Two families from Sarajevo
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 2 January 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Born into a Bosnian Muslim family, Salih Hardaga grew up knowing that his family had done a very courageous thing. During the Nazi occupation of Sarajevo, his parents, Mustafa and Zeinaba, sheltered their Jewish friends, the Kabiljos, even though their home stood opposite a Nazi headquarters. After World War Two, the Kabiljos moved to Israel, but the families kept in touch - and in the early 1990s, the tables were turned. When war broke out in the former Yugoslavia in 1992, the Kabiljos were horrified to see that their former hometown of Sarajevo came under siege. They decided to try to rescue their old friends. Alex Strangwayes-Booth tells the story of the two families, meeting Salih Hardaga, now in his 80s and hearing his memories of his parents’ brave actions. She finds out how the Kabiljo family in Israel enlisted the help of the authorities to rescue Salih’s mother, husband and daughter from the Siege of Sarajevo. And Alex meets younger members of the Hardaga family who lived through the events, and reflects on the offer of rescue they received. This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Heart and Soul, exploring personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This Heart and Soul is the first of a two-part series looking at Jewish-Muslim relations in different parts of the world, starting with aios, two families with two religions brought together in the shadow of two different wars. |
| 0:33.8 | The relation between Senor Cabinio and me Pope was something incredible. |
| 0:39.3 | They were like two friends, two brothers. |
| 0:43.3 | From the Second World War, where the Hardiga family hid their Jewish neighbors, |
| 0:48.0 | the Cabellios, just meters from the Gestapo. |
| 0:51.8 | Do not leave the house, not speak to anyone. |
| 0:55.0 | The Gestapo officers were exactly across from my bedroom window. |
| 0:59.7 | To the siege of Sarajevo 50 years later, |
| 1:03.1 | when the Jewish community helped rescue the Hardegas. |
| 1:06.6 | Jewish community gave offer to my mother-in-law. |
| 1:11.6 | If we want all of us to move from Sarajevo, they can help us to go out. |
| 1:19.7 | In a city which still prides itself on the good relations between its Muslim and Jewish communities. |
| 1:26.5 | Every life matters. |
| 1:28.2 | Let us make commitment that we will protect each other |
| 1:31.5 | like we did in this long history of Jewish-Muslim relations. |
| 1:36.8 | I'm Alex Strangway's booth, |
| 1:38.5 | and I'll be travelling to Sarajevo to hear the story of neighbouring families |
| 1:42.8 | and how their friendship helped each other survive war, |
| 1:46.7 | not once but twice. |
| 1:54.6 | In Sarajevo, history is everywhere, from the 500-year-old mosques, synagogue buildings and ancient churches, |
| 2:02.6 | to the bullet-pocked apartment blocks and red paint on the ground, |
| 2:06.8 | showing where people were killed by grenades during the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s. |
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