Zlata's Diary: A Childhood Shattered by War

You don’t make any loud noises because your house faces the snipers.You're growing out of all your clothes and your shoes no longer fit. Your always scared, and frightened to death because people around keep getting killed. And you don't know how long this is going to go on for, or if it’s ever going to end, and when it’s your turn to be shot at… That’s what Zlata had to live with.

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Zlata's Diary is a diary text written by a young girl named Zlata Filipovic. The Diary begins in September of 1991 as a typical fifth-grader excited and enthusiastic about starting school, she records the beginning of starting school in Sarajevo.

Within six weeks of the diary, her hometown was involved in terrible war, and she was soon facing deprivation and the death of close friends and classmates. Zlata and her father were forced to haul buckets of water to their apartment building. Bombs were falling continuously around the house, and sometimes smashing through windows, sometimes forcing the family to move into their damp, dark cellar.

Sometimes Zlata would be left by herself while both of her parents tried to work.

Constantly worried about the safety of her relatives and her own well being, she feared that the war would never end and she poured her deepest feelings into her beloved childhood diary, which she named Mimmy. During the war, Zlata and her family lose almost everything. Zlata's mother's place of work is soon totally destroyed. Zlata can't go to school with any regularity at all. She almost forgets what fruit and vegetables taste like! Some of Zlata's friends are murdered horribly, innocent children caught in the crossfire of someone else's war.

Sarajevo soon transforms from an educated center of culture and friends, to a destroyed blood-pit in which survival for people becomes very difficult. Zlata even contemplates suicide but tries to be strong, especially for her mother, who is finding it extremely hard to deal with the war and the loss of her close friends and relatives, and also her job. Zlata admits she is a child "without a childhood" who only wants peace for Christmas in 1993. This line in the book especially was upsetting, as no child should ever be stripped of their childhood and innocence.

Despite the horrible cycle of devastation and death, the neighborhood becomes a bit of a family, all sticking together. There are good people who look out for the children and make sure that Zlata and the other children around still gets an occasional chocolate bar, some clothes to fit their growing bodies and small birthday presents. The new "family" tries to still celebrate the holidays and birthdays and marriages that still occur. Zlata’s diary is soon published, it’s published during the war itself, and it was the only thing to save Zlata and her family.

It was their ticket out of Sarajevo. Luckily, Zlata has a happy ending, happier than some of her friends and relatives. And of course, Zlata has never forgotten the war. She still continues to speak about the war. Zlata's Diary is a personal and sad record of a childhood lost to war. It was a truly inspirational and emotional book with an author who I feel deeply for. I would read this book again. It helps me to realize how lucky I have things and how precious life is.