''It looks to me as though these politics mean Serbs, Croats and Muslims. But they are all people. They are all the same. They all look like people, there's no difference. They all have arms, legs and heads, they walk and talk, but now there's "something" that wants to make them different.''
The diary is written from the perspective of a child, a 10 year old girl whose life is changed by the Second World War. At first, she can't understand why the war is taking place and why the people around her are fighting. The narrator sees no difference between different nationalities and every soldier is in her eyes just another human being fighting against another human being. War is thus presented as being irrational, something that changes the way should be. Children do not perceive the difference created by nationality and thus for the narrator, this change was created by the war, the 'something' which results in difference.
"I keep thinking about the march I joined today. It's bigger and stronger than war. That's why it will win. The people must be the ones to win, not the war, because war has nothing to do with humanity. War is something inhuman."
War is presented in the novel as being something separate from society because it goes against everything humanity and a civilized society is meant to stand for. War is the villain in the story and the everyday men and women are the protagonists who fight against it by not giving up and organizing marches. This point of view can be seen as q positive one, the characters refusing to give up hope in the human nature and blaming something external which has nothing to do with humanity and civilization.
"We mix with the good, not with the bad. And among the good there are Serbs and Croats and Muslims, just as there are among the bad."
The general idea promoted during war is that there are good people and bad people. A nation is put under the same umbrella and slapped on a label described in one way or another. The narrator does not agree with this way of labeling people. She does not see the world in black and white but rather as a blend. Her quote transits the idea that we should not be quick to judge a nation based on the actions of a few. Instead, we should accept the idea that good and bad people exist in the world, mixed and living together. This also transmits the idea that we should not accept to sacrifice the good alongside with the evil just because they are living side by side.
