The #ChildrenAndGenocide online campaign featured 14 personal stories written and published in parts, following the model of the Humans of Amsterdam platform. The parts within each story are numerated to reflect how they were originally published and every part has a corresponding portrait that can be found within individual image galleries.

1
“Before I was born, my parents decided not to have more children. When my mum became pregnant again, my father joked that it wasn’t his baby. I grew up in a small village near the Serbian border. When I was ten months old, my father passed away. My mother had five kids to take care of by herself. Luckily, we had our uncle Redzo, who helped us out a lot. He was like a father to us. He would always make us laugh. Redzo had these false teeth. Sometimes during dinner, they would fall out and we couldn’t stop laughing. Even when he didn’t try to be funny, he made us laugh. On the 18th of September 1993, a grenade fell on our school. I was only 6 at the time. Uncle Redzo told us to go to Srebrenica, where it would be safer for us. My mother packed a few things, and we left. We walked for 22 kilometers. When we arrived in Srebrenica, we stayed at a relative’s house. We shared one small room. I remember we were always looking for food. Every so often, a parachute with food dropped from the sky. One day, a package of food fell right into the backyard of our house. We were all so happy. I still remember the taste of the peanut butter and feta cheese.”

 

2
“From 8th to 11th of July 1995 the city of Srebrenica was under final attacks by the Bosnian-Serb army. On 11th of July we went to the old battery factory, which was the Dutch UN base in Potocari, to find protection. My mother walked with the four youngest children, including me. My older sister Fatima, who was nineteen, and my brother Abdulah, who was seventeen, walked together. Because there were so many of us, we decided it would be easier to split up and meet each other at the factory. That day, my mom was wearing traditional clothes. I remember holding on tight to her dress so I wouldn’t lose her. At the old factory, there were thousands of other people trying to find protection. You could see that the Dutch soldiers had no idea what to do with us. We tried to get inside of the factory, but it was full, and the doors were closed. We were looking for Abdulah and Fatima, but there were so many people it was pointless. My mother stayed calm the entire time, so I felt safe. That night, we slept outside of the UN base. While people were sleeping, we saw Serbian soldiers picking out the men and taking them away. Many women lay on top of their husbands and sons. They covered them up with blankets so they would not be captured by the soldiers. I remember hearing a man nearby us screaming because they had found him and he was being taken away. After three days, the buses arrived. They said that women and children would get evacuated to Tuzla, which was the safe zone. We went on the bus and hoped to be reunited with my Fatima and Abdulah in Tuzla.”

 

3
“On our way to Tuzla, people on the side of the road cursed and threw stones at us. After driving for an hour, the bus stopped. A Serbian soldier came on board. I remember how big he was. He was wearing military pants, and he had no shirt on. He had a knife in one hand and in the other hand he held a gun. He cursed and screamed at us. He ordered us to give him our jewelry, gold, silver, or money. Nobody had anything. As nobody had anything to offer him, he became angrier. You could feel the fear inside the bus. Next thing I remember, I stood up. I didn’t have any feeling in my legs. At the time, I had a doll with just one eye. I was shaking, and I said: “please take my doll”. It was my most prized possession. Everyone on the bus was silent and looking at me. The next moment, the bus driver intervened. He told the soldier to leave, and he left. We arrived in Tuzla, and stayed in a refugee camp. Not long after we arrived, my eldest sister Fatima finally joined us. She was alone. My mother asked her: ‘Where is Abdulah?’ Fatima said: ‘The Serbian Army captured Abdulah.’ My mother fainted. We all screamed and cried.”

 

4
“In 2008, I received a phone call that Abdulah’s body had been found. Thirty percent of his remains were found in a town called Zvornik. They made a reconstruction, and told us that Abdulah had been shot. We had been waiting for so many years that we decided to bury him and not to wait until the rest of his remains were found. In 2010, my uncle Redzo was found, and we buried him next to Abdulah. Fatima never spoke of what happened until earlier this year, when she wrote me a letter in which she described her memories. In the letter, she explains that in the factory, Dutch soldiers went around with a piece of paper, asking every boy older than 15 to write down his name. Fatima and Abdulah were debating whether or not it was a good idea to write down his name. He was the second-last person to write down his name. On the list, there were 239 names of boys and men. A Dutch commander signed the list. When they got out of the factory, these boys and men were separated from the others, and they had to stay. Fatima describes getting on the bus and looking Abdulah in the eyes one last time. They both knew he was going to die. She says that she still can’t forgive herself for not doing anything. In February 2020 I went to the old factory, which is now a museum, as a translator with a group of students. While the students were going through the museum, I sat down. On the table, there was a file with some documents. I randomly scrolled through the pages, and I saw it was a list of names. When I turned to the last page, I saw the second-last name on the list. It was my brother’s full name and year of birth in his own handwriting: Salihovic Abdulah – 1977.”

1
“Because of my father’s medical condition, we decided to try to go from Srebrenica to the city of Tuzla. My father and I managed to get on a truck. Unfortunately my mother and sister could not get on a truck and had to stay in Srebrenica. However, my father’s condition didn’t improve in Tuzla. One year later he passed away. By that time, Srebrenica was surrounded by the Serb forces and my mother and sister couldn’t leave to attend my father’s funeral. Through the Red Cross, I managed to send them a letter to let them know dad had passed away. I was sixteen and I had to bury my father alone. A year later, on the 16th of July 1995, my mother finally managed to get to Tuzla. In the meantime, my sister got engaged. She wanted to stay with her fiancé Sadif. She promised my mother she would meet us in Tuzla. The first thing my mother did, when she arrived in Tuzla, was to buy my sister Enesa a beautiful set of baby blue bed sheets and pillowcases. Once Enesa and Sadif arrived she would give it to them as an engagement gift.”

 

2
“Days went by and we didn’t hear from Enesa and Sadif. Every day new refugees came in from Srebrenica. My mother and I would go to the refugee camps and ask people if they had seen Enesa and Sadif. We would show them pictures but nobody recognized them. Every day, my mother would pray. While praying she would raise her hands and say: ‘Dear god, please show me where to look. Please let me understand what has happened to Enesa and Sadif.’ After one month of searching, we finally got some news. Someone told us that my sister was part of a group of people who tried to escape through the forest. She was seen resting with a wound in her belly. Later this was confirmed. People had seen Sadif carrying her through the forest. We kept searching for more information but found nothing. After 5 months we registered Enesa as a missing person. They took some blood samples and said they would let us know if there was any news.”

 

3
“Years went by without any information about what happened to Enesa and Sadif. My mom had put the set of bed sheets in a plastic cover under her bed. Once in a while, she would take them out of the cover to wash them. After washing the sheets, she would carefully iron and fold them and then put them back into the plastic cover. We still had hope until we received a phone call from the Missing Persons Institute in 2002. They had found a body in the forest and, based on our DNA, it was a match. My mother and I had to come to the mortuary to identify. When we arrived, a staff member suggested it might be better if my mother didn’t go inside, so I went in by myself. They had found all her bones and, on a table, there was a red piece of cloth and some leather fabric. The doctor asked me if those were the clothes Enesa was wearing the day she left Srebrenica. I told him that I couldn’t know because I hadn’t seen Enesa in years. I went outside and asked my mother what Enesa wore the day she left. My mother said: ‘A red dress and a leather jacket.’ I said: ‘Mom, It’s Enesa’. She started crying. Until the last moment, my mother had remained hopeful.”

 

4
“Years later, we found out through a reconstruction based on stories from different people, that Sadif was seen carrying Enesa through the forest while she was already dead. People had told him to leave her body behind. Sadif had told them that he wouldn’t leave Enesa alone. Remains of Sadif’s body were only found in 2015. After finding out about Enesa’s death, my mother still took good care of the set of bedsheets. I could see there was something my mom was still struggling with. It took her years to finally tell me that, just before leaving Srebrenica, Enesa had told her that she was pregnant. My mother passed away in 2016. All those years she kept the set of sheets under her bed. Before finding out about Enesa’s death, the set symbolized hope. After they found her body, the set became a part of my sister that my mother carried with her. The big sheet I kept for my family. I have two daughters. I want them to know who their aunt was. They love seeing the sheet. One day I will pass it on to them and they will share the story of Enesa with their children. I decided to donate the pillowcases to the Srebrenica Memorial Center and the War Childhood Museum. If I kept them to myself, only my family would know about what happened to Enesa. This way, the whole world will know.”

1
“My father had heard that men and women got separated at the UN base. All the male family members tried to escape through the woods. Still, my father didn’t want to leave my mother alone. My mother was pregnant at the time, and I was only three years old. Together, we arrived at the UN base in Potočari. My mother tried to convince my father to dress up like a woman so they wouldn’t capture him. He refused to do that. When the buses, for evacuating women and children, arrived they wouldn’t let my father get on. He was hoping that the soldiers would show him some compassion as he was carrying me. But they told him to go and stand with the other men, and to give me to anyone else or they would kill me. He gave me to my mom, who was standing nearby, and told her to take good care of us and that they would see each other soon.”

 

2
“When we arrived at the safe territory, we lived in a school for a while. Later we moved here to Tinja. In the beginning, we lived with four other families. I started going to school for the first time. I remember seeing other children with their fathers and wondering if my father would ever come back. At school, I never said that I didn’t have a father anymore. I always kept hope, and I would tell the kids in school that he would come back one day. I remember children in school telling me that I was a liar and that my father was dead. It upset me so much that the one day I went to school and told everyone my father had returned. I was so convincing that even the teacher believed me, and had to call my mom to check. We never had the chance to take a family portrait. My mother was still pregnant when she had to say goodbye to my father, so my sister never got to meet him. Originally this was a photo of my mother, my sister, and me. We added our father with photoshop, so that we would have one family photo with the four of us. In 2010, we got confirmation that they had found his body. Every year, I go to his grave to say a prayer. I know it’s not rational, but to this day, I feel guilty. Sometimes I think he should have tried to escape through the woods. It was as if he wanted to spend his last moments with us.”

1
“I grew up close to the center of Srebrenica. We had a beautiful house and on the second floor there was a large empty room which me and my two older brothers and other children from the village would use to play. We were quite wealthy. My father would often give other families a loan whenever they were short on cash. My oldest brother was the more serious type and my middle brother was always making jokes. I was the youngest. I looked up to my two older brothers. No matter what, they would always protect me.

I was eight years old when the war started. I remember the sounds of the grenades falling near our house. Eventually, these sounds became normal to us. Often hordes of people who had fled their villages would pass by our house. Some would knock on our door and ask for food or water. My father always made sure that nobody would leave our house empty-handed. On the 11th of July, 1995 we had to leave our family house behind. We had heard that Bosnian-Serb forces were about to invade Srebrenica. My father and my brothers, although civilians, tried to escape through the forest. My mother and I went to the old battery factory in Potocari where the Dutch UN soldiers were based. Then we were put on a bus to the safe zone in Tuzla.”

 

2
“We had no idea what had happened to my father and older brothers. We heard stories of men being killed by Serb forces but we also had some hope because some people did return. In the following years my mum and I moved a lot. We stayed in several refugee camps. I changed schools six times. Life without my two older brothers was tough. I remember some kids in school were bullying me. One of the boys called his older brother and he kicked me in the shoulder. I fell on the ground and while lying there I felt this immense pain. It wasn’t physical pain that hurt me. It was the realization that I would never have my older brothers to protect me. In 2008 I got the first call from the Missing Persons Institute. They found my father. In 2010 I got a call again. They told me that they had found the remains of my two brothers. We had to come to the Institute to identify them. They showed us some photos of the remains of their clothing and bones. Two thirds of the bones were missing. The thought of the three of them being lined up and murdered hurts to this day. I had to continue life without them. I try not to focus on my pain. It’s important to keep on living. I have a daughter and a son, and I’d do anything for them. I hope they will never experience what I have been through. I hope they will live in a peaceful society.”

1
“My parents tried to have children for seven years. From the moment I was born, my father and I were inseparable. I remember he would always come home after work and lie down on the couch. I would sit next to him and feel his pulse. He explained that people have vessels and that when you stop feeling their heartbeat, they are no longer alive. It was the first time I learned about death. I was almost seven when the war started in 1992. We ran away from our hometown and stayed with my grandparents near Srebrenica. Those years were tough. There was little food, and our family was poor. My father was in the military. He would often go to the frontline. Sometimes he would be away for weeks, but he would always come back with some food. One day he came home and he said: Sabina, I have a surprise for you. What do you think it is? I asked if it was chocolate. He said: ‘it’s even sweeter than chocolate,’ and he gave me a little Duplo man. I could have never imagined having a real toy. I would play with tiny pieces of wood, for which my grandmother would knit small sweaters. All the children in the village were jealous of my toy. I named him Sabe, after my father’s nickname.”

 

2
“We were having dinner when all of a sudden we heard that the Serbian military had invaded Srebrenica. I was only ten years old, but I understood very well that something terrible was happening. We quickly packed some stuff and left. I took my schoolbag, and inside I put a notebook and my little Duplo toy, Sabe. Together with thousands of people, we started walking towards a safer village. When we arrived, the Bosnian men, including my father, had to go to the frontline. I remember we were sitting down when my father put me on his lap. He wasn’t an emotional man, but, at that moment, he started to cry. He said: ‘Bina, war is a big man who is trying to eat us. This time, to not be eaten, we are going to have to part ways.’ He told me that we would meet in front of the shopping mall in Tuzla, the safe zone. My father noticed my backpack. He said it would be too heavy for me to carry it, and that it would be better to leave it. He asked me what was inside. I told him that I had brought a notebook so he would have paper to roll his cigarettes. When I said that, he started crying so loud that the sound echoed through the woods.”

 

3
“There were thousands of people surrounding us as we began saying our goodbyes. By the time I gave my father a final hug, everyone was gone, and it was just me, my father, mother, and my two little sisters. Someone shouted that we had to leave, or we would get killed. We left my father behind, and while walking away from him, I looked back in his direction so I could see him a bit longer. My father stood there with my small backpack in his hands. As I was looking back towards him, I fell over a piece of wood. I started crying, and my father came running up to me and said: ‘If you fall even when I’m watching you, how will you survive without me?’ My mother and sisters had already walked on a bit farther. I asked my father if I could please come with him. He told me I couldn’t, but he promised we would see each other again. My mother then came back and pulled my hand. I got up and walked off with my mother and sisters. Suddenly, I heard my father’s voice again. He yelled: ‘Bina, you forgot your toy!’. I ran towards him, and while he wanted to hand over Sabe, I told him that he should keep Sabe safe. I knew that if I left the toy with him, my father would have to keep his promise and bring Sabe back to me. I put Sabe in the pocket of his trousers, and we started walking away. When we got to a meadow, I heard someone calling my name. In the distance, on the hill, I saw my father. He waved with his shirt and screamed: ‘We’ll see each other in Tuzla, I love you!’.”

 

4
“After the war, we moved to Tuzla. We didn’t hear anything from my father. In 1997, two years after the war, we received a call from the Missing Persons Institute. They had found my father. Back then, they had not started using DNA identification, so they would still invite family members to identify clothes or possessions. My mother was so broken that she could not go. Later, the Red Cross came by our house and again asked if we could identify the body. My mother recognized the car because it wasn’t the first time she had identified a family member. She panicked and ran up to the woods. They left us alone and said that whenever we were ready, we could come by to identify. Ten days before my graduation, I got a phone call asking if I could come to identify the body. I was seventeen at the time. Even though I was still a minor, I decided it was time. I told my mother it would be good to do it now. We would finally have a place to lay my father to rest. I went to the identification centre with my mother. They told me that it seemed he had been killed in an ambush. Before entering the room, they explained that there were two tables. On one table were his bones and on the other his clothes. They told me to focus on the table where his clothes were laid out. When I entered the room, I immediately recognized his trousers. The first thing I did was reach into his pocket. There it was, covered in dirt, my Duplo toy, ‘Sabe’. After that, my world collapsed. I didn’t want to go to my graduation anymore. Teachers and students asked me to come, but I couldn’t. I had very long hair, but it started to fall out from stress. I stayed in my room for six months. I refused any help. I refused to visit a psychologist. Instead, I became my own psychologist. I started writing letters to my father. With every letter I wrote, I began to feel better. I collected all the letters and, with the help of my family and friends, I published a book called “To My Srebrenica Hero”. When I finished the book, I put it next to his grave, so when people visit the Srebrenica Memorial Center, they will know about my father and how much I love him.”

1
“This is the only picture I have from when I was a child. When I look at this photo, I can see the fear in my eyes. Because we didn’t have access to hygiene products during the war, my mom would cut my hair very short. Often people would mistake me for a boy. In July 1995 when the Serb Army began their final attacks on Srebrenica, my mother, sister and I fled to the UN base in Potocari to find safety. We had already heard that the Serb forces were separating women and children from the men and boys in Potocari, and because of that, my brother Husein, who was seventeen at the time, did not join us. That is when I last saw him, in front of our house. Then, we were put on the bus with other women and children and taken to Tuzla. On our way to Tuzla, a Serbian soldier stopped the bus. You could feel the tension among us all. Everyone was afraid. The soldier checked each and every one of us. When the soldier saw me, he was convinced I was a boy and he wanted to separate me from my sister. I remember feeling so small and powerless. I was nine at the time. Everyone on the bus started defending me. They kept saying that I was a girl and that the soldier should leave me alone. The soldier decided to leave me alone. Still, to this day, when I travel with my son on the bus, I feel extremely anxious. When we arrived in Tuzla, my mother kept looking for my brother. Later on, we found out that Husein had been killed, and parts of his body were discovered in different mass graves.”

1
“My father was often hired to work on construction projects in Germany and Croatia. He would be away for weeks, but every time he came back, he would bring presents. Whenever he returned, we would walk a few kilometers so we could meet him halfway to welcome him home. One time, he brought a VCR recorder from Germany. Nobody else in the village had a video player so we were the only ones who could watch cartoons and films. My friends and family would come to our house to watch movies. The adults would watch music videos of traditional Balkan bands. Whenever they finished, my friends and I watched cartoons such as Tom & Jerry and Popeye. Around our village, there were many Bosnian-Serbs. They were our neighbors and friends. I was twelve when I slowly started to realize what was happening. The war came on our last day of school. It was the third of April 1992. There were drunk soldiers around the school, misbehaving. I never realized there was a difference between my friends and me until one day when I watched an old Yugoslavian Partisan film with my friend Slavisa. There was this scene where the Partisans fought against some other army. When the scene ended, the Partisans won. Out of excitement, I said to Slavisa: ‘We won! Our army won!’ Slavisa looked uncomfortable and blushed. I didn’t understand why, and we continued watching the movie. A week later, Slavisa’s father was doing some construction in our house. His mother came over and said that Slavisa, who was sixteen at the time, had joined the Serb Nationalist Army and was sent to a battlefield in Croatia. I realized now why Slavisa blushed during the scene. It was the first time I realized there was a difference between us. I thought about the drunk soldiers near my school, how they misbehaved, and how Slavisa now belonged to them.”

 

2
“During the war, I lived in several different places. In 1993, our house got bombed. Our parents would assure us that nothing would happen, that our neighbors wouldn’t hurt us. I remember being confused. We were hiding and I was wondering, if they won’t hurt us, why are we running away? One year later, the Dutch UN soldiers arrived. The Dutch soldiers had very little influence on what was happening, so their presence didn’t change anything. In the summer of 1995, the Bosnian-Serb Army started to overtake Srebrenica, and on the eleventh of July, my family and I left. My mother, who had just given birth to my baby brother, went to the Dutch UN base. My oldest sister was already there with her son and father in law.

I was only fifteen, so my parents debated whether I should go to the UN base or join my father and uncles and try to get to the safe territory through the forest. My cousin, who had military experience, sensed that the UN base would eventually fall under the control of the Bosnian-Serb Army. He advised my father to take me with him. We stayed in the forest until 3 AM before we started our journey. My father was a bit familiar with the area because his aunt lived nearby. He knew where to find a spring. While we waited in the forest, he went to the spring and came back with a yellow canister filled with water. He knew our road would be long and that it would be difficult to find water, so he decided to get more. Five minutes after he left, the column began moving again. We had to continue our journey without my father. About an hour later, there was an ambush, and I lost sight of everyone. I remember seeing so many dead bodies. Suddenly I was alone, and I had no idea where to go.”

 

3
“I kept walking. Sometimes I would join another group, and at other times I would walk alone. There was a constant danger of being captured and shot. I remember drinking contaminated water. I felt sleepy, and I started to hallucinate. I remember seeing my uncle’s house. I went inside and took off my shoes. I went to the bedroom. I made the bed, and I went to sleep. When I woke up, there was no house or bed. I was under a big tree, and there were four people looking at me. They asked: ‘How did you survive that?’ I didn’t understand the question. Then one of them told me to walk a few meters farther. There I saw about 70 dead bodies. While I slept, there had been a big massacre. I continued my journey, and I met another group of four men. They seemed to know the way, so I asked if I could join them. They accepted me, but I had to promise that I would not surrender. There was another young boy in the group. His name was Hazim. In the beginning, I felt relieved to be a part of this group, but soon I noticed that Hazim and I continually got sent to inspect the area. At some point Hazim and I were left by the group and continued our journey together. Soon we met another group, led by a man named Sadik. He was an older man who knew the way. He accepted us into the group under one condition: that we walk in front of him so he could be sure we were okay. If it weren’t for Sadik, I would have never made it. Because of him, I’m still alive. After weeks of walking, we finally made it to the safe territory. When I arrived, I had to register, and they gave me food and clothes. They transported us to the airport base, where I found my sister. At the airport, I found out that my father had not reached the safe zone. My mother was in another refugee camp, and the next day, I went to see her. She couldn’t believe I had made it. I told her about how I lost father near the spring and that I had made it all by myself. For years we had no idea if my father was still alive. In 2006 we got a phone call that they found him in a mass grave.”

1
“Our house and village got destroyed at the very beginning of the war. We escaped from the Serb soldiers in time, but we had nowhere to go. We wandered through many different villages, and we would sometimes stay in the woods. The area was already under the control of the Bosnian Serb forces, so we had no other choice but to go to Srebrenica in March 1993. When we arrived, there were so many refugees. We found a small garage next to a school in which to live. I remember that year as a constant search for food and water. It felt like a concentration camp without wire. Still, from a young boy’s perspective, there were some interesting elements. My friends and I were impressed by the UN soldiers. We would ask them questions about cars, soccer, and their rifles—things that interested me as a 15-year-old boy. We would often go to their base during lunchtime. Sometimes, when the soldiers had some leftovers from their lunch, they would give them to us. After a year, we left the school and went to live in a refugee camp built by the Swedish government. We stayed there for one year. It might sound strange but this was the best period of my life. The camp was next to the river, so we had clean running water. I used every moment I could to go swimming. My friends and I would sometimes play soccer with the Dutch soldiers. That year Ajax played in the Champions League, going on to win the competition, and that was exciting for all of us. We talked a lot about soccer. One of the soldiers gave me a poster of one of the players. At the time, I had no idea who he was, but I put it up in my bedroom. Later, when I was able to watch TV again, I found out it was Jari Litmanen.”

 

2
“When the Bosnian Serb Army took over some checkpoints near us, the Dutch soldiers immediately left their checkpoint and left us behind in the refugee camp. I remember feeling extremely disappointed. We thought they would protect us, but they didn’t. My mother and my three younger sisters went to the Dutch UN base in Potocari. My father and I decided to try to walk to Tuzla, a city 100 kilometers further, which was the safe zone. We ran away from the camp and went to the forest. There was complete chaos in the forest, and I lost sight of my father. I found myself in a mass of random strangers. I was crying and running, calling my father’s name. After that, I never saw him again. I joined a convoy of thousands of people, mostly men. Many of them were carrying wounded people. I was in the back. Trees surrounded us so we couldn’t see where we were going. It was a horrific scene. After two days of walking, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we heard a voice through a megaphone. The voice ordered us to surrender and to come out of the forest. They said that we wouldn’t be killed. They also mentioned the Geneva convention. I didn’t know what they meant, but I remember learning about it in school. From that moment, I knew the Serbian soldiers had found us, and I feared for my life.”

 

3
“We emerged from the forest onto an asphalt road. The Serbian soldiers acted calmly. When everybody got out on the road, tanks surrounded us. They separated the wounded people and started to torture us. They made us chant: ‘Long live the king, long live Serbia.’ They took us to a meadow next to the road. They forced us to lay down with our heads in the grass. While we laid there, we heard gunshots. When we finally got up, all the wounded people were gone. They put us in sealed trucks so we couldn’t see anything and nobody could see us. However, there was a tiny hole in the truck’s canvas, so I could peek outside and breathe in fresh air. They brought us to a nearby town, which I recognized because my uncle used to live there. It was the first time I saw lights in three years. That night we spent in the truck. It was about 30 degrees Celsius and there was no food or water. The soldiers would bully us with their rifles. The next morning, we headed towards Zvornik, where I was born. I remember peeking through the hole and seeing people swimming in the river and children biking outside, and here we were in this truck. Inside the truck, everyone was constantly trying to figure out what would happen to us. Some said that we would be taken to a concentration camp. Others said we would be reunited with our families. The truth is, none of us really knew what was waiting for us.”

 

4
“Finally, we arrived in front of a school building. We were all crying out for water. When they opened the truck, they started beating almost every one of us. They lined us all up and took us to a classroom. Again, they forced us to chant: ‘Srebrenica is, and always will be, Serbian.’ You could hear voices coming from the other classrooms. As soon as night fell, the soldiers started taking people outside, five men at a time. Minutes later, you would hear gunshots and people screaming. This routine kept repeating itself over and over again. The Serbian soldiers would come in and tell us that the Red Cross was coming to register us for prisoner exchange. Everyone wanted to escape, but it was obvious we had no chance. Around midnight, it was my turn. They ordered me to take off my clothes. They took me to an empty classroom. On the floor, there were many piles of clothes. A few minutes later, they ordered us to leave the classroom. When I got outside, I recognized one of my friends from school. We stood next to each other with our heads bent down. When we left, we saw dead bodies in front of the school. I could feel blood sticking to my bare feet. We were put on a truck and ordered to sit down. There were so many of us that we couldn’t. After 10 minutes, we arrived. We could barely see anything but heard the gunshots. On the truck, everyone tried to hide behind someone else, just to live a bit longer. I knew I was going to die. I just hoped I would die fast without suffering. Finally, it was my turn to get out of the truck. I walked with my head bent down and my hands tied behind my back. I started to think about my mother and how she would never know where I ended up. They were lining up rows of 5 people. They told us to line up. In front of us, there were already rows of dead bodies.”

 

5
“I was waiting for it. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in the side of my stomach. I waited for the next bullet to end my suffering. I saw people falling down around me. A moment later, another bullet hit my left foot. Everywhere, I heard the voices of people crying and moaning. I heard one of the Serbian soldiers ordering the other soldier to check all the bodies. First, he refused, saying everyone was already dead. Then he stood just in front of me and killed a guy next to me who was still moving. I was waiting for him to kill me, but nothing happened. I asked myself: ‘Why aren’t I dead?’. The soldier shot everyone who was making noise. Slowly, it became quieter. Moments later, all the soldiers left by truck. I turned my head, and I noticed someone was moving in front of me. I asked him: ‘Are you alive?’. He said yes. I was so weak I could barely move. He begged me to try. When I finally reached him, he was able to bite off my ties with his teeth. I tried to take off his ties with my teeth, but I didn’t have the strength. In the distance, we could hear the trucks arriving again. I was in so much pain, but I started crawling over the dead bodies. We managed to hide in the bushes. We could hear another row of people getting shot. I found a stone, and I managed to cut off his ties. He took off his shirt, and he wrapped it around my wounds. He tried to stop the bleeding. He used my underwear and wrapped it around my feet. After that, all I can remember is being exhausted and falling asleep.”

 

6
“I don’t know how long I slept, but at some point the man woke me up and said it was too dangerous to stay. We had no idea where to go, but we just kept moving. We slept in destroyed and abandoned houses. Sometimes we would find some food. I could barely walk. He would often carry me. There were so many moments where I wanted to give up, but he kept pushing me to continue. I felt so weak. I was so exhausted from all the blood loss. I told him he should continue the journey without me. He would have a better chance of surviving on his own. He refused to leave me alone. He kept telling me that I should stay strong and that we would make it. He was truly a brave man. We slowly continued our journey together. One day, we were crawling through the high grass and we arrived at a nearby village. We saw people and overheard their conversation. They were speaking about Srebrenica. My friend said: ‘Maybe they are Bosnians.’ We got closer, and we could see that they were wearing traditional Bosnian clothes. My friend approached them, but when they looked at us, they got so scared they ran away. We were completely covered in dirt and blood. I don’t remember if I lost consciousness or not, but the next thing I remember is waking up in a village with lots of people around me. They were pouring drops of water into my mouth. I started to cry. I realized: we had survived.”

1
“The second UNHCR humanitarian aid convoy arrived in Srebrenica on the 30th of March 1993. People came from everywhere to get food, blankets, and other vital supplies. We came to find out what was happening. After the truck unloaded, it went to the hospital to pick up wounded people and bring them to Tuzla, which was in the safe territory. We went there too, to see if we could manage to get on one of the trucks. When we arrived, we accidentally stumbled upon my cousin, who worked at the hospital. While wounded and injured people were being picked up, my cousin managed to get my sister and me on one of the trucks. As the truck started moving, my mom began running after it. She grabbed the truck handle and successfully managed to get on board. It all happened so fast. We couldn’t even say goodbye to my father, but we knew my cousin would tell him that we were headed to the safe territory. When we arrived in Tuzla, we sent my father letters through the Red Cross and maintained some contact with him via amateur radio. On the television, we followed what was happening in Srebrenica.

From June 1995 onwards, we lost all contact with my father. In late August of that year, we found out that he had been captured. Later on we received differing information, so at the end of 1996 my mother went to the city of Bijeljina to try to find out more. They told her that my father had survived the fall of Srebrenica and that he had been captured. They told her that he had been brought to Serbia, after which he was returned to BIH, and that the last traces of him were lost somewhere near the town of Vlasenica. We still had hope that he would one day show up at our door.”

 

2
“In May 1998, on a Sunday night, the phone rang. When I answered, they asked: ‘Is this the Avdich apartment?’. When I confirmed, the person on the other line said: ‘You have a call.’ There was silence, after which I heard the words ‘Speak up.’ I was then connected to an amateur radio line. The call was established, but since the communication lines were bad, it cut off. To this day I don’t know what the call was about, but I hoped that my father might have been on the other end of the line. It was only on the 9th of March 2016 that we received an official document. This document is a testimonial of what happened to my father, and it confirms for how long he was alive. It describes what he was wearing and indicates that my father held no identification or personal possessions at the time of his capture. The document confirms that he was captured by the border patrol police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia and that he was deported back to Bosnia, to the Bratunac brigade. It also contains the names of those who deported him. After receiving this document, I filed criminal reports, and I decided to continue investigating and looking for these people.”

 

3
“After doing a lot of research, I found the person who surrendered my father. His name was Risto. I found him through Facebook and sent him a message, but he never replied. I also found the person who received my father from Risto. His name was Pero. Three and a half years later, I accidentally came upon him. I was in such a state of shock that I couldn’t approach him. However, the third time I saw him, again accidentally, I immediately approached.

I said to him: ‘Pero, you had the misfortune of meeting my father on the 31st of July 1995. Later he was killed by the people you handed him over to.’ I told him I didn’t want revenge but that he needed to know what happened. I also showed him a picture of my father. He told me that it was a long time ago and that he didn’t recognize the face. However, he also didn’t deny that it happened. He confirmed he was on duty that day and that he had handed over my father. Pero explained that he was following orders. We had a surprisingly civilized conversation. I tried to make him rethink and question his actions. I told him that, although neither he nor my father could have influenced how the war began or ended, they still had choices about how they were going to act during. At the end of the conversation, we shook hands. While driving home, I was drained, but I also felt some relief. I had finally found some peace.”

1
“After my mother died, my father compensated so much to make us happy that we sometimes forgot about our loss. When the war started, we moved to Srebrenica. My older sister, two younger brothers, father, and grandmother were all living in one room. When the Bosnian Serb Army invaded Srebrenica, we all went to the Dutch UN base in Potocari to find shelter. Except for my father. Like most men during the fall of Srebrenica, he tried to escape through the woods. We spent one night at the UN base. Thousands of refugees arrived there. It was complete chaos. Everybody was whispering and trying to guess what was happening. The next day, we saw Ratko Mladić, the head commander of the Bosnian Serb army at the UN base with a camera crew. He started throwing food and candy to us kids as a part of his propaganda campaign. He told us the buses would be ready to bring us to the safe zone in Tuzla. Right before entering the bus, men and women were separated. When I got to the bus, they wanted to take my little brother. He was only ten years old. I took his hand and pushed him inside the bus. During the bus ride, I hid him under a blanket underneath my seat. That’s how he survived. During the trip, you could see captured men with their hands tied behind their backs. Some women on the bus recognized their husbands or their relatives. We looked for our dad, but he wasn’t amongst them. The ride took about 3 hours. When we arrived, it was already dark. After spending a few nights in several different places, we moved to a house near Srebrenik with our grandmother. After one month, a social worker came by and said that my grandmother didn’t have the right resources to take care of us. A few days later, we got transferred to an orphanage.”

 

2
“If it had been up to me, I would have stayed with my grandmother. However, nobody asked us what we wanted. There were many children in the orphanage. We were divided into “families” of 20 kids. Luckily my siblings and I got to stay together. Every group had two social workers. One of the social workers for my group was named Mirsada. She treated us like we were her children. Whenever I was sad, I would lock myself up in my room and cry. Mirsada always noticed my absence, and would immediately come to me in my room and hold me tight. She knew our story and how much we were missing our grandmother and parents. When my sister turned eighteen, she became the first of us to leave the orphanage. She went to live with my grandmother. When I turned eighteen, I moved in with them. That’s when my grandmother gave me this ring. It belonged to my mother. My grandmother hid it in her pocket and managed to bring it from Srebrenica. It is one of the only things I have that belonged to my mother.”

 

3
“When my brother left the orphanage, he moved to Sarajevo, and we managed to get my youngest brother to come live with us. All those years, we had no idea what happened to my father. In 2009, my brothers got a phone call from my uncle. He had received a message that they had found my father’s remains. I was seven months pregnant at the time, so my brothers tried to hide it from me to protect my health. I found out anyway, and due to the stress I had to spend the rest of my pregnancy in bed. When my son was born, I felt a new kind of happiness. He was the first new child born into the family. He changed our lives.”

1
“My mum says that every day I look more like him. After the war, we moved to Sarajevo. In high school, I didn’t talk about my father and what happened in Srebrenica. Most kids in school had experienced the war in Sarajevo. They couldn’t relate to what happened in Srebrenica. Sometimes, when someone mentioned Srebrenica, they would make jokes like: ‘Do you want to sell the house with or without bones?’ Those jokes were painful. My mother had to raise my sister and me all by herself. She was only 33 when the war ended, with two small children to raise and a husband who was missing. The day we said goodbye to our father, I was five years old. My mother had gone to the UN base in Potocari with my sister and I. A few days later we got transported to the safe zone in Tuzla. My father decided to go to Tuzla through the forest since there were rumors that the Bosnian-Serb Army was separating the men. Before leaving our house, my mother had packed some items. Amongst those items was a yellow shirt that belonged to my father. She figured he would want to change into a clean shirt once he arrived in Tuzla. When we arrived, my mother kept searching for him. Years went by, but we kept hoping that he would come back. My mother kept washing and mending the shirt. At a certain point, she started washing it less frequently. Eventually, she stopped washing it altogether. That’s when she lost hope that he would ever come back. When I went to University, I started meeting people from all over Bosnia. One of my classmates, his name was Sened, heard I was from Srebrenica. He told me his grandfather was also from the Srebrenica region, from a town called Žepa. We started meeting for coffee before and after classes. I invited Sened to our old house in Srebrenica, and we spent hours and hours talking about what had happened in the war. I told him about my father. We understand each other because we share the same feelings. To this day, we have no information about what happened to my father. I still hope that they will find him. Even if it is only one bone, then we will finally be able to bury him, and we will have a place where we can say our prayers and close this book.”

1
“We lived in a small room in an apartment. That room was our kitchen, living room, working space, and bedroom. There were five other families in the apartment and we all shared a single bathroom. We had all fled from different villages in the area and found safety in Srebrenica. My aunt and uncle lived in the same building, a couple of floors above us. My uncle would always try to entertain us; he was a wonderful man. We lived off aid packages that contained things like milk, powdered eggs, a little bit of detergent, or a few canned items. My sister and I would try to get creative with them, making our own candies such as lollipops made out of melted sugar and chocolate cream made out of powdered milk mixed with water. I also learned how to make my own shoe polish, candles, and meals for my sister, which consisted of fried flour mixed with water. We had only one doll. Our days were filled with fear, but we were happy.”

 

2
“It was the 8th of July 1995, and we could sense the fall of Srebrenica was coming. The attacks had begun and I could hear the sounds of shots being fired. My mother, my sisters, and I went to the UN base to seek protection. We spent a couple of days sitting on concrete floors and waiting for a truck or a bus that would take us to the safe territory. It was chaotic. The Bosnian Serb army was moving freely around the UN base, spreading fear. My father and uncle, along with some other men that we knew, decided to go through the forest because they were afraid of being captured. Before we left, my mother packed a bag with some items. Amongst them were these knitting needles, made by my uncle from the metal wires of an old umbrella, with which I learned how to knit. Before saying goodbye to my father, I gave him a magnifying glass. It wasn’t something he could use, but he put it in his pocket anyway, and made a promise that he would give it back to me once we were reunited. After saying goodbye, we went to the UN base. We spent a few nights there before we were transported to the safe zone in Tuzla.”

 

3
“When we arrived, another aunt picked us up and brought us to an apartment. I remember the feeling of finally having access to electricity, bread, hot water, and food again. We waited in dread for somebody to bring news of my father. There were rumours that men were being killed. I was only ten, but I knew full well there was a chance my father wasn’t coming back. We had been waiting for seven days when suddenly we received a phone call. My sister and I couldn’t understand what was being said on the other end of the line, but when we saw our mother smile, we knew that my father had made it. The moment of our reunion was very emotional, it’s difficult to put it into words. He had lost a lot of weight, he was hungry and tired, but when he saw us, he smiled. After I hugged him, he pulled from his pocket the magnifying glass I had given him the day of our separation. We kept waiting for my uncle to come back, but he never did. His remains have not yet been found. We still have these knitting needles he made… To this day, I have not been back to Srebrenica. My father invited me to walk the same route through the forest that he walked 25 years ago, but I am still not ready for that.”

1
“Before the war came to Srebrenica, my family lived a life typical of Yugoslavia. My parents worked, my brother and I went to school, and we, like other Yugoslavs, went to the Adriatic Sea for vacation. It was a time of peace, of brotherhood and unity. That all came to an abrupt end in April 1992, when my parents decided that, for our safety, it would be best for us to leave home and go to our relatives in Tuzla. None of us imagined that we wouldn’t ever return to Srebrenica together as a family of four. I was almost 10 years old, but I will never forget the fear in my parents’ eyes as we were stopped at every turn by the aggressor’s paramilitary forces, and the feeling of relief when we reached the free territory. We fit our lives into two suitcases, abandoning almost everything we owned. But being together and being alive was more important. Although it was against our will, we started a new life in Tuzla. There was war outside, there was shelling, there was no water or electricity, food was lacking, we were living in someone else’s apartment, the faces outside the building belonged to new children – suddenly, we were refugees in our own country. Our only source of strength was the knowledge that the four of us had stayed together. My father, Sead Halilovic, was a renowned gynecologist, but he couldn’t find a job in Tuzla. Immediately after arriving there, he started taking care of the wounded coming in from Srebrenica. Years passed and May 1995 came. My father was given an order to return to Srebrenica – a “safe-zone”, a city under siege – by helicopter. We stayed silent for fear of speaking the thought aloud. A flight in a military helicopter over enemy territory couldn’t mean anything good.”

 

2
“On the 1st of May of that year, as a 13-year-old girl, I decided to start writing a diary. I wrote about my only fear, which was for my father’s life. Inside that diary, I shared my feelings. He left wearing a military uniform, which he disliked, but after a few days he came back. We had lunch together, he hugged me, smoked a cigarette with his son and kissed his beautiful wife. He then left again. My mom and I waved from the balcony, and my brother went to see him off.

He died in the helicopter on the 7th of May. He didn’t manage to help his Srebrenica. He didn’t manage to reach his mother and father after three years of separation. I wrote all of it down in my diary. This is the page I wrote on the day I found out he had died. I wrote in the diary each day for years. These pages hold within them a lot of pain. I didn’t open my diary for nearly 25 years, until February 2020, when I read through it again. As soon as I started, I became that 13-year-old Lejla once more. Lejla, who lost her dear papa, as she called him – her pillar of support, that one special, noble soul. I am grateful to still have this diary, with which I can share my story.”

1
“I was born in a village near Srebrenica, the eldest child of my parents. Jasna, who was three years younger than me, came next. As children, during the war, we played mostly by ourselves, dreaming up worlds of our own. The sound of the shells could be heard most of the time, so we kept close to home, where we felt the safest. Jasna was often said to be the most beautiful one in our family, and I remember her as a happy and carefree girl who was always smiling. She was cheerful, compassionate, and full of love for all of us. In our backyard, there were plenty of trees, and each of us children had our favorite. For Jasna it was this cherry tree just a few meters from our house. At the end of May 1995, a week before Jasna’s tenth birthday, in the early evening when the whole family was home, a shell struck that same cherry tree. It tore the tree from its roots, as if it were never there. The only thing that remained was a large hole. Although we were inside the house, pieces of shrapnel hit both of us. Jasna was hit in the back of her head. It left her sitting there, motionless, her eyes still open. That is how mom found her when she came in to look for her a minute later, since Jasna was the only one not to run outside after the explosion, away from the blinding and suffocating dust. Only after she had carried her outside did Mom realize that her little girl was dead. I still remember clearly her shock and disbelief once she realized that she had lost Jasna forever. She was buried at the local cemetery, after nightfall, in order to avoid additional shelling. With that, our life, as we had lived it until then, stopped forever. What remained was a great emptiness, in me and in all of us. This is the last photograph of Jasna, taken some six months before her death.”

 

2
“Shrapnel hit my arm. There wasn’t enough medical equipment in the war hospital, and the doctors who operated on me told my parents that they didn’t amputate my arm only because I was a child. They put in a lot of effort to save it, despite how complex the wounds were. I spent around a month in a hospital. My parents, some teachers, and classmates would come by to see me from time to time. In July 1995, right after I came home, not fully recovered yet, we were forced to flee from Srebrenica. That is when my father disappeared. When my childhood ended. I was 13 years old. For many years we lived in hope that Father was alive. He was found in a mass grave, buried 16 years after he had disappeared.

Now that I’m a mother of two girls myself, I’m reliving the past through the eyes of a parent. My eldest daughter is eight years old now. Meaning, she is a year younger than Jasna was when she was killed. I’ve been thinking a lot about my mother and what it must have been like to continue living after losing a daughter and a husband. To be on the run, no roof over her head, with young children. My eldest daughter is getting to that age where she asks why she doesn’t have a grandfather, where she asks about my scars. For now, I am only sharing certain things about my childhood with her. Not everything. She is still too young for that. But when the time comes, I will tell her in an appropriate way, so that she can understand the enormity of the tragedy we lived through and the harmfulness of war. Although talking about it is painful, we need to pass on the memory of what happened to future generations. So that it isn’t forgotten, and so we can prevent revisionist history.”