SARAJEVO, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Personal belongings of Syrian children living as refugees in Lebanon were exhibited here on Sunday at War Childhood Museum in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, telling upsetting, and often sad stories.
Some 100 children, below 18 years of age, who are survivors of Syrian war, are not only emotionally attached to these objects, but also very keen on sharing with other people their memorabilia and life-stories of war experience, Almedina Lozic, collection and content manager, told Xinhua.
"The exhibition entitled 'Peace Belongs to Everyone' includes 36 items and their corresponding stories of childhoods that have been affected by the ongoing conflict in Syria. These items were collected across three refugee camps in Lebanon," Lozic explained.
Each of the 36 items exhibited has a different story. One of the most interesting and upsetting ones was named "My Father's Perfume", which tells a story of Yahya's father, who died of a shell while in his car, heading to work.
"He died before he could finish his bottle of perfume. One day, suddenly, the bottle slipped out of the hands and broke. Crying, I ran quickly to try my best to capture the rest of the perfume and move it to another bottle," reads the description next to the perfume bottle that belonged to the father of the small boy.
Aleksandra Ivicevic was a visitor at the museum. The 31-year-old said she especially liked the story of the hairclip that Inas' grandmother gave her when they left their house on their journey to Lebanon.
"What was particularly upset for me is that children used to collect the empty bullet shells. It is really a painful experience, especially for children. What's sad is that they did not have normal childhood with secure playground and different, colorful toys, but they played where shells were falling," Ivicevic said, adding that it is not only traumatizing for children, but dangerous as well.
Another sad story, "Keys to Our House", is about keys with different ornaments, which are the only things left after Marwa's house was burned in Syria.
"The keys opened the doors to the most beautiful house I have ever seen. My room had pink and green walls. Unfortunately, the house was burned during the war, so we don't have a house anymore."
"I took these keys, some toys that didn't burn, and some ash - the remains of our home," Marwa says in her story.
Jennifer Harvey, a visitor from Canada, told Xinhua that all the items are interesting, but the ones where children are missing their friends are the most impressive one.
"They talk so much about their best friends they left behind, or they have lost touch with. They are not connected anymore to the life that they had, they lost the stability," Harvey said, adding that it was also interesting how children took something bad, and created something beautiful out of it, just to move forward, and this can help other people experience war.
