Behind this enigmatic title lies a masterpiece which would certainly have been totally ignored had it not been translated into English in 2008 by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. The compelling book was originally written in Polish and published in 2002. The author, who covered the war in Bosnia, acknowledges that once the war ended, the reporters headed towards other battle fields. As the world lost interest in a conflict where over 100,000 people lost their lives, the victims and the survivors of war faced a grim reality: a divided Bosnia, thousands of dead, a devastated landscape and a ruined economy. Tochman takes us right into the heart of that ‘grim reality’.
This cathartic journey begins with the weird title “Like Eating a Stone” which refers to a child’s description of his mother gnashing her teeth when she dreams she is visited by her murdered husband. It continues in the company of the book’s most important character, Dr. Ewa Klonowski, a Polish forensic anthropologist currently working for the Bosniak Commission on Missing Persons for whom identification of the victims is the priority. She has recovered some 2,000 bodies from wells, caves, rubbish dumps and even under piles of pig bones.
She is fascinated by bones: “I love bones; bones speak to me. I can look at small bones and I know what illnesses the person had, how he walked, how he liked to sit. I can determine nationality from bones.”
It is clear from the very beginning that the author does not want to explain the causes of the Bosnian conflict. He insists on highlighting the deep repercussions of ethnic cleansing. The power of this incredible book lies in its incisive style. Tochman has mastered the art of restraint, expressing much with little. War atrocities and suffering are laid bare; words are kept to a strict minimum: “The abandoned old people did not need the food they had for long. Their throats were cut. Their dead bodies were torn apart by wolves that dragged their bones all over the district.”
The war in Bosnia ended in 1995 but peace has not really been achieved. Mass graves are still being found and the long-awaited trial of Radovan Karadzic shows how many problems still need to be solved in this complex part of Europe.
These chronicles of the aftermath of war in Bosnia conclude with the re-burial of 282 victims from Srebrenica in July 2003. More than 20,000 people from Srebenica sought refuge on July 11, 1995 with the Dutch UN Troops. That day the Dutch soldiers did nothing to help the citizens of Srebrenica when the Serbs entered the town which had bravely defended itself for three years: “The Serbs went in among the terrified people, took away the men and pushed aside the women... The teenage boys, all those taller than 150 centimeters, were detained in Potocari, and so were their elder brothers, fathers and grandfathers... The youngest was fourteen at the time... That day the Serbs murdered at least seven thousand men here, and to this day exhumations of mass graves are still going on in the area,” writes Tochman.
This powerful book reminds us that the Srebrenica genocide should never be forgotten. It also shows us how the victims and survivors of the Bosnian wars have rebuilt their lives, how they cope with their loss and how they feel about their Serbian neighbors. A peace treaty takes only a few minutes to be signed but peace in the heart and in the mind does not come so easily. “Like Eating a Stone, Surviving the Past in Bosnia” should be read by anyone interested in what really happened in Bosnia in the 1990s.
