Almin Hodzic '00 was 14 years old when his life was threatened at gunpoint. He and a friend were standing in an execution line, about to be shot and killed, when what he described as an "incredibly lucky" circumstance prevented his early death.
Hodzic, an ethnic Bosnian who spent his childhood and early adolescence in that war-torn region, faced execution by the Serb army when an officer -- who happened to be Hodzic's martial arts instructor of nine years -- recognized him and saved his life.
"He told us to just go to concentration camp because there you'll have a chance of surviving," Hodzic recalled.
Hodzic thus spent a total of 20 days in a Serb-run camp, the first three of which he, his mother and his two younger brothers survived without water, food or bathrooms.
"They just wanted to clear everything that was non-Serb," he said. "After 20 days, they didn't know what to do with us, just like animals they put us on a truck, then we had to walk 10 miles in a straight line to reach Bosnian army."
Eventually, Hodzic's family reunited with his father in Croatia, where they spent nearly two years working and living. After finding the economic situation bleak, they decided to leave the former Yugoslavia, and by chance were able to connect with a church group in Greenwhich, Connecticut.
There Hodzic attended high school for three years before matriculating at the College.
"A lot of times looking back you're like, 'My God, did this really happen?' It just doesn't seem real," Hodzic said of his transition to life in the United States. "One minute you're on a farm taking care of animals, and the next minute you're in America at a supermarket and there are 15 kinds of bread."
"And then you're at Dartmouth, and then you're at a top investment banking firm," he continued.
Hodzic will spend the next two years working at Nieman Brothers in New York City. The Russian language major who spent most of his extracurricular life at the College on the men's crew team and as a Big Brother/Big Sister mentor said he was looking forward to a change of pace.
"It should be fun. It should be hard work and long hours, but I'm ready for it. After Dartmouth, I pretty much feel I can handle anything," he said.
Hodzic said he was at first unprepared for the Ivy League work load, and had difficulty balancing his class work, time on the crew team, and socializing. This year, he was unable to row due to injury, a development that frustrated his senior year.
Hodzic said he chose to specialize in Russian because "I'm just a freak when it comes to Russian literature, particularly writers like Dostoevsky," and added that he is happy with his choice of a major.
"I felt like every professor who I had either ended up being my friend or being really friendly. The best thing about Dartmouth is the profs," he said.
"The thing with America, if you see what you want and work hard you can achieve it," he said. "That's the key, working hard. I'm dreaming the American dream."
Initially, Hodzic said, his transition to the States was difficult. Although it took him only a year to learn English, he found he had to work particularly hard to succeed.
Though Hodzic said he never wants to return to Bosnia to live, he still feels that the Bosnian language and culture, as well as the relatives he left behind, constitute an important part of his life.
Ninety percent of the people who lived on his street were killed, he said, including many close relatives.
"I guess I was just lucky that no one in my immediate family died," he reflected.
Hodzic attributed the scale of the Bosnian masacres to a general unpreparedness on the part of non-Serbs.
"The reason," he said, "why a lot of people died in Bosnia is because the Serbs had it all planned. It was a schematic ethnic cleansing. On the other hand, you had these people who didn't believe it was happening. It was like, 'Who's doing this?'"
Hodzic said that while the Yugoslav region has long had a history of ethnic tension, the outbreak of conflict was far from inevitable.
"I think the seed was there for a while, but Milosevic and those people were the ones who fertilzed it," he explained.
