Dayton: City of Peace 2025

From early school years, Azra showed an interest in writing and literature, as well as cooking and baking (especially Bosnian dishes). She learned a lot from her mother, aunt and grandmother about family recipes and traditions. She never thought that one day she would turn her hobby into a successful business. Writing for numerous youth and other local newspapers, as an 18-year-old, she reported for one of the largest Croatian newspapers in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She followed and wrote many stories during the 1984 Winter Olympics held in Sarajevo. Her stories, reports and interviews have been translated into several foreign languages. Amidst the ongoing war, in 1992, Azra and her two children escaped from the Sarajevo war zone to Zagreb, Croatia. They were refugees for four years. Following the Dayton Peace Accords, they moved to the USA and Dayton, Ohio in 1996, where she still lives. For more than two decades, Azra and her children successfully ran the family business – Azra’s Mediterranean cuisine – in downtown Dayton. Azra realized her “American dream” through hard work and culinary skills. Using family recipes, she managed to transfer a part of the Bosnian tradition here to Southwest Ohio. Her award winning dishes, such as baklava and cookies, still remain popular in Dayton even though she’s been retired since 2023. Azra is still active, teaching cooking and baking, while she stays in touch with her Bosnian friends, keeping the connection between Dayton and Bosnia and Herzegovina alive. While Bosnia and Herzegovina are always in her heart, Azra says Dayton is her new homeland.

Born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 1956, Alma and her twin brother grew up in a traditional Bosnian family. With parents who survived the Nazi occupation, and fought against them, Alma’s family understood what living through conflict looked like, and how fortunes can change based on who’s in power. Still, the Bosnian War would be as shocking to her as any of her peers. Alma realized her dream of becoming a doctor just as Yugoslavia was beginning to break apart. During the siege of Sarajevo (1992-1995), Dr. Alma (pediatric specialist) worked in the main children’s hospital, which was shelled by pro-Yugoslav/Serb forces and eventually destroyed. At one point, snipers holding the city hostage trapped her family in a 15-story apartment building during the siege. Outside of the hospital, Alma and her husband watched over their two girls (6 and 10 years old) as well as Alma’s parents. There were food and electricity shortages, school closures, and the consistent threat of death for three years, three weeks and three days. In August 1993, Alma and her girls’ lives were upended again when her husband lost his life to a sniper. That’s when Alma decided to leave the country with her girls, one of the hardest decisions of her life. They got out in April of 1994 as refugees, eventually resettling in a place where Alma had connections through her medical practice: Cincinnati, Ohio. Following a short fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Alma (who got remarried, adding a step-son) would get re-licensed as a pediatrician, and practiced medicine at regional hospitals from 1999 through retirement in 2025.

Born in Bosnia and Herzegovina in ex-Yugoslavia, Adnan’s high school was named after a popular inventor from the Balkan region, Nikola Tesla. Adnan finished his own studies in Agricultural Engineering at the University of Sarajevo just before the Bosnian war began. He is a veteran of that war, serving his country, and then going on to work at the United Nations headquarters in Sarajevo during the conflict. Married to his wife Jasna in 1995, she and Adnan immigrated to the United States that same year to resettle near Cincinnati and continue his career in engineering. He earned a Master’s degree in Business from NKU, and has worked for a number of corporations regionally, including GE Aerospace for the past 7 years. He and Jasna have one daughter, Dina, who is pursuing a career in medicine. Adnan says he loves living in Southwest Ohio with his family.