Vukovar

Young people who have not studied recent European history will probably not know the name of this town in Northern Croatia. Older people, like me, still feel it best to tread softly and with respect around the streets and the bridge that were hardly ever out of the news between August and November 1991. The place is still not what it once was; the people may never be.

There are two diametrically opposed points of view, and we heard both on our tour of the Balkans. The Serb-Croat War may have been thirty years ago, but people still argue their case as though it were yesterday.

(Left: the waterfront).

The besiegers shot down the Croatian flag from the water tower on a daily basis. Every night, two defenders made the increasingly dangerous climb up the damaged structure and put the flag back.

The old bridge (right)  divided the Serb and Croat quarters, but in the old days nobody cared. The memorial to J-M Nicolier, a French volunteer, ensures that today nobody forgets.

Trpinja Road, remembered as the Tank Graveyard, and the memorial to its defending commander, Blago Zadro.

The lesson, still as relevant today, seems to me to be that if you must destroy a town and expel its people to prove that it's yours, then even if you win, nobody but you will ever believe that it's yours.