Convoys

This is a scan of a leaflet of the hotel we stayed in when we tried to get to the enclave of Srebrenica. This was a very strange convoy. What basically happened is that we tried to get the Dutch contingent in Srebrenica out, but were denied passage. So we had to stay somewhere and ended up in Belgrade. The next morning we went back to Zagreb.

The hotel had a very 1970's look and feel. It was not bad, but it was quite a strange experience to end up in Belgrade. Link to the official homepage of the hotel, which seems to be offline at the moment. Maybe because the hotel was bought and will probably be renovated. See for more information the entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Jugoslavija

Another scan from the leaflet of Hotel Jugoslavija in Belgrade.
It's on the river Danube.

This is a list for a convoy from Santici to Split and back again. Everything was listed: numberplates of the vehicles, ID number, weapon number even the number of rounds (ammunition) we carried.
Imagine what we could have done with 30 bullets ...

My room in Hotel Palace in Split. This was on one of my first convoys to Split. Normally we would share a room with more drivers, but this time I had a room for my own. Just before I went to Bosnia I bought a laptop, the case of the bag is on the bed to the right. Unfortunately I don't have any other photo's of the hotel.

The hotel was almost exclusively used by UN personnel. They were renovating all the rooms. The dinners served in the restaurant were horrible, the pizzaria in the basement was much better. The only thing was that you had to pay for your pizza and the dinner in the dining h

On the route from Busovaca to Split we used to stop on the top of the hill where a monument was prominently visible. I don't have a photo of the monument, but it was shaped like a ball on a stick. We called it 'Tito's fist' I don't know the real name and it's purpose.
After some searching I found this link ...
Apperently the monument was blown up with dynamite ... only a concrete skeleton remains:

This photo is taken from the road north going out of the city. The high rise building in the middle partially collapsed from shelling.

We passed through the town Mostar at a few occasions. The fighting between the two parties of this divided city was very severe. The moslim part was heavily shelled as can be seen on this photo. From many buildings the complete plaster was wiped off by small arms, mortars etc. A comparison with Stalingrad comes to mind.

Waiting for clearance to cross a checkpoint was of the order of the day. You had to make the best of it. We often made fresh coffee during those breaks, you had something to do and usually when the coffee was ready the convoy could pass and we had real coffee to drink ! (real ground coffee, not that instant stuff). This time it was already quite late and we tried to pass the time reading a book. Don is reading a book of mine by Freek de Jonge (Opa's wijsvinger) ... he didn't like it too much ... ;-)