Kemal Pervanic is a survivor of the notorious Omarska concentration camp which caused international outrage after British journalists uncovered the story in 1992. Kemal now lives in England and is the author of The Killing Days: My Journey Through the Bosnian War.

I was born in Bosnia in 1968 when ethnicity and religious beliefs didn’t matter. Although my mother identified as a Muslim, I had no religion. ‘Brotherhood and Unity’ was our slogan. But after the fall of the Soviet Union, political groups started to form along ethnic lines and I noticed some of my Serbian neighbours looking at me differently. One schoolmate, who I’d always been on good terms with, suddenly would no longer greet me because I was a Muslim.

Then, in May 1992, the newly named Bosnian-Serb army began targeting Muslims and my village was attacked. I was captured and taken to Omarska camp where the conditions were terrible; there was very little food, no space to sit, and just two toilets for 1000 people. Luckily I was with my middle brother which eased the pain. We didn’t know if the rest of our family were alive or dead.

A lot of neighbours used this situation to settle old grudges. One of the guards was my former language teacher, another a former classmate. Many times people were taken out and tortured; some never returned. When people ask me now, how is it possible for your neighbour to suddenly turn on you, I tell them it takes a long time to prepare people to slaughter their neighbours.

I spent the whole time in a state of terror but I knew to survive I needed to suppress my feelings. I was therefore quite capable of watching someone being slaughtered like a pig without crying. It didn’t mean I didn’t care, but extraordinary circumstances make you react in ways you can’t explain.

After ten weeks three British journalists came to Omarska and the world’s press got hold of the story. As a result, I was transferred along with 1250 survivors to a camp registered by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The facilities were still terrible but I no longer feared for my life. Finally we were released on condition that we leave Bosnia and sign away everything to the newly formed Serbian authority.

When I first arrived in England I couldn’t talk about what had happened. I looked frozen the entire time and didn’t trust anyone. It wasn’t until I heard that my elder brother and parents were still in Croatia and being treated extremely badly, that I finally broke down. At my blackest moments I imagined killing my torturers and feeling absolutely nothing as I did it. Such an act I knew would destroy me. What saved me throughout these years was the support I got from some wonderful people.

Ten years later, I decided to return to my village to ask my former neighbours why they’d taken part in the violence. I managed to meet up with two of my former teachers. One of them seemed full of remorse and said he’d never wanted to participate in the Serb National Project but the other one I didn’t believe. He’d been an interrogator in the camps and had clearly enjoyed the job. He wanted me to say that I forgave him but at that time I couldn’t forgive him because he showed no remorse.

Back in England I suffered my second breakdown. Returning to my village had been traumatic - my past had been destroyed, the place just grass and rubble. But although I was traumatised, I wasn’t filled with hatred. I didn’t decide not to hate because I’m a good person, I decided not to hate because hating would have finished the job they’d started so successfully. It would have poisoned me.

Then something strange happened. One cold January morning, I was in the shower when suddenly I found myself saying, ‘I forgive you’. Year after year I’d carried the memory of the perpetrators on my shoulders – so when this moment in the shower came I felt a huge release.

It wasn’t a conscious decision to forgive, something just changed inside me. Perhaps it was because my father’s recent death had inspired me to do some private healing by getting in touch with former girlfriends and apologising in case I’d unintentionally hurt them. Perhaps I forgave because I realised death can come at any time and take away the opportunity to make up.

Recently when I went back again to Bosnia, I recognised a former camp guard standing by the road hitch-hiking and I started laughing. My friend couldn’t understand why I was laughing but what else could I do? I didn’t want to swear or scream or get violent. I laughed because I remembered the monster this man had been, but now, hitch-hiking alone on a dusty road, he looked almost pitiful. That’s what they call the banality of evil.

People describe these people as monsters, born with a genetically inherent mutant gene, but I don’t believe that. I believe every human being is capable of killing.