Time flies-- usually.

Already, it is now 17 years since Bosnia became engulfed in war, almost as long as the gap between the two World Wars.

But time definitely did not fly if you were a Bosnian during the war.

I had been president of Refugees International for just over two years when conflict broke out in Bosnia. In response to the waves of displacement and brutal living conditions of innocent civilians, philanthropist George Soros donated $50 million to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to provide humanitarian aid to Bosnia. His gift made him the single largest donor at that time; ahead of aid from any government! And he sought Refugees International’s advice on how these funds could best be used to help the victims of war.

I first entered Sarajevo on December 31, 1992. By then it had been under heavy siege for over six months. I arrived in Sarajevo in a UN armored personnel carrier with feisty and influential UNHCR spokeswoman Sylvana Foa and the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Richard Holbrooke.

Holbrooke was travelling with an organization working to deliver assistance to people in central Bosnia and asked for my help to get into Sarajevo. Using an ID I had fashioned together the previous evening, he made it through the Bosnian Serb military/police checkpoints. He would have been in considerable hot water if the Serbs thought he was trying to sneak into Sarajevo, but the ID worked.

It was bitter cold when we arrived, but as we sped around Sarajevo, Holbrooke learned in several days what would have taken others a month. He came away deeply committed to saving Sarajevo and ending the war in Bosnia, which he ultimately did-- first by pushing for greater force to be used against the Serbs, including U.S. and NATO airpower and then fashioning a peace as architect of the Dayton Accords.

Several realizations came over us upon our arrival in this city under intense siege (beyond the need to move briskly, sometimes at a full gallop from the tarmac to the shelled out airport building).

Even though already heavily damaged, you could still see that this had been a modern European city.  Sarajevo had been very cosmopolitan and had hosted the winter Olympics not long before. But now the residents were either gone from Sarajevo or suffering in flats with no heat or running water. The dead were buried at the Olympic sites. Forty percent of marriages in Sarajevo had been across ethnic lines – it was a very interethnic city – but this was now being sorely tested as family members were pressed to identify as Serbs, Croats and Muslims.  War has engulfed the once-lovely city and its residents managed to cope with a combination of bravery and resignation.

At least in my time there I could return each night to the bombed out Holiday Inn where if you were lucky you got a room out of line of sight from the Serb snipers.  Trouble was that the entry way and road outside were part of so-called "sniper alley", so arrivals and departures were always somewhat harried.  Once inside the cavernous lobby, the reception desk was only barely visible among torn walls and ceilings and light fixtures lit by a few candles, so check-in in was also a challenge.  Then came the walk up the stairs carrying your heavy flak jacket.  I always felt that this should be entered as a new Olympic sport, trudging up endless dark stairways, laden with flak jacket and bags to the accompaniment of artillery and sniper fire bouncing off the walls.

But the Holiday Inn was a holiday by comparison with what the Sarajevans faced in their flats and homes. One of the first tasks of the day for Sarajevans was to line up to take water from various points around town which were favorite targets of Serb artillery.  Meanwhile, visitors like me were getting all the water we needed from pitchers in the Holiday Inn “dining room” along with some bread and small morsels of cheese.

For me though the worst enemy was the cold.  Heat had generally been gas heat, but the Russians cut off the gas flow to the city. And there was no electricity, so the nights were cold and bleak. Given such evenings, you might imagine that a morning sun would be welcome.  No indeed.  When you finally crawled out from whatever you were sleeping in or under, what you wanted to see was fog, the denser the better.  It was on the sunny days that the sniper kill ratios went way up.

The dangers and hardships were so intense, and we knew that even the Sarajevans could well fall to the combination of hunger, thirst, cold, shells and bullets.  I began to put together in my mind, how the entire population of the city might have to try a break-out down the ravines to the west and evacuate the city. I left Sarajevo to report to George Soros’ committee what Refugees International considered the best overall strategy for using his funds. The UNHCR rep for Bosnia basically said that Sarajevo was a lost cause. I countered that while this might be true, we should nevertheless channel most of the Soros aid to the beleaguered city to give it the best chance to survive. Given the dire situation in Sarajevo, it was decided to follow RI’s recommendation that the focus for the Soros funds be used to keep Sarajevo alive. As part of this effort, the Soros committee began a “Save Sarajevo” media campaign.

The challenge remained, however, to use the Soros funds strategically within Sarajevo, not just to buy relief food and distribute it until the money was gone.

Lionel Rosenblatt served as president of Refugees International from 1990 to 2001. Read part 2 of his guest blogger series on Thursday, August 6.  Pamela Snyder, an intern from the College of William and Mary, assisted in editing this post.