prijava
SREBRENICA, August 25 (FENA) - The Srebrenica Memorial Center today presented results of activities to collect personal belongings of genocide survivors as well as those killed and missing in the genocide. The museum collection, with these items as its foundation, continues to grow, and the Memorial Center expresses hope that next year they will be able to realize a special exhibition based on the results of this project.
“I bought this watch for my father in 1988 in Bajina Bašta. It was my gift for him. During the identification, I personally found a watch in his clothes. I’ve preserved it all these years. I'm not sure what will happen when I'm gone. That is why I want to donate the watch to the Memorial Center for permanent storage. You will take care of it in the right way,” said Nazif Krdžić, who donated the watch to the Memorial Center, the only remaining item from his father Daut.
Nazif also lost his brother Mehmed during the war.
Personal belongings bring back memories for those who survived the Srebrenica genocide. In a video from besieged Srebrenica in 1994, we see Junuz Smajlović trying to light his tobacco pipe with flint.
He added that he bought a pipe at the market in Srebrenica. He donated the fire steel, the rock from Žedanjsko, splint and the metal that he used to clean the pipe to the Memorial Center.
“I know that you will take good care of it and that it will stand as testimony of the difficult times in which we lived,” said Smajlović, who headed on the path of the Death March to the territory under the control of the Army of BiH, accompanied by his three brothers. Brother Mujo did not survive.
Amira Čakanović donated the identity card and wedding ring of her father Esad to the museum collection of the Srebrenica Memorial Center for permanent storage.
“Although the decision is difficult, at the same time I think it is the right one. And when we are not there, someone here will take care of it and keep it as we have kept it all these years,” said Čakanović.
Ahmed Imamović and his father Jusuf separated on July 11, 1995. Ahmed set out on the path of the Death March, while his father went to the UNPROFOR base in Potočari. Jusuf was separated in Potočari at the checkpoint together with a large number of boys and the elderly. He was taken to the Zvornik municipality where he was shot. Incomplete skeletal remains were found in the mass grave of Kamenica near Zvornik. He was buried in 2013 in the cemetery of the Memorial Center.
Ahmed donated a tobacco box and a flint that Jusuf used during the war to the Memorial Center. The tobacco box and the flint were found during body identification. The tobacco box is handmade and contains engraved personal data of Jusuf and Ahmed.
“We want to make as many people as possible part of the story about the development of the Srebrenica Memorial Center. And through such activities, we connect with the wider community. People feel this space as their own, they participate in telling the story of Srebrenica. Our responsibility is to keep these items and adequately present them to the public, researchers and generations to come,” said Director of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, Emir Suljagić, the Press Service of the Srebrenica Memorial Center announced.
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