Kym Vercoe is just one of the tourists to stay at the Vilina Vlas spa hotel without knowing the horrors that happened there.
Like other guests she slept in its rooms, dined in its restaurants and swam in its pool, completely unaware that the hotel had been used as a rape camp and execution chamber during the Bosnian war.
The night she spent in the infamous hotel changed her life, and now ten years on she talks to MailOnline about how to this day, the hotel remains open. Guests from across the world check into the Vilina Vlas daily, unaware of the atrocities that happened inside it walls.
Vercoe went to Bosnia to enjoy its rich culture and see a different side to the horror that flashed over TV screens in the 90s.
The Vilina Vlas spa hotel in Bosnia was used as a rape camp by the White Eagles paramilitary group during the war
Unsuspecting Australian Kym Vercoe stayed in the Vilina Vlas spa hotel. She slept in its rooms, ate at one of its restaurants and months later found out about its dark past
‘When I went to Bosnia, I knew about Bosnia. I’d done some reading, I’m into the news… I didn’t want to go to Srebrenica, I didn’t want to do a dark tourism tour of Bosnia. I was sort of more interested in the culture and music,’ she told MailOnline.
Taking a recommendation from a guidebook she checked herself into the Vilina Vlas. Nestled in the middle of a thick pine forest, it’s billed as a healing hotel, where guests can use the thermal baths to treat ailments such as arthritis and tendinitis.
The guidebook made no mention of how Milan Likić, the head of the Serb paramilitary group the White Eagles, made the hotel his headquarters in 1992. The book did not say that in only a few months they would help wage a killing campaign on the town’s Muslim population. Men, women and more than 100 children were rounded up and slaughtered, their bodies dumped in the river.
It said nothing about Vilina Vlas being used to detain, torture and execute prisoners or anything about the 200 women and girls, some only 14, taken to the hotel and raped.
Many were plucked from the streets and driven to the hotel by members of the White Eagles. When they entered the buildings they could hear the other girls’ cries through the thin walls.
Milan Likić, the leader of the White Eagles in Višegrad, made the hotel his headquarters in 1992
In a few months his group would help wage an effective killing campaign against the towns Muslim population
The girls were locked in rooms and the members of the White Eagles would come along and choose which one they wanted. Afterwards, if they were lucky, they were driven home to their families but in many cases, they were never seen again.
After the war ended the hotel was renovated and opened to tourists. Any talk of its dark past has been drowned out by the celebration of the spa’s thermal healing properties.
‘All elements for a real rest, enjoyment and filling of life energy. WELCOME!!’ its website says. The hotel boasts about the 134 beds, two restaurants and an indoor pool.
For $34.29 you can book a single room with breakfast.
‘I turned up in Višegrad, it’s packed to the rafters and I thought okay I’ll just have to stay out at the spa resort. It was the only place with room,’ said Vercoe.
Horror: 200 girls, some only 14, were detained and raped at the hotel, which was re-opened after the war ended
‘In the evening I went back to Vilina Vlas. I’d already checked in in the afternoon. I had already swum in the pool downstairs. I went to bed and I couldn’t sleep and I was really awake all night. I was extremely anxious.’
The next day she slept off her anxiety as a bus drove her back to Belgrade. It wasn’t until she was back in Sydney, months later, that she learnt about the hotel’s history.
‘I was just googling places on the internet… I clicked on the Wikipedia page of Vilina Vlas and the first thing it says is “Vilina Vlas is a spa resort located outside of Višegrad, it was a notorious rape camp during the war”,’ she said.
‘It was the closest I’ve been to hysterical. I was sobbing, I couldn’t breathe. It was just so confronting to read that.’
Often the girls were taken from the streets and driven to Vilina Vlas. As they entered they could hear other girls’ screams through the walls
Members of the White Eagles would come along and choose which girl they wanted
Vercoe found out about the hotel’s horrific past months after she visited. She said: ‘It was the closest I’ve been to hysterical. I was sobbing, I couldn’t breathe’
‘And I just began to start to feel profoundly duped, I guess is the best word. Not in the way that I felt like a victim or anything like that, but I kept thinking to myself, how is it possible that I went to that town and had no idea what had happened there? How has that been so erased?’
In 2014, Vercoe made a one woman theatre show called Seven Kilometres North East out of her experience. Afterwards she was contacted by award-winning Bosnian director Jasmila Zbanic and her experience of staying Vilina Vlas was made into the drama For Those Who Can Tell No Tales. They learned quickly that Vercoe’s sleepless night was not a unique experience.
‘I was talking to one director from France who was just traveling through Bosnia,’ Žbanić said.
‘And he told me, not knowing that at that moment we were making this film, “but there is one city, oh my god, it was so weird – I was not able to sleep and strange energy was there and I felt sick”. I asked him where had he been – and yes, it was Vilina Vlas in Visegrad’.
Afterwards Vercoe created the theater show Seven Kilometres North East about her experience
‘He was shocked. He didn’t know any of that but, like Kym, he felt it strongly,’ she said.
The other guests of Vilina Vlas may not turn their realisations into feature films but the outrage is still palpable. They take to TripAdvisor or social media to condemn the silence that surrounds the hotel’s history.
Darko Krznaric, a Croatian-Canadian, stayed in the hotel on several occasions for work.
‘I stayed at Vilina Vlas with two other Canadian colleagues who were part of the project training team. I knew it was a popular spa before the war. I did not know about the atrocities and crimes that took place,’ he told MailOnline.
‘It is probably one of the spookiest places I have visited. After the day of training, we went to our rooms, but we ended up together in one room because we felt very uncomfortable for obvious reasons,’ he said.
After he realised where he had stayed, Krznaric tweeted a description of the rooms: ‘Hotel rooms were dark and small, with long and narrow dirty windows covered with heavy curtains that smelled of tobacco.
‘There was something about that place that made us very uncomfortable. At the time we were unaware of its horrible past. Word “evil” does not even begin to describe it.’
‘It is probably one of the spookiest place I have visited,’ said Darko Krznaric, who stayed there for work
The Vilina vlas reviews on TripAdvisor are mixed. One says that it has a ‘perfect small pool’, another that it’s ‘Horrible! Terrible!’
As for the town, it actively fights against acknowledging the hotel’s history.
‘I don’t know what happened there. I am not interested in going back to the past. Why would I read about that if I’m not interested in going back to that?’ Višegrad’s mayor Mladen Djurevic said in a recent interview with The Guardian.
‘The problem is that even today most of these people don’t think they did anything wrong,’ said Žbanić.
‘And a bigger problem is that their children don’t think they did anything wrong. Serbian media and Serbian politicians in Bosnia still celebrate these acts of murders and rapes as a Serbian heroism. So it is very hard to move forward.’
Ten years after Vercoe traveled to the hotel guests continue to stay there, unaware of what happened there
The town not only ignores its history but actively tries to fight against it
Vercoe said: ‘It’s very easy for that sort of fictionalisation to exist. For people to say that it’s hearsay or propaganda.
‘”It was just a base and none of the atrocities happened there, that’s just Muslim propaganda.” That’s the sort of line that you get.
‘I suddenly realised it’s ten years since I visited, and it’s still so present in my mind. The country, and the story. It shocks me that it’s ten years and it shocks me that not a single thing has shifted.
‘A really interesting question is what is it going to take to shift that mentality? I don’t know what the answer is to that.’
Until it shifts, the hotel remains open for business and unsuspecting tourists will dine, swim and sleep there completely unawares.
‘Our guests, who come from all over the world, come to the hotel for the rest,’ Nebojša Krlić, 33, the deputy director of Vilina Vlas said via email to MailOnline.
Ignoring questions about the hotels history, he said the hotel was beloved by tourist and locals alike: ‘The locals love and use this area, precisely because of the beautiful ambiance in which the hotel is located.
‘Considering the great possibilities of use and the existing potential of thermal water, the Rehabilitation Center “Vilina Vlas” can very favorably influence the development of the entire region.’