I’ve always been good about maintaining contact with friends of old, friends on other continents, friends of times past. But I lost track of one… 

   My wife and I taught in Samoa in the 80s and a mix of characters had coalesced there. We’d became very close to a cluster of ex-Communist refugees, all doctors or pharmacists, East Germans, Poles, and Yugoslavs. They’d been hardened in the survival soup of government repression and jumped, crawled, or negotiated their ways through the “The Iron Curtain.” Their hardening made each of them larger than life, hilarious, charismatic, and unashamed scoundrels to the max. But scoundrels we loved.

   We lost contact with one of them, Dr. Esad Sadikovic, a Yugoslav, a United Nations Ear Nose and Throat Specialist. But no surprise because we were sure he was destined to things far greater than us. And he was.

   In Samoa Esad (Eso) made us laugh. He and his ability to make something from nothing got us drawn into more than one “expedition” as he called them.

Once he “commandeered” a vehicle from a wealthy Samoan family.  That weekend we drove to the jungle-infested interior of the island and jumped into a deep lava rock surrounded pool of fresh water. My wife Mira couldn’t swim (still can’t) and Esad said, “Mira, you must learn for to swim…someday you will have kids…understand?”

    Nearly every Yugoslav we’d met abused and over used the word understand.

    We all parted company, spread to the winds. Us to California and we’d heard Esad and family escaped the horrors of the Yugoslavian conflagration fleeing to Sweden.

   Over the years I’d ask our common friends – the Poles, the East Germans.

   “Hey, any word on Esad and his family?”

    “They are in Switzerland.”

     Another claimed, “Denmark.”

    A Polish friend and I had a talk and I learned I’d been spelling Esad’s name wrong over the years. (I presumed it was Assad) Also, I thought he lived in Sarajevo. No, I was informed he lived in Prijedoc.

    The Pole added, “Paulski…was big massacre there.”

     I Googled Prijedoc and wished I hadn’t.

     “Prijedoc- site of Bosnian massacre at the hands of the Serbian militia. I dug deeper - According to Physicians for Human Rights and the U.N. Commission of Experts, during the war, a number of doctors "disappeared" and are believed to have been killed in Omarska, among them the following persons: internist Osman Mahmuljan, gynecologist Zeljko Sikora, and ear nose and throat specialist Dr. Esad Sadikovic.

My heart sank but disappeared did not mean dead, I hoped. I sent out letters of inquiry and received the following;

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Dear Paul,

Thanks for your message. Dr. Esad is considered a hero by all those who knew him before and after his time in the Omarska camp, where he did all he could to provide medical care to other inmates.  I am copying my reply to Mr. A.  who heads the Union of Citizens of the Municipality of Prijedor who will be better able to answer your specific questions about Dr. Sadikovic's family.

Kind regards,

(P. V.)

 

“A hero by all who knew him” made me cry. The tense was past tense.

Next email…

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Jan. 27th 09         

Dear Paul and P.V.

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It is nice to know that Dr. Eso Sadikovic still has friends and  be remembered.He was a more than  a brave person.In 1992 when town Prijedor became a genocide site , Eso work wery hard to prevent killing and atrocities.Days before he was brutally captured and taken to concentration camp Omarska, Dr.Eso had numerous meetings with  all kind illegally Serb authorities from civil and military structure.I remember when he day after day had meetings with military "officials". He was independent and as a citizen tried to halt fascism and intense killings before was to late.However Serbs accused him and treat Eso as a extremist and together with other educated muslims forced and captured in the Omarska concentration camp. After couple months being captured in Omarska, serbs executed him. His body was found in one of 70 mass graves around Prijedor. Former Omarska prisoners told us many stories describing Dr.Eso self-sacrificing,devotion and braveness in Omarska .He didn't hesitate to provide medical help to other prisoners even he was in same life dangerous circumstances. Suddenly one night guards form Omarska concentration camp separated   Eso from other prisoners and latter on brutally killed him. Today Prijedor or what left form Prijedor, still remember  Dr.Eso Sadikovic. One group of : Friends ,relatives and enthusiast  for second year hold annual meeting in honor of Dr.Eso Sadikovic.

 

Best,  A. K.

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      I spent the next 72 hours on my computer and found a horrifying treasure of documentation of my friend’s life and execution most likely by the vicious Serbian militia Arkan’s Tigers. I found hundred pages of testimony in The United Nations Criminal Tribunal of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia referring specifically to Esad. These were not happy times for me.  But from the testimony of survivors I did learn my lost friend had saved many lives in Omarska concentration camp. Survivors mentioned him time and time again filled with thanks and gratitude for the efforts he had made to save them. In Bosnia there is a yearly commemorative meeting to honor him and it is attended by hundreds.  His wife and children survived.

 

Finding is not always good.