I keep reading people on this board claim that during an emergency situation, gold will become worthless because you "can't eat it". I was reading that Selco thread wondering what occurred in Bosnia where the SHTF for real a few years back. So I pitched the question to Selco, and before he answered I saw this gem on the Survivalistboard thread. (Fil = Father in Law, SIL = Sister in Law) If anyone wants to know which is smaller and more compact, an ounce of gold or 5,000 Deutchmarks, it's the gold. Bottom line, you can (and should) stuff all of the food, water, guns, ammo, trade goods and tools in your home or a remote and secret location: but as you are trying to prepare, you don't know the scenario that may hit you, and grabbing a few gold coins to bribe your way out and getting out of dodge might be the only thing that saves your life. Lots of German Jew WW2 stories are very similar to this. I worked for a man named Max Bernbach who bailed with his life out of Austria when the Germans invaded. If you have to walk (you won't be driving if this comes to pass) over the Canadian border for any strange reason, do you want to be lugging a couple of crates of #10 freeze dried Mountain House, or a few gold coins that will later buy a warm room and 20 of those cases?
Posted by LeZinc, page 32 my shtf expirience-wartime - Page 32 - Survivalist Forum:
Posted by LeZinc, page 32 my shtf expirience-wartime - Page 32 - Survivalist Forum:
Similar experience as Selco in our family. Though my bosnian husband and I were in Paris when SHTF and Sarajevo went under siege. Although sheltered from the heavy bombing we could clearly hear on the rare occasions the phone actually worked, we helped as much as we could and it felt strange and totally bizare going through that nightmare while living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Trying to give a "preparedness" point of view while sharing our experience of those horrific years:
1- The day before Sarajevo was under siege, my husband, who actually was my fiancé at the time, was standing at the bus stop with his old aunt, on his way to the airport (travelling to Paris where he planned to register at a university for a PhD). His aunt told him how looking at the busy, "business as usual" city, usual traffic jams, people tending to their usual activities, it seems just unreal TV and media saying Sarajevo is about to be attacked/bombed. My husbund replied he doesn't believe that'll happen, it's just propaganda from the serbs to intimidate the Bosnian authorities. Off he went to the airport. He had to change planes in Belgrad. By the time he arrived in Belgrad, Sarajevo was already being attacked. I was in Paris and just before leaving to pick him up at Orly airport, I heard on the news that Sarajevo was under heavy bombing. I had no idea if he would be in that plane or not. He was, and we got home. He learned of Sarajevo's fate from me, on the way to my appartment. He was livid!!!
As soon as we arrived home, he took the phone and called his family. We could clearly hear the explosions while talking to his sisters.
Lesson: never under-estimates or dismiss signs and warnings of SHTF. Everything may seem just normal today and in less than few hours, SHTF big time and for a long period of time (years!)
2- My FIL is diabetic, insulin dependant. It was one of the very first horrific realisation that hit us that afternoon (along with the bombing noise during our phone call), even before the realisation that the country was cut off the rest of the world actually sank in our brains. I'll spare you the details about our efforts to have proper medication reach him in a country at war. The fact that we did it (all the way from Paris) is a miracle, a convergence of coincidences, precious help from total strangers, and a chain of events we made work in our advantage and during which we always kept at the forefront of our priorities that life-or-death necessity for my FIL.
Lesson 2: Medication for special health issues MUST be up there with food and water in the preparedness priority list. Stock-up those medications.
3. Snipers were having a blast in Sarajevo. My 2 sisters in law were stuck in their appartment. Anybody walking in the street, day or night, was as good as dead. People were stuck inside, and far from windows. My youngest SIL (18 years old at the time) almost got hit, when a sniper decided he didn't have enough targets on the street and went ahead with shooting through the windows of the appartment building. Sure enough, they ran out of food in less than a week. We succeeded in calling them one evening (phone was working on and off). My older SIL (25 years old at the time) told me her sister was eating the last of the food, a mere 1/4 cup of rice. No way to go get more cause snipers galore out there and nobody in the building would share any (of course).
I won't insult you by stating the obvious lessons here.
3- While 2 of my SIL were in Sarajevo, my other SIL, along with her 2 toddlers and her husband were in a small town, with less advance infrastructure and of course, the telephone didn't work there, unlike Sarajevo which we could reach, though with difficulties. She's a ressourcefull person, we knew that. She had a good amount of cash, in Deutch Marks. Bosnia war was before the avent of the Euro and Deutch Mark was the safe currency to use for savings in eastern european countries, particularly in ex-Yougoslavia where people had experience with bank-runs and bank vacancies.
We didn't have any news from them for an excrutiating long period of time and didn't know what happened to them. We got news weeks later. They left their home just in time, before it got flattened out by ennemy's mortar, and fled to Norway, using their Deutch Mark stash to pay their way there. The trip was epic, frightening. They got asylum status at the Norway border after being turned down from a couple of other countries. They called us as soon as they got installed in their new house by the aurhorities. We went to visit them as soon as we could. Norway governement and people were absolutely great! They quickly began to build housing to host the refugies from bosnia (punishing weather in winter there, no way they could be in tents).
Obvious lesson here for survivalists. Stash worthy cash (In the US and in the current economic situation, that would be precious metals). If my SIL didn't have cash in a worthy currency that allowed her to flee with her family, they would all be dead. And don't hesitate one second to leave with only your cash, your identity documents and the clothes on your back when things get dangerous. That's what they did and it saved their lives not to take time to pack anything to take with them before leaving. Time was of the essence. Granted, family pictures are irreplaceable, but so is your life.
4- My FIL and MIL were a 2 hours drive from Sarajevo, in my husband's birth town. He needed to extend his visa, since he was stuck in Paris and couldn't go back home, not because he didn't want to fight or anything like that, but simply because it was a siege situation, no one allowed out or in. But he needed his birth certificate to do so. We managed, painfully and with lots of aggravation, to get in touch with my MIL and ask her to manage to get him that important paper, so he doesn't end up illegally staying in France.
I can't say oppenly how we got that paper all the way from there to Paris. All I can say is we did it the same way we got insulin to my FIL, through the same total strangers who helped us at the risk of serious legal complications for them. But I can tell you my MIL was worthy of a Hollywood drama movie for her action on the matter. The town-hall (where birth certificates are delivered in normal times) was almost totally destroyed and just getting there meant for her to dodge snipers, desperate people trying to get money, food, mortars, slaloming around dead bodies... Once at the town-hall, she managed to get to the basement, where civilians were trying to protect important documents (it's a historical town, with precious historical records, ect.) They helped her have her son's birth certificate. She had yet to come back home, again dodging deadly bullets and explosions. My MIL can't drive, she did all that walking and running, for several kilometers.
Lesson: Official documents, beside the obvious identity documents like the driving license (passports, birth certificates, ect.) must be up to date and of course, available at moment's notice when SHTF. Don't even think to leave your home for days at a time without them. In our policed countries, you never know what would be the outcome if you can't prove your identity or your nationality. And forget about crossing a border without a current passport, let alone go or stay out of the country.
An other lesson to draw from our experience with the insuline and the birth certificate: although I would be very prudent, our experience taught us total strangers are not necessarily dangerous. They actually can be godsends, generous, decent, life-saving. They were in our case. Luck? Maybe. Decent human beings can keep being decent in harsh times and in the face of SHTF big time? Certainly, I can attest to that, and so can my family members whose survival they owe to total strangers.
5- Back to my 2 SIL in their appartment in Sarajevo. The oldest managed to get in touch with cousins in an other part of the town. By that time, things began to organize in a weird kind of way. Some reckless young men used their cars to move people who needed it, and most importantly, could pay for it, at the risk of their life (both the drivers' and the clients'). The plan was very simple. You give the "chauffeur" 2500DM in cash before stepping in the car. He drives you in "Fast & Furious" style through "sniper's alley" as Selco says in his post (except we're in Sarajevo and that's lots of streets, boulevards and avenues). When both chauffeur and clients arrive to destination, an other 2500DM, which is the balance of the total 5000DM it costs you for that young man to transport you at the risk of his and your life, where you need to be, generally where your family and loved ones are.
One of my cousins, married just the week before Serb troups surrounded and cut off Sarajevo from the rest of the world (that wedding info is relevant, more on that later) arranged for a "suicide taxi" to pick up my 2 SIL and bring them to the family house where almost all family members in Sarajevo gathered (the late grand-father's house, down-town). Since my SIL didn't have 2500DM with them, their cousin paid the guy before he got to their appartment building. He paid the balance when he brought back the girls. Like Selco's experience, my family-in-law gathered together under the same roof to help each other and so no one stays isolated, fending alone for him or herself. Only they were not armed, except for the kitchen knifes.
The lives of my 2 SIL were saved. Remember the lesson about cash, if the family didn't have 5000DM in cash, I don't know what would have become of them. Starved to death? Killed by a sniper or a mortar explosion? But there is one more lesson to keep in mind from this experience: Resilience and no fear, resilence and no fear, resilience and no fear. Rinse and repeat... Resilience and no fear are most important. It took courage to step out of the appartment building, embark in a strange car, with a strange man, to be transported at ungodly speed through streets hosting zealous snipers and mortar hits. They did it. My older SIL took the decision, while her brother, with me in Paris, was beside himself, unable to encourage them doing it and unable to advice against it. He was paralysed by the fear of loosing his young sisters (one was attending University in chemistry and the other was finishing a Master in English linguistic at the time, which explains them sharing an appartment far from the family home). My SIL literaly dragged her hysterical sister downstairs to the "suicide taxi" - sorry, I can't find a better name for that war-time trade.
While the "no fear" part of the lesson is certainly obvious, the resilience part might not be. So allow me to explain: my older SIL, the linguistic Master student, was resilient enough to go straight to UN soldiers headquarters, offering help as a translator as soon as she heard they were hiring local help. She speaks fluently French and English. She manages quite well Italian. They hired her on the spot. She worked there, in that semi-destroyed once 5-star hotel, in the basement, for the rest of the war. And that was life-saving because she fed the whole family plus the closest neighbours with the money she was paid and also with the UN soldiers care-packages (they recieved care packages from their families, and generously shared with their bosnian employees chocolate, coffee, soap, shampoo, and other luxuries). It was through those care packages that my husband and I, in Paris, were able to send them necessities, with the help of french UN soldiers families who accepted graciously to leave space in their packages for our stuff. Then later, much later, when the media were allowed in Sarajevo, we were able to send necessities with journalists, to my SIL, who was inerpreting for journalist too, on top of her work for UN headquarters.
She demonstrated resilience after the ordeal of the appartment and the suicide-taxi experience. My other SIL collapsed in a deep depression. She still is very affected to this day. I believe some people are naturally strong and resilient, but I also believe resilience can be learned and trained for. That's an other lesson we learned, train ourselves, or rather educated ourselves and our children on resilience. There are books on the subjects, and studies and means to learn on the subject. I can't say "prepare" ourselves since it's difficult to know how we will fare emotionally in the face of big SHTF, but it's worth taking some precaution and try to put our mind through some kind of "resilience training" if that can be done.
About the newlywed cousin. One year into the siege, his bride got sick. No way she could get checked by a doctor for her tummy ache. Imagine how the make-shift hospitals were, with all the people shot by snipers or wounded by bombs, landmines... A tummy ache? Just forget about getting it checked. She died after 2 days, from a peritonitis. A simple appendisectomy would have saved her, but simple, basic healthcare isn't an option in a SHTF situation. Lesson? I don't know, you decide what can best prepare for that.
I can't think of other things right now. It's been a while since I delved in remembering that somber time of life and I'm tired. I just want to draw attention to the fact that these people were used to difficult economical situations (they had experienced bank vacancy and bank runs, food shortage due to difficult political times) and therefore where prepared at least financially for those who could afford it. They had cash, in foreign, safe currencies. From my several trips there before the war, I can tell you people were trading their monthly salary for DM or $$ on the street, black market exchange if you wish. It was way before the war. They didn't carry debt of course. No credit cards. No mortages. Compare that to our western societies... It's scary how so many people will be caught in a most fragile state compared to bosian people when SHTF in their country.
