After the deaths of two brothers and six months in a concentration camp during the Bosnian War, a Chicago man is now working to erect a monument to spread awareness of the conflict.
If Mirsad “Mike” Causevic is successful, a 12-foot-tall statue on the Northwest Side will honor 3,176 people killed in his former homeland in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The monument will be the image of an imprisoned man standing with his head down in front of a clear wall with relatives on the other side reaching out but unable to touch him. The prisoner has his head down because that’s how Causevic and others were forced to stand, Causevic, 56, said. Family members unable to touch the figure signifies thousands of families who lost loved ones during the war during the early 1990s.”We were beaten down and tortured, either at their hands or through the withholding of the body’s most basic needs,” said Causevic, who has authored a book about his experiences.
While he would ideally like a monument in his hometown of Prijedor, he doesn’t believe it will ever happen because, he said, it would be an acknowledgment by the government of the crimes against humanity that took place.
Causevic, who lives in Sauganash, said it’s fitting for the monument to be in Chicago because of the city’s large Bosnian population. About 40,000 Bosnians came to Chicago as refugees during the 1990s and early 2000s.
Causevic, who owns Oasis Heating & Cooling in West Ridge, said he paid Sarajevo architect Faruk Pirić $3,000 to design the monument about seven years ago but then put the idea on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic.
He is now pushing for it and stresses he’s not looking for money, saying he and members of the Bosnian community will fund the memorial, which he estimates will cost $50,000 to $100,000.
We just need a location and a permit,” Causevic said, adding he has spoken to 40th Ward Ald. Andre Vasquez.
Vasquez said he’s had positive conversations with Causevic and is now “looking to see what’s possible.”
Causevic said he could probably erect the monument at the planned Bosnian Cultural Center in Lincolnwood without the hassle of getting city permits, but putting it there would not spread awareness.
“That will only be seen by us, the same people who survived it,” Causevic said. “I’m sick and tired of talking to the same people, my people. They know what happened. Other people need to know. That’s why I want it exposed to the public.”
In 2017, he wrote a book about being held in a concentration camp called “Death In The White House,” the white house being the name given by the guards of the building at the Omarska camp where he was held.
Causevic also has shared his story with the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie and is helping raise funds for a movie scheduled to film in Sarajevo, called “Traka,” about the atrocities, named for the white arm bands that non-Serbs were forced to wear.
But the monument in Chicago would be special because of how many Bosnians fled here, Causevic said, adding he hopes it will educate future generations while honoring the victims.
Causevic’s story is not uncommon for those who survived the Serbian concentration camps, he said. After six months in the camp, he lost 65 pounds and said he couldn’t walk when the United Nations and the International Red Cross helped get him released.
After leaving the concentration camp, Causevic said he was “screaming, crying and singing,” realizing he survived something that looked bleak for a long time. His joy didn’t last long, however, because once he was released he went to Croatia and learned one of his two brothers, Mufid, had been killed.
“I was shocked and went from happiness to sadness,” Causevic said. “They said I was sitting in a room for two or three days not talking to anyone.”
Six months later, Causevic would come to Chicago with the help of the United Nations. He brought his parents, Said and Hata, because their home had been destroyed in the war. Two days after arriving in the U.S., he learned his second brother, Mesud, also had been killed. His remains have never been found.
Once he got settled in Chicago, Causevic began working at an Ace Hardware store making deliveries for $5.75 an hour. Eventually, he took classes at Coyne College in heating and air conditioning and began working for the engineering department at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry while improving his English.
He also began buying real estate and fixing it up for profit, enabling him to start Oasis Heating & Cooling in his garage seven years later. The business now employs 19 people.
Causevic said while it is essential to him that the victims of the Bosnian War be honored and remembered, he thinks other people can also draw inspiration from those who survived like himself.
“The Bosnian immigrants are resilient people,” he said. “I’m proof that in this country it doesn’t matter who you are if you’re hardworking and have a goal. I was mentally and physically gone. I touched the bottom, and I rose up. It was all up to me, showing up to work every day, planning, working hard and dreaming about goals.”