Bosnians were surprised when they found that one of their countrymen, a survivor of the Srebrenica genocide, was a member of the election team of the U.S. President-elect Joseph Biden.

Elvir Klempic’s story starts in the village of Gornja Bukovica, where he was born but had to flee his home to the infamous Srebrenica suburb of Potocari – the site where the mass killings of Bosniak men by Serb forces began.

Klempic escaped the massacre and ended up in Biden’s team years later.

Today, Gornja Bukovica in the municipality of Milici in eastern Bosnia has only one inhabitant. Other former residents only visit the village. They are proud of the little boy who lived the first four years of his life with his family in the now devastated house.

“When they needed toys, they didn’t have them,” said one of the locals, Samija Mehmedovic.

“We had nowhere to buy them from. We didn’t have money. But they played with stones and sticks. It was a difficult childhood,” she said.

A plaque placed at the piece of land that once belonged to Klempic’s great-grandfather lists all the victims from the village who were killed during the 1995 genocide.

More than 20 of them carry the last name Klempic.

Elvir’s grandfather Mulo can be seen in a heartbreaking video a TV crew shot the day the men from Srebrenica tried to flee from the Bosnian Serb troops who overran the town. The footage shows a group of Bosniak men sitting in a field surrounded by Bosnian Serb soldiers. One of them is calling his son to come out of the woods and join them. All of them were later executed, their bodies dumped into mass graves.

Everybody from Gornja Bukovica recognized Mulo Klempic on that footage. Elvir’s father made it to safety running through the woods. Elvir, his mother and his sister were evacuated from Srebrenica on a truck.

They settled in the village of Podgorje, near Banovici, on the territory controlled by the Bosnian Army.

Avdo Zugic, another former resident of Gornja Bukovica, also remembers Elvir as a little boy. The last time he spoke to him was a year ago and he said he is not surprised by Elvir’s success.

“Three or four families lived here, I think it was 12 of them in the house in such a small space. It was not suitable for living but they had to live like that,” Zugic said.

After fleeing eastern Bosnia, the family lived in the country until 2001 and then left for the United States, precisely Iowa, Zugic recalled.

Members of Elvir’s wider family are also proud of him and remember when they lived in one room in Podgorje.

Among them is Munira Klempic Ibrahimovic.

“We still maintain contact. Elvir visited me last year. He visited Tuzla together with my daughters. He is my cousin, I love him. I lost two brothers, my father and my mother but I perceive Elvir’s father as my own brother,” she said.

“I’m sorry, it’s hard. We are very close and I am so happy for him.”

Those who know Elvir say he is a modest, responsible and calm person. They hope his influence in America’s top circles will help the future of the country he came from.