This affecting museum had its genesis in a 2013 book edited by Jasminko Halilović, in which he asked a simple question of survivors of the Sarajevo siege: 'What was a war childhood for you?' Of the hundreds of replies received, 50 short written testimonies are presented here, each illustrated by personal effects donated by the writer, such as diaries, drawings, toys and ballet slippers. It's a lighter, less gore-filled approach to the conflict than you'll find elsewhere, but equally devastating.
War Childhood Museum
Top choice in Sarajevo
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
0.22 MILES
This gallery uses stirring photography, video footage and audio testimonies of survivors and family members to create a powerful memorial to the 8372…
0.32 MILES
A storybook neo-Moorish striped facade makes the triangular Vijećnica (1896) Sarajevo's most beautiful Austro-Hungarian–era building. Seriously damaged…
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0.55 MILES
Reopened in 2018 after being destroyed during the war, Sarajevo's cable car once again shuttles people on a nine-minute ride, climbing 500m to a viewpoint…
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0.2 MILES
Centred on what foreigners nickname Pigeon Square, with its ornate gazebo-like Sebilj drinking fountain (built in 1891), Baščaršija is the very heart of…
5.4 MILES
During the 1992–95 siege, when Sarajevo was surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces, the only link to the outside world was an 800m-long, 1m-wide, 1.6m-high…
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1.38 MILES
Bosnia's biggest and best-endowed museum of ancient and natural history is housed in an impressive, purpose-built quadrangle of neoclassical 1913…
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1.46 MILES
Somewhat misleadingly named, this small yet engrossing museum occupies a striking, still partly war-damaged 1960s socialist-modernist building originally…
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0.16 MILES
The 1537 Kuršumlija Madrasa building is distinctive for its pointed chimneys and the lead roof from which it takes its name. Although built as a religious…
Nearby Sarajevo attractions
0.05 MILES
An oasis of whitewashed walls, cobbled courtyards and partly vine-draped dark timbers, this 18th-century house-museum has been brilliantly restored and…
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0.15 MILES
More religiously open-minded than most of Western Europe in its day, the Ottoman Empire offered refuge to the Sephardic Jews who had been evicted en masse…
0.16 MILES
The 1537 Kuršumlija Madrasa building is distinctive for its pointed chimneys and the lead roof from which it takes its name. Although built as a religious…
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This elegant stone tower sports an Islamic prayer clock, which is adjusted daily so that dusk is the moment when the hands appear to show 12 o'clock. It…
0.19 MILES
Bosnia's second Ottoman governor, Gazi Husrev-beg, funded a series of splendid 16th-century buildings, of which this 1531 mosque, with its 45m minaret, is…
0.2 MILES
Centred on what foreigners nickname Pigeon Square, with its ornate gazebo-like Sebilj drinking fountain (built in 1891), Baščaršija is the very heart of…
0.2 MILES
This ornamental drinking fountain, looking more like an enclosed oriental gazebo, dates from 1891 and marks the centre of Baščaršija's central square.