birthday when she’s thrilled by her parents’ gift: A pet dog she names Bobi, which quickly becomes her closest ally. She chronicles a carefree life of starting first grade, making new friends and learning to write, only to be overtaken by the frequent sounds of gunshots rattling the windows. Her father leaves to join the war effort. Power outages put an abrupt halt to cooking and watching cartoons. Next thing, tanks are rolling down the street, school is canceled, and the family is scrambling to vacate their home for a refugee camp in Croatia.
More than 2.2 million people were displaced by the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, making it, at the time, the most violent conflict in Europe since the end of World War II, according to the U.N. High Commission for Refugees. Recalling and describing her experience of it was a wrenching process, Kajtazovic says. “I’ve had to dig very deep and I’ve cried more than I ever thought was possible to cry.” She understands the silence she says is common among war refugees and veterans. But she wants to use her story to help educate young people. “It’s how we grow, how we form empathy and how we get to know our neighbors.”
Instead of being threatening, she says, sharing personal stories of war can build bridges. At age 11, she picked up a copy of “The Diary of Anne Frank,” at the public library and felt a connection. Though Frank’s experiences were “a million times worse,” she says, “I could relate to that feeling of going to bed at night fearful of being bombed.”
“Sometimes we forget why we teach history.”
“War is not healthy for children and other living things,” declared the 1965 Lorraine Schneider poster that hung on the wall of the New York City bedroom I shared with my sister growing up. The apartment was walking distance from the United Nations and the U.N. school, where we studied and our parents worked for human rights and economic development, and against war. Those words with the sunflower image could have been our mantra in an era of idealism, and disaffection with the Vietnam War.
“Children don’t start wars and they have no power to end wars, but they are the ones who suffer the most,” wrote UNICEF’s executive director Catherine Russell in an X post two years ago. Anesa Kajtazovic bears witness to that.
Kajtazovic believes stories like hers can help nurture curiosity while also teaching about resilience and global awareness. She deliberately kept politics out of her book, to avoid labelling people good or bad and perpetuating “division and hate” that makes it hard for many to move forward. She hopes every child who reads it sees that “Innocent people suffer no matter which side they are on.”
On this World Refugee Day, whose theme is Solidarity with Refugees, new or escalating wars or threats of them are amping up: Israel-Palestine, Israel-Iran, Russia-Ukraine, South Sudan, the People’s Republic of Congo. Innocent lives are being destroyed, and people are being forced from their homelands. And war refugees who had in recent years found safe haven here in the U.S. are being summarily forced back.
Kajtazovic’s extended family is spread out in Austria, Germany and parts of the U.S. Though they keep in contact, she says family traditions were lost. “War changes everything. You can never recapture the lost time. War breaks up families forever. Even those of us fortunate enough to survive are spread out.”
But she also believes that the experience of displacement and loss can build survival skills. “You can also find the will to rebuild and endure.”
In telling this story, the first of what she hopes will be several parts, it’s apparent that she has begun her own journey to reclaiming that part of herself she silenced all these years.
“Anesa, No Skola Today” is published by HERE NOW PUBLISHING. It can be ordered from anesakajtazovic.com or Amazon.com
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If only Trump and Hegseth read books! Maybe they would understand the goal of the Defense Department is to prevent war, not fight wars. They’re way to smitten reading their own headlines to ever sit down and learn something from a book.
Anesa has a lot of courage. Thank you for telling us about her book and her story, Rekha. Heart wrenching.