It was really horrible and inhumane, as if we all were in one concentration camp closed in a gas chamber waiting for our destiny. That problem was more serious with older and sick people, and children. Can you imagine the fear of those children and consequences it will have on them for their entire life? Loud detonations, shaking of ground, suffocating smoke, flames in the sky, permanent danger of  being killed or wounded ( and 3,000 civilians were killed during the NATO intervention, one third of them were CHILDREN!) - who can repay us for that? 

After nights spent at home in fear, without real and deep sleep, or in the shelter with crowd of frighten people, and after a day of work, my wife and I used the sunny spring afternoons to walk or sit in the park, near our home, to get energy for the next night. We used to walk until the first alarms at about 8 p. m. when NATO squadron was already on its way to pour tons of explosive on us. The spring was charming beautiful in Novi Sad, plants were extraordinary fresh and it was good to forget for some time what is going on around us.   

Several times in the grass in park we found exploded bomb fragments, some of them had one kilo in weight. 

  
Catholic cathedral with fire balls in its background: 
 NATO's vandalism  
  
 

   
Everyday scene in the Novi Sad downtown - on the  
left is the Catholic cathedral and City Hall 
  
  

  
Old woman behind band protected  
window - An artist named such windows  
which could be seen everywhere in the  
town "Novi Sad Windows'99"  
 
 
 
 

After a short period we changed our bomb shelter for another underground cafe, because the first one was proclaimed a public shelter so a crowd of people began to pour in every evening with their blankets and packages of personal things, the old people, women with children, laying on the ground or tables, or on joined chairs (one person on 3 chairs). The noise and sad atmosphere was too bad for me so I found another place, in the downtown too, another underground cafe-bar which I used to frequent in the time of peace with my wife, listening to good music. Before we used to stay there till dawn drinking and singing. The cafe owner is an old friend of mine and he plays in the band. Now during the bombing we spent there nights sleeping on long and comfortable seats. We brought our blankets and pillows to that cafe and they stayed there over the day. We could have a coffee or tea, juices or anything, and we used to bring some sandwiches with us. The atmosphere was good. Cafe was open for public till midnight, and after that only the owner with his family and few relatives and neighbors stayed over night. There were mostly young people, we were listening to music and news from a local radio to learn about the current situation on the ground. We were about three meters under ground level and we didn't care much about bombs. 

I slept there about two weeks . My wife couldn't stand to sleep on those seats and completely dressed every night, so she often chose rather to sleep at home ( although our house was next to a marked NATO target, so after one  month it was  evacuated by Yugoslav Army for safety reasons ). And our daughter stayed in the first underground shelter with here friends, where they spent day and night together, or they went out to lunch and dinner to some pizzeria or restaurant. We were in touch by cellular phone. As I heard some huge explosion I was calling home to see how is Marta, and she was calling Mariana, referring me about here state. Few times Mariana came to our shelter to spend time with us, exchanging messages with here friends by cellular phone. Here friends sent regards to us, here parents, too. 

In the morning, after air raid alarm was ended we used to go home to prepare for going to work or we continued sleeping if it was too early. Going to my office I carefully avoided passing by marked targets in the city like buildings of Radio, Post Office, Police, Army headquarters, which were all already evacuated expecting bombing.  

At work, after writing some article or making interview with some artist, I used to have a lunch, which was given us for free, in our restaurant. In the afternoon I went out for walk with Marta, and after that back to cafe-bar shelter. Sometimes we went to some other basement cafes, staying there till midnight and after that we went to sleep. There was an excellent atmosphere in those cafes, they were crowded with young people, loud music was playing so we didn't hear bomb detonations and our artillery shooting at all.