Selma's Celebration- Unwrapping the lamb
Today is no normal day. Selma, his 18–year–old daughter,
would graduate that evening from Hancock High School,
the first person in the extended family to graduate high school.
The Smajics arrived in St. Louis in 2001 as refugees
from the vicious ethnic fighting in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The conflict forced them out of their village
and into the town of Tuzla, where they lived for several years.
Certain things aren’t discussed in the family,
but Selma Smajic knows her father survived
a brutal period of internment in a concentration camp
at the height of the fighting in the 1990s.Cousins Hrusto Begovic (left) and Hajro Smajic (right) prepare for a lamb roast to serve for Smajic's daughter's graduation party in his backyard on Thursday in Bayless. The lamb roast is one of many traditions that have carried over from Bosnia.