Srebrenica Memorial

Today we visited the memorial cemetary at Srebrenica where people who were killed in the genocide in 1995 are being reburied. Each year, they have a ceremony in which they bury the remains of people who have been identified in the past year, and many many people from all over Bosnia-Hercegovina attend. There were almost 500 people whose remains were reburied today.



These green coffins were labelled with a number and a name. As the coffins were passed hand to hand by the men, the list of names and ages of the victims were read aloud. The stream of coffins seemed endless, and I kept thinking, "this is only a tiny fragment of the true number of victims, some of whom ma never be found, exhumed, and properly buried.


The men touched the coffins the way a father would hold his infant's head. Such tenderness. As the coffins passed down the line, some men would simply reach out their hand and gently stroke the coffins of their lost community members.




After the coffins were brought to the gravesites, they were buried amidst much crying by women and men. The coffins were laid in the ground, and then thy placed pieces of wood diagonally in the grave covering the coffins. I think this was because it makes it easier to exhume the remains so that the parts of individuals that are found in the future can be buried with the rest of the person. After the wood layer, the graves were filled in quickly with earth.


There is a memorial in the center of the ceremony which lists the names of the deceased and the year of their birth. It is a touching memorial, and I saw scores of people pointing out the names of their loved ones. It reminded me of when i went to Washington D.C. with my mother and we found her cousin Richard Cunningham's name on the Vietnam Memorial. Except you can see that this memorial lists many many people with the same surname, showing that multiple generations of Bosniak families were killed.



This grave struck me because the date of birth is the year I was born. This youth was only 16 years old when he died. I was probably learning to drive a car at that point in history, relatively oblivious of the atrocities being committed here.

Today was one of the most intense days of my life, being here in this place makes it all real. seeing the bones, skulls, coffins, and most of all the tears of the widows, mothers, and others left behind.