In the news - Not My Turn to Die: Memoirs of a Broken Childhood in Bosnia

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Bosnia native opts against revenge, writes book

By Tracey Compton

May 27, 2006

When 26-year-old Bosnia native Savo Heleta recalls his graduation ceremony from St. John's University this spring, he is keenly aware of how one false move years ago would have put him on a different path.

That day was in 1996 when he picked up a gun and approached a man he said tried to kill his family.

It was during the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Muslims were being driven out of their homes by Serbian militants.

At that time, Heleta, who considers himself Serbian, said Gorazde, his native city, was under Muslim control and surrounded by Serbs.

"Just overnight people considered us as enemies," he said, including the man he was about to go after on the street.

He had recently returned to his home after being on the run with his family.

They had been in hiding, moving between friends' homes, and eventually they were sent to a concentration camp.

When they were released, Heleta encountered the former family friend, driving freely on the street.

Motivated by revenge, he said, he might have killed the man if his father didn't step in.

"Seeing that my parents, they had all the reasons to be angry and my dad probably had even more reasons to do that than me, but he just said 'let us move on and do something with our lives,'" Heleta said.

This would be the first turning point in a full-circle journey that finds him a college graduate with majors in history and business management. He is fluent in English and about to pursue graduate studies in conflict management in South Africa.

Conflict as a vehicle

Little did Heleta know how quickly and dramatically his father's advice would be an agent for change within his life. He got his ticket to Minnesota through a youth leadership program targeting children in Bosnia Herzegovina.

PeaceTrails was started by The Whalen Family Foundation. Daniel Whalen, founder and retired chief executive officer of telecommunications project management firm the Whalen and Company and St. John's Board of Regents Chair, founded the program in 1999.

Heleta was a member of the first class that designed and planned community service projects to implement in Bosnia Herzegovina.

Participants are given a small grant and the technical, educational and training resources they need to carry out their projects. Heleta impressed the organization so much with his strong leadership capability that he was hired as a trainer, Chris Fesler said.

"In a short period of time he's just blossomed. He will go on to do amazing things," the project coordinator said.

Three years ago, when she was hanging out with him Spain, he couldn't even speak English. Heleta worked for PeaceTrails for two years, and then the philanthropist starting asking Heleta what else he could do for him.

Even though he knew the answer was pursuing a college education, Heleta said he didn't feel comfortable asking.

"I came to the U.S. four times while working for PeaceTrails, and then we went to Spain, we went to Turkey, we went on all these different trips and some reward trip and some to get training," he said.

"So I traveled all over the world, I said no, I can't ask for anything else."

Somehow he managed to find the words and when Whalen told him to pick a country and a school, Heleta said he would have felt better if someone punched him in the face, amazed at Whalen's generosity.

Heleta was unsure he could even succeed at an American college. He spoke broken English at the time and needed a translator even to ask Whalen for his support.

He wound up going to an English as a second language school in St. Paul for two years before enrolling at Whalen's alma mater, St. John's.

Inspired

The second turning point came in Heleta's life when international exposure motivated him to write about the pain of his past in a book.

"I would never decide to write about my experience, I would never write this book if I didn't go to South Africa," he said.

Heleta went on a study-abroad program and took a lot of history and politics classes in South Africa. He remembers being moved by a trip to Cape Town and Robin Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.

He and a friend listened to former inmates who had been were there 14 years. They talked about apartheid and the policy of separate development of races.

He doesn't know what triggered his purge of emotions, but he's pretty sure it had to do with hearing their stories, sharing his own story and having his American friends encourage him to write about it.

"I consider that one of the main turning points in my life," Heleta said. "During the war in Bosnia, I was oppressed for two years and all that, but this guy was in jail for 14 years and he was telling me that you have to move on, revenge doesn't make any sense."

Storytelling

About six months, 120 pages and about 80,000 words later, Heleta has a working manuscript he's intent on publishing.

When people read it, they tell him they can't believe someone who learned to speak English only four years ago wrote it.

Heleta said going to college in the United States has been such a pinnacle event that there are concepts he can only explain in English, his second language.

He's in the editing phase now with his book and is shopping around for publishing companies and screening agents.

"After years of emotional conflict during which I considered revenge as the only way to move on with my life, I was blessed to meet great people and given a chance to study in the U.S. and South Africa," he wrote in a letter to an agent.