Almin Hodzic '00 shouldn't have lived past May of 1992.
When Serbian soldiers seized control of Prijedor, the Bosnian town where he lived, only luck allowed him to survive.
The soldiers stormed into Hodzic's home and placed his family and 35 other community members in front of a firing squad.
"Basically, I realized my life was over that day," Hodzic said.
But his former martial arts teacher happened to be one of the masked Serbian officers. He ordered the soldiers not to murder the 35 Bosnians.
What should have been the last day of Hodzic's life became the first day of his ordeal.
Hodzic's instructor came to his home and told his family to go to a concentration camp, where, ironically, they would have the greatest chance of survival.
"If you stayed at home, soldiers would come and kill you," Hodzic said. In the concentration camps, however, Serbians were less likely to murder women and children.
He and his family walked with 3,000 other people toward a camp called Trnopolje, about four miles away from his home.
Before they arrived, the Serbians forced them to sleep in a cornfield amongst bodies of Bosnians who had been murdered that day.
"It smelled so bad that we had to put something in our noses so we wouldn't get sick," Hodzic said.
The next morning, he and his family were shoved in a bus with about 100 other Bosnians, and brought to Trnopolje, a high school surrounded by Serbian guards, barbed wires and swamps.
"I never could imagine that something like that could happen to me," Hodzic said. "It made me think that human beings can be really cruel -- they can be like animals."
He lived through the next three days with no food, and ate very meager portions for the remaining 20 days of his stay.
While at the concentration camp, Hodzic had no particular tasks, other than to wait in line for a gallon of drinking water for his family. This usually took a whole day, since one pump was provided for thousands of people.
But waiting in line could hardly be considered suffering, compared with other things people went through.
Every day, male prisoners were taken into an interrogation room, where they were "beaten to death or to the point where, when they came back, they were asking other prisoners to kill them and end their pain," Hodzic said.
He said soldiers tortured prisoners by lighting their chests on fire, cutting their ears or reproductive organs, and generally doing "the most horrible things you could possibly imagine."
But since Hodzic was only 14 years old and considered a child, he was released from an interrogation room with a mere punch in the face.
Hodzic also witnessed the brutal raping of women, including his 85-year-old neighbor and a 12-year-old girl, who was violated by 10 soldiers.
Since the high school was so crowded, Hodzic had to sleep outside, where mosquitoes from the swamps bit him to such a degree that his mother could not recognize him in the morning.
After 20 days, the Serbians turned Hodzic and his family over to a Bosnian-controlled territory.
"Finally we became free," he said. "But at the same time, we lost all of our belongings, all of our possessions -- everything we owned."
The Serbians did not have the means to kill everybody in the camps, which is why they returned some of the prisoners to Bosnian territory, Hodzic said.
But that doesn't mean that plenty didn't perish.
About 13,000 people were killed in his town, and 2,000 people were murdered during one hour on the day he was released.
Hodzic never saw half of his friends again. They were killed or simply vanished. Three of his uncles and some more distant relatives were also murdered.
Islam played a large role in helping Hodzic survive.
"That was important -- being religious, believing in God, and hoping it would end somehow," he said. "It all seemed like some bad dream."
He and his family tried to start from scratch in Croatia, but the country's poor economy prompted them to come to the United States.
With the aid of relatives in New York City and an organization called the Interfaith Refugee Ministry (IFM), his family came to the United States as permanent residents.
Members of the IFM who live in Greenwich, Conn. helped them find a home and employment there.
Their first six months in America were "very hard," but a close-knit family atmosphere contributed to their success.
"We were really close, and we were determined to do well and be successful. When you see opportunity, you just take it and just do it," he said.
"This country is amazing," Hodzic said. "With hard work, you can do anything."
He was placed in high school sophomore classes, learned English and held down a few jobs.
He made it into Advanced Placement classes by the time he was a senior and chose to come to Dartmouth based on the College's friendly atmosphere and academic excellence.
Watt Boone '00, who roomed with him last year, said Hodzic follows through with his personal ideals of taking opportunity and aiming for success.
"He's a very motivated person," Boone said. "I think perhaps his experience [in Bosnia] and his opportunities in America have made him much more driven."
Boone also said Hodzic's ordeal did not have any lasting emotional effects.
He may major in Russian and Psychology and is a member of the crew team.
Hodzic feels that most Americans fail to appreciate their freedom, which he calls "the most precious thing you can have in your life."
When he first came to this country, he wanted to forget his past. But his observation of Americans' "taking their freedom for granted" inspired him to recount his experience through public speaking.
He has spoken in private and public schools, and he won the Anne Frank award for his speech in New York City at the "Facing History in Ourselves" conference last fall.
Despite the atrocities, Hodzic is "relatively ready to forgive."
"I'm the kind of person who would never hate," he said.
