ABSTRACT
Ibrahim is a Bosnian refugee and asylum-seeker in the Netherlands. He survived the ethnic genocide in former Yugoslavia (1991–1995) and speaks of his experiences:
I had a good life, and did nothing else except taking care of my family and trying to do my work as good as possible. Suddenly times changed. Not only time but mentality of people changed, too. The war started. Strangers came into our town. One day they caught me and brought to a concentration camp. I used to read Dante, but I did not know that devil really existed. I can't tell you everything what I saw, because I am ashamed of and I don't think that talking about it is going to help me. But I can tell you briefly about what has changed my life.
It was the day that seven of them took me out of the room where I was kept in together with other prisoners. All seven of them raped me. Their age was between 14 and 17. This went on for days; it was terrible. I thought that God never existed. But when I was released from the camp it went even worse. I had two children, a daughter of 12 and a son of 15. So when I saw my son again I just couldn't stand him. I could actually kill him, because he made me remember of what I have been through in the camp. From that moment on I did not live any more; I just existed. No priest, nor another holy man, could give me absolution. I am deeply ashamed of having being raped, and not being a good father any more, hating my own son. Everybody tries to comfort me, but it is my secret and my nightmare that makes me feel ashamed. From that moment on I have accepted the fact that I do not live any more.
Shame is a secret; something one always carries with oneself, something so difficult to deal with or to share. It is something that destroys all those things that one has learned about good people, good husbands, and good family. Shame is an experience that does not fit into the world I was raised in. It is a secret in which I am alone. This has nothing to do with my past, or the way my parents have raised me. It is worse. It is the destruction of everything I have ever learned.
