Maksim Marjanović, a retired teacher from the village of Skelani, risked his life to help his colleague Jakub Abdurahmanović and Jakub’s family. Jakub was murdered during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and, 20 years later, Maksim reunites with Jakub’s wife Šehida for the first time. Their emotional meeting accompanied by the memory of Jakub tell the story of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Maksim and Jakub met each other when they studied together in Tuzla. Soon after, they began working together as teachers in Srebrenica. When the war began, Šehida remembers how Jakub didn’t want to leave their apartment, insisting that he wasn’t guilty of any wrongdoing. She distinctly remembers her husband’s words: “If they kill me, they kill me.” Šehida recalls how she did not want to be separated from him because, in her words, life would mean nothing to her without him. Thus, they remained in the building, alone. Maksim took special care of them during that time. When the phones were still working, Šehida remembers Maksim calling and saying: “Listen my Jakub, things are getting worse outside. Get your children Šehida ready. I am coming to get you.” Šehida remembers those days vividly and fleetingly comments that “it doesn’t matter who or ‘what’ you are. All that is important is that you are human.” “Maksim arrived as darkness fell,” Šehida explains. “At first I didn’t recognize him because it was dark. Then he said to us: ‘Let’s go downstairs.’ We put what we needed into backpacks and went to Maksim’s apartment.” “My children were so scared,” she remembers. “Whenever the doorbell rang they would jump up and ask: ‘Are they going kill us?’ I will never forget when we were in Maksim’s room and he took out a gun and said: ‘Listen, sweet Zijada, don’t cry. See Uncle Maksim’s gun? No matter who comes to our door, they cannot harm us. It’s just like in the cowboy movies, Zijada.’” “She then hugged Maksim, feeling protected,” Šehida tells us. Jakub’s Determination According to Šehida, Maksim went to the town center to check on the situation. When he returned, he was visibly shaken. As he has passed through the town by car he had witnessed shootings all around him. “The thought that someone would come to the apartment to make problems for Maksim, led Jakub to decide that we must return to our own home. Nothing could change his mind,” recalls Šehida. “My Jakub was known for setting his mind to something without any further explanation.” Maksim reluctantly agreed to escort the family to their apartment. “The days passed in fear and anxiety,” Šehida recounts. “The stores were looted. We were never sure what kind of evil awaited us just outside. At this point, a possible departure was out of the question.” One morning, Maksim called and told Šehida to make coffee. “As soon as he arrived, he began crying,” remembers Šehida. He spoke with her husband, saying, ‘You know what, Jakub? I am a decent man. I taught my children a different set of values. I am ashamed to be seen in this uniform. This would only be an honourable uniform, if I were at least able to protect you and the people with whom I have spent my life. I have decided that I must go back to my village of Brežani. If I must, I will die there.’ Maksim offered Šehida the key to his apartment. He told her: ‘If you feel more protected there, then go, but I have to leave.’ He embraced Šehida’s children and cried. “He probably sensed the evil that was to come,” adds Šehida as she recounts that moment. She remembers Maksim telling Jakub: “If we stay alive and meet again, we will know who was truly responsible for all this. I really have to go now.” He then left and Šehida, who followed him across the playground, recollects how he put his hand over his face and cried. A few days after the separation, Šehida remembers how Arkan’s “Tigers” entered their apartment to search it. “They opened everything in the apartment, but found nothing. One of them yelled: ‘Everybody get up!’ My son Zijo, who was in his second year of high school at the time, let out a distinct cry. Then, they removed my Jakub. In a Serbian dialect, one of the Tigers said: ‘You! Sit with the children!’ So, we stayed behind in the apartment.” Shortly thereafter, Šehida received the news that Jakub had been killed. “I hadn’t bathed in 10 days. When I took off my clothes to take a bath,” she explains, “I saw that my thighs were covered in bruises. I realized that my child Zijada had pinched my legs out of fear and I didn’t even notice it. It was then that I understood the trauma she was going through.” Šehida had not seen Maksim since 1992 but explains that they still knew everything about each other. “Maybe he is fishing on the Drina,” she mused.