The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

oneself and others the way they are; it helps one live without violence.
And it has to be re-learned and re-practiced anew every day, especially
where it is being built on piles of rubble.
Trauma work and dialogue in the diaspora (Berlin)
Prior to the 1990s, approximately 600,000 people from the former Yugoslavia
lived in Germany. When the war broke out, another 260,000 ref -
ugees were added
Südost Europa Kultur e.V. was founded to promote the peaceful common
life of the 32,000 people from former Yugoslavia living in Berlin in
the late 1980s, for even far from home, many of them could not resist
the nationalistic propaganda. The results were conflicts among col -
leagues at work, firings without notice, many divorces, and children torn
between loyalty to the families of their mothers and those of their fathers,
for Serbia or for Croatia. Südost sought to create a bridge of reason and
understanding by way of culture.
Before the war broke out, thousands of deserters arrived from Yugoslavia.
In Europe, they had no rights. They tried to make out without money;
many were still students. When the war broke out, 45,000 refugees came
to Berlin, and received helped mostly from those Berliners who had themselves
been victims of expulsion and flight. But for most people, the
events in Yugoslavia remained simply horrible news bulletins, things one
could neither understand nor associate with one’s own life.
Südost immediately provided psychological and psychiatric counselling
for the refugees; some of them in fact accepted. Only when the Dayton
Agreement was signed, and the refugees were told two days later that
they had to leave Germany immediately, did they seek counselling in
large numbers. The prospect of having to meet the perpetrators again
psychologically forced people back into the war. They could now know
longer submerge their experiences from Srebrenica, or from various concentration
camps. Desperately, they sought someone who could understand
and help them.
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