Our Hatred Is Your Victory

Both the Nazis under Hitler and the Men on The Hills characterize their victims with certain labels that initially aren't valid by any terms. In the eyes of Hitler, Jews are animals, intent on gaining profits at the expense of others. Similarly, the people of Sarajevo are viewed as haters by the Men on the Hills.

By slowly enveloping their victims in death, suffering, famine, and other horrors of war, both Hitler and the Men on The Hills force Jews and Sarajevans alike to fulfill their stereotypical roles. With almost non-existent rations of food and freedom, Jews had no choice but to become animals in concentration camps with a single goal: to survive. Hitler would be pleased knowing that he transformed Jews into what he imagined them to be. The father in Nightfather expresses the same disgust in his transformation, because as a result of the Nazis' terror, he has morphed into a killer.

The people of Sarajevo undergo a similar transformation: with numerous shells and sniper fire crushing their city into a pile of rubble, the Sarajevans can only hate the perpetrators, thus becoming what the Men on The Hills wanted them to be. A people who never hated, who were then later framed as haters, now indeed hated. Thus, "little by little they got what they wanted, a victory as clear as it would be if they could drive their tanks through the town" (95). Even if the Sarajevans win the war by surviving, they will still have lost the mental war by having to live with what they have become.