The break-up of the old Yugoslavia created opportunities for ancient differences to be fanned into ultra-nationalistic fervour. For over 40 years Serbs, Bosnians, Croats and Albanians — people of various religious persuasions and ethnic backgrounds — had lived in peace and mutual tolerance under the synthesizing domination of Yugoslavia’s President Tito. Now, as that strong leadership fell away, ambitious, power-hunger demagogues consolidated their positions, first with local militias, and then gradually expanding their reach and influence. Enmity, fear and suspicion divided cities, villages, communities — sometimes even families — against one another.

What followed was a shameful episode in modern European history. During the wars in Yugoslavia, over 300,000 people died and two million were driven from their homes. Europe is, even now, dealing with the effects of the conflict. Poverty and desperation mean that many former Yugoslavs fled, seeking asylum in other European countries. Many villages stand more or less empty, fields and orchards untended.

Now, in 2005, the world has just commemorated the thousands of Muslim men and boys slaughtered in Srebrenica, where more human remains have recently been uncovered in mass graves.

So much damage was done to infrastructure and to communities that many villages are hardly viable. The need to rebuild houses, in many instances starting virtually from scratch, has meant that less time and effort has been put into the crucial work of reconciliation and bridge-building between and within communities.

Independent documentary film-maker, Dutchman Eric van den Broek, and his partner Katerina Rejger were in Sarajevo visiting friends in 1996 just after the war, when they realized that a pattern was emerging in their random conversations. Whether they spoke to Muslims or Christians, Bosnians or Serbs, Eric and Katerina heard one particular theme again and again. Felicity Eliot interviewed Eric van den Broek for Share International.

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Eric van den Broek: We had recently become independent film-makers and we had our equipment with us. Naturally, as journalists we are curious about everything. We drove from the Netherlands and as we entered Bosnia we saw all the destruction, the ruins, the chaos. It appalled us and we started asking questions — what was this war about?

We asked people about their experiences — anyone and everyone who would talk to us. We started conversations in bars, cafes, on the streets, wherever.

Share International: Did you find that people were reluctant to talk about their political views?

EvdB: You would expect so, but we found that people really wanted to talk politics — all the time, in fact. But we got the impression that, in a way, they were using politics. It was as if their political stance gave them permission ... as if they were hiding behind their politicians.

SI: Your aim was to get to some other kind of experience; wasn’t it too painful for them — so soon after the war?

EvdB: We asked people about what happened to them, to their immediate families, to relatives and friends. We got the impression very quickly that they were extremely disappointed in each other. And everyone we spoke to kept saying that they were disappointed in their friends.

SI: For those of us who know little about the circumstances of life before the outbreak of war, are you saying that cross-cultural friendships, partnerships, social mixing of all kinds were all quite normal? Serbs and Croats were friends, Muslims and Christians were colleagues, friends, partners, went to school together and generally moved freely whatever the differences?

EvdB: Exactly; and then suddenly there was war and post-war full of suspicion and fear. Their trust was damaged. They kept saying: “My friends haven’t contacted me.” And when we asked why they themselves didn’t phone their friends, the answer would always be the same: “They’re the ones who should contact me.”

SI: How did you react to that?

EvdB: We decided to go to ‘the other side’ and ask them the same questions to find out what their attitudes were. So, if we’d just interviewed some Muslims, we’d go to their former Christian Serbian friends or colleagues. We asked the same questions about their suffering and losses, grief and grievances. And out would come the same reply, again and again: “It’s up to them, they should write to us, they should call us first.”

SI: That seems like a stalemate. Where could you or they go from there?

EvdB: At first we were stuck. We felt we ought to be able to do something with the information and the interviews but we just didn’t know what.

We were making a film for Dutch television and one day we read the headlines in a newspaper in Sarajevo which said something like: “Where politicians fail rock-band succeeds.” It was about the U2 pop concert in Sarajevo and the important news in that report was that the train from Mostar to Sarajevo was going to run again for the first time since the war to allow people to go to the concert!

This looked like a good story to us. We decided to board the train and film the whole episode of young people going to a rock concert. We planned to talk to people, interview and film them on the way to the concert. The problem was that young Croats couldn’t get to the concert because the train was leaving from the Muslim part [of Mostar] and the tickets were being sold there, so young Croatian students were afraid to enter the area to get tickets.

Just one city but divided by a barrier, invisible to us as outsiders but it seemed only too solid to them. It was fear — there had been so much fighting, so many terrible things happened. The Muslims had been attacked by the Croats and so Croats were afraid to go near the Muslim areas. They feared reprisals or that someone would recognize them and accuse them of killing their father or brother. There was also rumour, conspiracy, suspicion — and all the kinds of behaviour you see in wartime and post-war. But we managed to film people on the train and also to interview them.

I decided to edit the film while in Bosnia, and set to work at the local television station studios running the tapes to edit them. As I worked I became aware of a crowd of people who worked at the television studios gathering behind me looking over my shoulder at the film.

SI: Were they Muslims or Croats?

EvdB: They were Muslims, standing looking and listening to the interviews we had done with the Croatian students on the train. Since it was just rough, unedited footage I was curious and asked what they found so interesting. They said they hadn’t heard Croatians’ opinions since the war. They wanted to know what their attitudes were since the conflict.

It was at about that point that it suddenly ‘clicked’ for us. Perhaps we should try to do something with the films here in Bosnia.

SI: So that was the beginning of VideoLetters?

EvdB: Yes. I got the central idea of VideoLetters then. It’s a simple idea.

SI: As far as I can tell, having seen a BBC television report which showed something of VideoLetters, it is also extremely effective.

EvdB: In order to make the films and carry out this project we needed money. We approached NGOs and charitable institutions to ask for sponsors. Everyone thought it was a wonderful idea but many, especially governments, said they were busy trying to rebuild infrastructure and houses so that people could return to their homes and communities. But we thought they had things the wrong way round; we believed that first you need to reconstruct society. You must first build bridges between people and communities, and then the physical bridges.

SI: I suppose people were afraid to go home.

EvdB: Absolutely. They were afraid of their neighbours. First you have to reconstruct souls, as it were, then roads.

Eventually we got some money, episode by episode, and we started the project in 1999. The first one was a ‘heavy’ story about two boys Emil and Sasha who had been best friends as boys, but then because of the war hadn’t seen or spoken to each other for years.

It was very difficult because one accused the other of killing someone they both knew very well. It made it problematic for us too because we didn’t want to be put in the position of being a tribunal. We wanted to focus on people’s ideas. And now, here we were in a story which involved “did he or didn’t he do it?”. After a lot of editing work we sent the film to Holland where it was to be shown.

SI: Did people in Bosnia get to see it too?

EvdB: Yes. We’d wondered how people would react. And we were amazed to see that the viewers, Muslims in this case, immediately took the Serb[in the film] to their hearts. We had thought they would hate the film or hate him, but the opposite happened. We saw they were all crying. We asked why. It wasn’t about whether someone killed another, they said. No; it made them sad because a good friendship had been destroyed. To us this meant that we were on to something — since the reaction hadn’t been to accuse or hate.

People started to talk after seeing it. For example, the women of Srebrenica, on both sides. It was extraordinary. The Serbian wives of the men who had killed Muslim men and the widows and mothers of dead Muslims both watched the film. They had not talked to one another since the war.

SI: I found the piece I saw on television moving and instantly thought of its application to other similar situations such as Rwanda. It is such a powerful tool for reconciliation. Did you have a sense right from the start of the potential of the video letters for reconciliation?

EvdB: No, not really. What we knew is that in the former Yugoslavia after World War II there were 60 years of silence — about what happened in the war. People were not even allowed to say what nationality they were. Our idea was, if they don’t talk now perhaps the horrors and cruelty would go on.

SI: Let’s just describe exactly how VideoLetters works. How was it done, practically speaking?

EvdB: Well, basically we gave a video camera to a person who wanted to make a video letter, to give them a way to communicate as directly as possible since they were too afraid to try to visit their old friends.

We would go to their houses and, while they were talking to camera to appeal to an old friend, I would film them sitting in front of the camera reading something they’d written or just speaking aloud as if they were speaking to the person they wanted to contact.

Then we’d act like postmen really and contact the people concerned — the person or family addressed in the video letter — and ask them whether they’d be willing to watch and possibly respond to a video letter made for them. Their reactions were varied, but generally we chose not to tell them who the letter was from — partly to avoid the possibility of a prejudiced response and partly because we wanted to see their spontaneous and immediate response at the moment of seeing the video for the first time. It was wonderful to see, in virtually all cases, their happiness as soon as they saw the other.

SI: Were you satisfied with that local result?

EvdB: For us the aim was to allow as many people in the former Yugoslavia to see these filmed letters. It’s great to bring happiness and reconciliation on a personal level but we wanted the whole region to see the films and to work from there, to think creatively about solutions, not only to the aftermath of war but for the present and the future. We hope that seeing these personal experiences people would begin to ask: How do we deal with differences? What should we do as communities, as countries, as ethnic groups? What is the way forward?

SI: I believe you’ve got the co-operation of a number of television stations or networks across the region?

EvdB: Last year (2004) in Ljubljana [Slovenia] we heard of a meeting of all the directors of the different public-service broadcasting companies to discuss co-operation for the first time since the war. We had the opportunity to make a presentation there and showed a short compilation. There were Kosovars, Croats, Serbs, Montenegrins and Albanians present; the atmosphere was very strained, they hardly spoke. The video film we showed was only 10 minutes long but we had to stop a couple of times because they all found it so moving and emotional.

To break the tension I suggested a coffee break and then it happened – they all started to mix and talk. Influenced by their strong emotional reaction to the film they agreed to co-operate and agreed to give broadcast time to our VideoLetters films. This is extraordinary because some television stations were responsible for stirring up hatred and broadcasting propaganda. Now VideoLetters is being shown throughout all the countries of the former Yugoslavia.

Since then we have also organized help-lines and about 60 information points where people can go to look on the internet for information to find friends and family. Bosnian radio stations now announce when a video letter arrives from Serbia so that, if willing, its addressee can come forward.

What’s really important is that people are starting to make their own video letters and put them on the web. We also have a touring studio set up in a bus, to provide more access to facilities so people can keep making contact, building bridges themselves.