Hidajet Delic Degi was born in Sarajevo in 1948. He discovered photography in secondary school. His first photojournalism engagements were for daily and weekly publications such as Spektar, Nasi Dani, Oslobodjenje, Svijet. In 1968 he joined the Tanjug news agency as a photojournalist and stayed with them until the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
He was an associate for the Associated Press for more than 20 years. During the siege of Sarajevo, his photographs were published by leading daily newspapers such as The New York Times, The LA Times, Time, International Herald Tribune, etc. He was one of the founders of the BHPRESS – the BiH news agency and later worked as the photo-editor of the FENA Federation BiH news agency.
Hidajet Delic was there when Olga Sučić and Suada Dilberović were shot dead as the first victims of open aggression, the onset of the assault and siege of the city. They were the first of 14,385 persons killed in the besieged Sarajevo. Of that number, 2,142 victims of the siege were women.
Suada, a student, joined the masses saying, “I’m going to defend my Sarajevo.” Before she found herself in the moving photo by Hidajet Delic. Olga, mother of two, was captured by a TV camera, along with a mass of protesters, shouting, “This is Sarajevo, we want peace!”
“Analyzing the event, I blamed myself because they were constantly mentioning Suada, but not Olga. When I was looking at the materials, I saw that the girl I photographed at the time was not blonde; only later did it become known that it was Olga Sucic. I don’t think any of my colleagues, unfortunately, have a photo of Suada Dilberovic’s death on the bridge. We only have those famous bloodstains we’ve seen on television.” Hidajet Delic Degi
“It was the first time in my life that I had seen someone get wounded – I’m talking about Olga Sucic. She was hit by a dum-dum bullet, fired from Kalashnikovs. I have to explain this: the entrance wound is very small, but the exit wound is ten times larger. When they picked it up – I don’t like to remember those moments, but I’ve seen a lot in this war – the blood spilled out as if from a canister. I was shooting photos as those guys carried her off the bridge to Tito Street. There were ambulances on the tram rails and I saw her change color, I saw her die, actually. That’s the first dead person I saw in the Bosnian war.” Hidajet Delic Degi
The importance of Hidajet Delic’s exhibition and photography book ‘Women of Besieged Sarajevo’ lies in the fact that this is one of the first attempts to use the medium of photography to contemplate the role of women under siege. This work by Hidajet Delic should be an example, a source of motivation and inspiration for this topic to be investigated further, and to receive the attention and the place it deserves in our society and the times we live in.
Hidajet Delic’s photos, just like all the photos of women of Sarajevo taken during the aggression, depict them as living monuments.
“Looking back at it now, I think women in the war were, first and foremost, brave and only then beautiful. The first war year in Sarajevo, especially for women, was quite difficult. There was no food, no water, no electricity, no gas… What I used to see back then was everyone trying to keep clean, everyone was washing their clothes, everybody was carrying water so they could bathe, wash their hair… I think the Sarajevans in the early days of the war, and it lasted, unfortunately, for a long time, fought back with beauty.” Hidajet Delic Degi
“I would almost always put the camera away when I saw someone objecting or resisting being photographed. I thought that in moments of pain when you see that someone has died and someone is crying for them, you have no right to steal those moments of affliction. And then there were those cries for help. I often got reprimanded by editors, because some took photos of these people, while I was trying to help them, get them in a car and take them to the hospital.” Hidajet Delic Degi
In one of his last interviews, with Sanela Gojak in December 2016, Hidajet explains that cultural memory is very important. “I think that in Sarajevo, and throughout BiH, too little is being done. The Memory Module tried it, as did the Museum of Childhood, which is a great idea. Things that are not recorded, photographed or filmed are quickly forgotten. As time goes by, new generations come and they can only see and hear about the war on TV.” said Hidajet Delic Degi.
Most of Hidajet Delic’s work is documentary photography; he always wanted to show the public the true, objective and real image of an event.
At the very end of the war, he was captured by Serb forces. According to official records, Hidajet Delic was the last registered prisoner of war. “I and a colleague, who worked with me for the Associated Press, were abducted by Serb special forces on the Bridge of Brotherhood and Unity (Most bratstva i jedinstva) because they needed someone to exchange. The Bosnian government forces had previously arrested some of their colonels or lieutenant colonels on the outskirts of Sarajevo. Since my colleague was a Serb from Belgrade, he was released after two days, and I was stuck in a camp for 45 days. First I was in Pale, and later in Foca, in a prison where they accused me of faking all those massacres around Sarajevo. There was one particularly stupid question, like, “Where did you get so much red paint?!” It was crazy to think that one could get paint in Sarajevo. All the time they were trying to convince me that we were faking it ourselves, shelling and killing ourselves, which was ludicrous.” Hidajet Delic Degi
“Fortunately, after 45 days I was exchanged for some of their journalists and soldiers who were captured on Mount Ozren. They accused me of killing Serbs in Sarajevo – I who did not even serve in the army because I have myopia. I was accused of ordering the killing of some Serbs who did refused to sing partisan songs. Nonsense. The worst part is that some of those people who accused me are working in the Republika Srpska judiciary today.” Hidajet Delic Degi
HIDAJET DELIC was born in 1948, Sarajevo – Bosnia and Herzegovina.
He died 26 February 2017.
Special Thanks to:
Nihad Kresevljakovic, Mustafa Corbo, Bojan Mustur,
Sanela Gojak, Klix.ba and Nedim Grabovica
Music used:
‘Grieg ~ Peer Gynt – Death of Ase’
The song is permitted for non-commercial use under license:
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
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