Day 27: The Srebrenica Massacre: Seeing the Stories
Updated: Sep 12, 2022
6/2/22
TRIGGER WARNING
This issue is going to be a harrowing one. If you are prepared, you may keep reading.
I will be doing my best to provide a detailed and comprehensive account of this situation.
Today, we visited Srebrenica. You may have heard about this place- it is the site of an infamous genocide in July, 1995.
Over 8,000 people Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) died within the span of five days in 1995 in Srebrenica, Bosnia, mostly men and boys.
First, we toured the cemetery of the victims. It was harrowing to see the sheer number of headstones going on for what seemed like forever as we drove by.
They were aligned in rows, each one facing west, so that when the survivors knelt to pray at a grave, they faced east toward Mecca.
Each one was inscribed with the name of the victim, the Bosnian lily, and the same verse: “
The names of the victims were inscribed on rows of tablets alphabetically. The recurrence of last names shows how entire families were killed. The some victims were as old as 85, and some were as young as 12 years old.
Shortly after 1995, satellite images picked up evidence of mass graves, and when the authorities dug, they found evidence of thousands of bodies dumped in dozens of locations.
After the events, survivors, mostly mothers, sisters and daughters got together and demanded to know the fate of their loved ones and to give them a proper burial, so with partnership from one the Holocaust experts, they began a DNA identification program matching the survivors to the remains of their family. Since the perpetrators used heavy machinery, one man’s bones were found in eight different locations.
Our guide lost his own twin brother and father in the events.
Their remains were found about ten years later.
Being the oldest surviving male member of family, it was his job to put his father and brother in the grave. He told us how unimaginably hard it was as he held his twin brother’s bones in his own hands, and his memories of how they grew up together, wearing the same clothes. How he was smarter, more mature than him, good at math.
Then, we entered the museum. The interior of what was at one point a warehouse and during these events supposed to be a safe place for refugees has been left in its external condition, and turned into a exhibition.
How did this take place? Here's the sign that gives some important information.
The saddest part of all is that had the UN troops done their duty, countless lives would have been saved. Instead, they feared for their lives and left as soon as they got most of the refugees into the building even though the Bosnian Serb army (also known as Chetniks) waited to pounce.
The invading army started to separate men from women and children.
Mothers and sisters pleaded to keep their family members with them, knowing they would never see them again, but were ripped away and beaten. At first the Bosnian Serb soldiers let young boys stay with their mothers, but then they started separating younger and younger boys. The Serb army forcibly transferred the women and children onto buses, and abused them all along the way. Soldiers took babies who weren't quiet and slit their throats. Women and girls were taken from the crowd and raped and abused. Th others heard screams. Some returned, some didn't.
The men, almost without exception, were executed. Some were killed individually or in small groups by the soldiers who captured them and some were killed in the places where they were temporarily detained. Most, however, were killed in carefully orchestrated mass executions. These took place in remote locations such as warehouses and schools.
While being detained, they were kept often without water, crowded in and beaten.
Another particularly piercing story: as the men were in their death march, bound and being beaten into where they would be held, they were demanded “Whose country is this?” And they were forced to repeat, “this country is Serbian and always will be!”
Loaded onto a bus with their hands tied and blindfolded, the men were brought to the execution site. I read one story where soldier even said, "it's too hot out here, come inside where it is cooler!" Then, the prisoners were told to lie down on the floor of the warehouse, where the soldiers killed them with volleys of machine gun fire and grenades.
One survivor's account:
"I was really sorry that I would die thirsty, and I was trying to hide amongst the people as long as I could, like everybody else. I just wanted to live for another second or two. And when it was my turn, I jumped out with what I believe were four other people. I could feel the gravel beneath my feet. It hurt.... I was walking with my head bent down and I wasn't feeling anything.... And then I thought that I would die very fast, that I would not suffer. And I just thought that my mother would never know where I had ended up. This is what I was thinking as I was getting out of the truck. [As the soldiers walked around to kill the survivors of the first round of shooting] I was still very thirsty. But I was sort of between life and death. I didn't know whether I wanted to live or to die anymore. I decided not to call out for them to shoot and kill me, but I was sort of praying to God that they'd come and kill me.[69]"
Armed guards shot at the men who tried to climb out the windows to escape the massacre. When the shooting stopped, the shed was full of bodies.
Once most of the men were dead, soldiers would come around and put a bullet in the head of any survivors. Most of the men who got out did so by staying under a pile of bodies and playing dead themselves.
Some locations, there were no survivors. In others, one or two men lived to tell the story. Another survivor, who was only slightly wounded, reports:
"I was not even able to touch the floor, the concrete floor of the warehouse.... After the shooting, I felt a strange kind of heat, warmth, which was coming from the blood that covered the concrete floor and I was stepping on the dead people who were lying around. But there were even men (just men) who were still alive, who were only wounded and as soon as I would step on him, I would hear him cry, moan, because I was trying to move as fast as I could. I could tell that people had been completely disembodied and I could feel bones of the people that had been hit by those bursts of bullets or shells, I could feel their ribs crushing. Then I would get up again and continue....[69]"
If you would like to learn more about individual locations, here is a detailed log.
We got to hear survivors tell their stories in the exhibit.
You can find their accounts here, on the memorial website.
Another group of men from the town heard what was happening, and thought they had a better chance of survival if they fled than at the hands of the Chetnik forces.
They walked for day and months, not knowing where they were going, but trying to make it to Bosnian Army controlled territory. They walked in a column for the greatest safety from land mines. At one time, the column was 12-15 kilometers long. All the while, the Serb army was hunting them down and waiting to ambush them with heavy artillery (and did so), breaking up the column and taking more prisoners and lives.
When the column was broken, people hid wherever the could, including the ravine of the Drina and caves along its banks, when they thought the wouldn't be sniped, they kept trying to move north.
This one knocked me out.
Even more frightening was how recently this happened and how well documented it was. There was color video footage of soldiers recording forcing bound men to lie face down in a ditch and then executing them on camera, save two, who they recorded moving the bodies of their dead and subsequently shot them thoroughly until they fell to the ground.
I watched this.
It boggles the mind to think how people could do this to people, but that leads us to the frightening and clear conclusion that the perpetrators did not see them as people.
Learning how the events unfolded and hearing the survivors’ stories filled me with terror and tears. I couldn’t help but imagine myself in that situation and losing my own brother, father, and partner to such violent events, and how on earth one could possibly survive that kind of profound and gruesome loss.
Our guide told us a bit about how it affected him. After the war took his twin brother and father so painfully, he couldn’t sleep (he still barely can fall asleep) and couldn’t enjoy anything in life at all. He was even angry when he saw people laughing and enjoying themselves, and I can’t say I would respond any differently. Nothing for himself ever was enjoyable again- until his daughter came into his life. He did things for her, so she could have fun and make her happy, and for the first time was able to approach some kind of “normal” life.
He mentioned how there is a gaping lack of mental health resources for survivors. What’s more, the culture brands you as a crazy if you say you have PTSD, and you may even lose your job. My dear psychology friends, you could make a big difference providing resources here.
Such tragedy follows you for the rest of your life, inescapably. Our guide said that honoring his family and teaching people about the events at Srebrenica was the only thing he could do to live with the situation.
It pains me greatly even to write about this, but the world needs to know this story in hopes that it may never happen again.
Today, Srebrenica is scarred from the war. Most of the people who fled the area have not returned.
However, our guide says that reviving the town would show the world that reconciliation is possible. If people work in the town, those jobs mean that people work together side by side.
Jobs mean friendships, which could even lead to mutual confessions and empathy. And at the foundation of this reconciliation, their kids going to kindergarten together get to make those precious multi-cultural friendships that break down barriers and fear of the “other.”
Our guide also said, “sometimes, I think humans are stronger than rock.”
I'll leave you with that thought- he himself being living proof of such a statement.
Thank you for reading.
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