They were now uneasy and uncertain about their road to death as they waited in the semi-dark hotel hall sitting in chairs and knitting the pieces of their broken lives. They will remain nailed there despite the Council of the Security and Cooperation in Geneva, the United Nations, and all the bilateral and multilateral negotiations. Loss of home and loss of land is synonymous with the loss of identity throughout the Balkans. Once the land is lost, the identity and self-esteem are lost. The psychological relationship to the land is a fundamental trait in the whole conscious and subconscious behavior of the Balkan peasant.
Land is considered a sacred thing.
Parts of Eastern Croatia, called Slavonia, including the city of Vukovar, have fallen to the Serbs. Many refugee women who never wrote before are now writing poems and short stories. Although many are depressed, criticized, and lonely, they find strength to draw out and place meanings in their experiences, especially drawing upon the symbolism from their past, peaceful life. In the Western media they became a nameless, faceless group, victims with neither name nor identity. They have lost their self esteem.