THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 21, 1995 TAG: 9503210275
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL SIZEMORE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
Sometimes it seems everybody is fighting everybody else in the war zone that used to be Yugoslavia. But that's not quite true.
Amid the shelling and sniping where ethnic hatreds have pitted Serbs against Muslims against Croats, one group has managed to remain at peace - and, at the same time, provide aid and comfort to victims on all sides of the bloody conflict.
The Jewish community in the besieged Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, has used its neutrality to mount a multi-ethnic humanitarian effort, ferrying terrified refugees out and bringing critically needed food and medicine in.
The leader of that effort is Ivan Ceresnjes, an architect who was left unemployed by the war. He is in Hampton Roads talking to community leaders as part of a national speaking tour for the United Jewish Appeal, which has helped finance the relief effort.
Five months after the war broke out, Ceresnjes, 50, sent his wife and three children - ages 11, 13 and 16 - to Israel. But as president of the Sarajevo Jewish Community, he stayed behind to help those victimized by the war.
The relief effort is known as La Benevolencija: ``good will.'' It has organized 11 convoys which have ferried an estimated 2,000 tons of food and medicine into the embattled city and evacuated thousands of refugees - Christians, Muslims and Jews - from the war zone.
Their trucks and buses are painted with a distinctive blue menorah. That way, ``everybody knows these vehicles are bringing only help, not arms or ammunition,'' Ceresnjes said Monday.
Amid the bloodshed that has engulfed the Balkans, the Sarajevo Jews are trying desperately to reclaim an ancient heritage of harmony amid ethnic diversity.
Jews have lived in Sarajevo since they were expelled from Spain in the mid-16th century. Unlike other European cities where Jews were isolated in ghettos, those in Sarajevo became an integral part of Bosnian life, living alongside Serbs and Muslims and often intermarrying with them. Before World War II they made up more than 20 percent of the city's population.
``The country lived in peace for hundreds of years,'' Ceresnjes said, speaking with quiet intensity through a salt-and-pepper beard. ``Now we are living in something totally unknown: Everybody hates everybody.''
The city Ceresnjes knew and loved as a multicultural oasis is now ``just a town of ruins and sadness,'' he said - ``a town condemned to die.''
Most of the women, children and elderly have fled, and the city's Jewish community has dwindled to about 600.
Most of Sarajevo's basic services - water, sewer, telephones - are cut off, making life a grim daily trial. The once-scenic city's trees have all been cut down for fuel, and residents have begun burning their doors, floor boards and furniture.
``The city is under constant shelling and sniper attacks, with fear and death as a permanent guest,'' Ceresnjes said. ``Every day you see more and more people without hands, without legs.
``It's just an imitation of life. You see empty suits walking around you. Sarajevo is really a place where civilization is killed, more or less with the approval of the rest of the world.''
This week, the Serbs' big guns are pummeling the area around Sarajevo, ignoring U.N. threats of force. The fighting shows the ineffectiveness of the four-month truce that took effect at the start of the year. The war has left more than 200,000 people dead or missing since April 1992.
``What will be the future, nobody knows,'' Ceresnjes said. ``But I am certain of one thing: The war will be a long one. The real war is just starting.''
That assessment is shared by Daniel Graf, a history professor at Virginia Wesleyan College who specializes in modern Europe.
``The situation in Sarajevo is slowly deteriorating,'' Graf said. ``The two sides are still armed to the teeth. Each side is cooperative to the minimum extent they think they can get away with toward finding a solution.''
Militating against peace, Graf said, is that today's conflict ``is a product of centuries. The Europeans have a much longer historical memory than we tend to have. . . . The necessary ingredients for some sort of a compromise for peace just don't seem to exist.''
Ceresnjes plans to keep his family in Israel permanently. He sees no future for his children in Sarajevo.
But he hopes to keep the city's Jewish community alive as long as possible, persevering in its mission of peace and compassion amid hatred and bloodshed.
He uses an old analogy to describe the Jews' role. The society is like bread, he said: Flour, yeast and water are all crucial ingredients, but a dash of salt makes it worth eating.
``We are the salt,'' he said. ``The world would be tasteless without us.'' ILLUSTRATION: Map
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