The Heroes of Treca Gimnazija: A War School in Sarajevo, 1992-1995

Shelled into ruins at the onset of the third Bosnian War (1993), Treca Giminazija, a high school in central Sarajevo became a war school, adapting to wartime conditions by conducting clases in the dispersed basement classrooms in neighbourhoods accross the city. The author, who interviewed many of the Treca Giminzaija students, teachers, and administrators during Sarajevo’s siege (1992-1996), as well as after the war, chronicles the human drama of everyday life in a high school operating under the constant threat of enemy guns and mortar fire. The real story of the siege of Sarajevo, put in educational terms, is the localized adaption of the staff and students of the school who implemented adminsitrative resolutions and directives to keep the school open. These educators and students of Treca Gimnazija, one of 13 secondary schools that were destroyed during the siege, tell the stories of their own personal war in the battle for the mind and chronicle their shared experience in this book.