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

Memoir provides healing, closure

By Marina Maric
February 23, 2006

A teenager sees a man who once tried to kill him and his family. He takes a gun from a friend and decides to take revenge. He hides the gun under his shirt and starts walking toward the man.

But he chose not to fire. He chose life - life for the other man, and a new life for himself.

This might sound like an excerpt from some crime story but it is an account of an actual event.

SJU senior Savo Heleta is finishing his first book of memoirs, and this is how he begins his story.

In the book, he recollects the events that happened to him during the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992-1995.

“I’ve learned to appreciate all the things many people take for granted, such as freedom, food, electricity, running water and help from others,” said Heleta, who was only 12 when the war began.

Together with his family he endured two years of fear, bombings, starvation and oppression, all of which he described in the memoir.

He became one of the thousands who had to leave their hometowns and continue their lives somewhere else.

The journey here

Heleta relocated to the town of Gorazde and started working with youth organizations in the area.

In 1999 Heleta joined a program called Peace Trails. The program, whose goal was to get young people to work together on peace development projects, was sponsored by SJU alumnus Daniel Whalen.

Three years later Whalen asked Heleta if he had one wish, what it would be. “I would like to go to college,” Heleta said.

Within several months he found himself at CSB/SJU with a four-year scholarship awarded by Whalen.

For him, it was a dream come true. He had almost given up on the idea of attending college because of the financial constraints.

“When I came to CSB/SJU in August 2002… I could barely write a paragraph on my own, all the time using a dictionary to find appropriate words to express myself,” Heleta said.

Regardless of that, he decided to study two completely different subjects: business management and history, with special interest in South African history.

In May 2005, Heleta joined the study abroad program in South Africa, which is where he decided to write his story.

The inspiration came after he met two men who survived 14 years in the infamous Robben Island prison where opponents of apartheid were put away.

“Talking to them opened my mind and forced me to think about my war experience and life in a totally different way,” Heleta said.

Upon his return to Minnesota in June 2005, Heleta began writing. Less than a year later, he is in the process of editing the first draft.

“I was lucky to get help from some great people along the way,” Heleta said.

Writing process

Heleta is hopeful that publishers will recognize the qualities of his book and offer him a publishing deal.

He already got a lot of positive feedback from fellow students, CSB/SJU professors and most importantly, from several publishers and writers from the Twin Cities

“I think that the story will be interesting because it’s quite unique,” said Heleta.

The book is written from the perspective of a 12-year-old.

The child describes some hardly imaginable events: surviving a concentration camp, hiding in a friend’s room for three weeks and finally swimming for two miles in a freezing cold river in order to escape from the city.

“This is a book about the resiliency of the human spirit,” said Heleta.

“I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for what I and my family had to go through. There is so much suffering, hunger and poverty in the world.

“Unlike many others, we all came out of the war physically unhurt,” Heleta said.

“Many people had risked their own lives to save ours.”

Because of that he is proud to say, “… my family had chosen reconciliation over retribution.”

Heleta has come a long way to become a college graduate and an aspiring writer.

This book is more then just a piece of writing for him.

“With this book, I’m leaving my past behind.”