War Memorials

In places like Sarajevo it’s tempting to indulge in a form of morbid war tourism. Here’s the bridge where snipers killed two young women, creating the war’s first martyrs. There’s the Holiday Inn where foreign journalists worked in the part of the hotel that hadn’t been destroyed by Serb shelling. And over there is sniper alley, where crossing the road was literally a matter of life and death. But there are less obvious, more poignant reminders of the 250,000 Bosnian lives lost. Along the sidewalks and outside shop fronts are small, flower-like spatter designs in red paint. Each one represents the spot where a shell fired from one of the hills that surround Sarajevo did what it was designed to do and left the remnants of a family to grieve.