Goodbye Sarajevo - Hello Masterton

To look at them, you would never imagine Atka Reid, a graphic designer, and Hana Schofield, a lawyer, had endured the bloodiest European conflict since World War II, dodging sniper and mortar attacks and feared for their lives everyday.
Sisters Atka and Hana were born in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now called Bosnia), and were separated by the war in 1992 during the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.
Twelve-year-old Hana was put on one of the last UN evacuation buses fleeing the city. Atka, 21, was left behind in war-torn Sarajevo to look after their five younger siblings as their mother, working for a humanitarian aid organisation, was unable to reach them while their father retreated inside himself, shocked at what was happening to his city.
The family of 12 later settled in New Zealand where Atka and Hana have preserved their story in a book called Goodbye Sarajevo.
The pair visited Hedley's Booksellers yesterday as part of their North Island tour to promote the book, and said they have had a "great" response in New Zealand and Australia.
Atka arrived in New Zealand in 1993 after meeting husband Andrew, a Kiwi photojournalist from Christchurch, and, with the help of Andrew's parents, brought her family over from Sarajevo in 1994.
"It was very difficult getting everyone over here because Sarajevo was still under siege so they had to leave in groups but, fortunately, the New Zealand government allowed 50 Bosnians into the country and my parents-in-law were able to get us into that quota," Atka said.
The sisters said they emphasise the "extraordinary kindness and generosity of people" in the book, without which they would not have survived.
"There was a lot of evil and misery during that time and what made all the difference was the extraordinary acts of kindness from people who barely knew us," Hana said. "Like Atka's parents-in-law who spent a year trying to get us over here. Andrew's father passed away a couple of weeks after we got here, so it is humbling to know that one of his last acts was helping us escape even though he had never even met us."
Adapting to New Zealand life was different for each sister as teenager Hana fitted into high school easily, but Atka struggled to relax after being constantly in survival mode for so long and always preparing for the worst. "People found us interesting because we were European and it was also a miracle that we had come here in one piece, so we found that if we immersed ourselves in the community, it would get easier," Hana said.
Hana also now has a Kiwi husband, and Atka is busy raising two teenage boys, who are "real Kiwi boys" and did not know the full extent of their mother's Bosnian life until they read Goodbye Sarajevo, despite visiting the old country.
"When we went back, we found out that our older family members had died so we couldn't ask them about our family history and we realised that our children will ask about our history one day."
Their book's working title was Promise me you will be brave, "because that was what we said to each other when I got on the bus, but then we realised we never really said goodbye to our home properly".
Goodbye Sarajevo is the sisters' way of saying goodbye "not just for us, but for everybody else who had to leave".