"Looking at life, looking at the world, bearing witness to important events, observing the faces of the poor, watching peculiar things, machines, armies, masses of people, watching things from thousands of miles away, things hidden behind the walls, things that will become dangerous, watching men and women who love each other, watching children, observing and enjoying the observation, watching and wondering. WATCHING and LEARNING." These are the words with which Henry R. Luce, the owner and founder of the Life, introduced the first issue of the magazine in 1936. Sixty years later we are still watching and learning.

On April 5, 1992, two hundred and sixty tanks, one hundred and twenty mortars, and innumerable anti-aircraft cannons, sniper rifles and other small arms appeared around Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the very center of the former Yugoslavia, a city populated by 500,000 inhabitants and surrounded by mountains which hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics. At any moment, from any of these spots, any of these weapons could bit any target in the city. And they did so very often. All exits from the city, all points of entry, were - and remain - blocked ("Survival Guide - Sarajevo", FAMA, 1993).

But despite all the images of terror, some 300,000 people remain in the city and continue to survive, living and working under impossible circumstances. All of them are sentenced to death, the reason for their punishment forgotten, the hour and the day of their execution unknown. The world is watching daily reports from a city living under the siege thanks to the global television network. After three years of TERROR, Sarajevo became a state of reality, and the people living in it unreal to the outside world. Running from snipers, from mortars, for their lives. Living under siege and enduring the most sophisticated types of terror for three long, perverse years has brought out a totally new and positive human experience from the depths of Hell. Sarajevo represents hope for the world, but the world is no hope for Sarajevo. A person can survive a cataclysm and remain a human being. Every citizen of Sarajevo has been a political and a military target. The best defense was to remain a human being - whatever the cost. Work became the law of survival. Every person profiled in this issue stayed in the city, as did the other 300,000 citizens who remain in Sarajevo. Some of them took short trips to the outside world, peacefully coming back to their concentration camp and continuing their work. They became a new kind of the world traveler: they can always count on themselves, they are totally the same in New York, Mexico, Paris, in the most civilized places, or in Sarajevo - where civilization is at an end but, also at a possible new beginning. They perform, sculpt, play music, sing and dance, act and direct, write and publish books - they cherish life.

That is why I am honored to present Life: The Citizens of Sarajevo.

Suada Kapic Editor-in-Chief,
FAMA Life Magazine