The dialogue committee of the Srebrenica Memorial Center visited the memorials to the victims of the Second World War in Jasenovac and Ustica and to the victims of the Homeland War in Vukovar in the previous two days. Members of the Committee for Dialogue had the opportunity, with the professional guidance of all memorials, to visit museum exhibits, monuments and places of suffering where they paid tribute to the civilian victims of the wars in Croatia.
- As part of the Dialogue Committee of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, we visited Vukovar, Jasenovac and Ustica. Visits to the places of mass suffering of innocent people always awaken memories of our people killed in the genocide. The scale of the crimes in Jasenovac, Ovčara, Vukovar, all of that just reminds us of the cruelty we experienced ourselves, not so long ago. Victims are victims and we must never forget that. Crime does not become obsolete, neither the one from the Second World War nor the one from the 1990s. From all the crimes in our country and neighboring Croatia, we should have learned by now to prevent any future ones, but unfortunately the criminals did not. We must fight as best we can, with a culture of memory and honoring the victims of all religions and nations who were cruelly killed in someone's name - said the representatives of the Association of Mothers and Women of Srebrenica and Bratunac.
Vladimir Andrle, president of the Jewish cultural and educational society La Benevolentija and a member of the Dialogue Committee, pointed out that the visit to Jasenovac, Ustica and Vukovar is of exceptional importance for the culture of memory and the fight to ensure that crimes of this scale never happen again, as well as the fight against relativization.
- Listening to the testimonies of those who defended Vukovar, the doctors who found extraordinary strength to help the occupied population of Vukovar, I cannot help but wonder what the motives of the President of the Republic of Croatia are in relativizing the genocide in Srebrenica. Especially because many Vukovar residents we talked to drew a parallel between the evil that befell Croatia and the evil that happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially in Srebrenica - said Andrle.
The Jasenovac memorial area is dedicated to the memorialization of the victims of the infamous Jasenovac camp where the victims were killed because of their racial, ethnic, religious and any other affiliation that was considered "undesirable" by the NDH. In Jasenovac, Serbs, Jews, Roma, political opponents of the NDH regime and all other groups that the then government wanted to eradicate were killed. The Roma Memorial Center in Ustica is dedicated to the memorialization of Roma victims during the Second World War in Croatia. It is located in the immediate vicinity of the Roma cemetery in Ustica, a village not far from Jasenovac, where 21 mass graves with the bodies of Roma killed by the NDH have been found so far.
- Today, together with the Mothers of Srebrenica and members of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, we visited the Jasenovac Memorial Area, which preserves the memory of almost one hundred thousand brutally exhausted people just because they were 'unwilling' to the Ustasha regime. To the almost complete destruction of the Jewish community as well as the Serbian and Roma communities, one should add the suffering of many anti-fascists, communists, and trade unionists who fought against the Ustasha regime. Looking at the photos of the excavation of mass graves at this concentration complex, we were all shocked by the almost identical picture of the found graves from the Srebrenica genocide. It was touching to watch the Mothers of Srebrenica read the Fatiha for all the victims of Jasenovac with a prayer on their lips that the evil that happened to us would never happen again - said Štefica Galić, journalist and member of the Dialogue Committee.
As part of their visit to Vukovar, they visited the Vukovar Homeland War Memorial Center, the Vukovar Hospital 1991 memorial site, the memorial home and mass grave at Ovčara, and the Vukovar water tower. With this visit, they paid tribute to the Croatian victims in Vukovar from 1991, when the city was under siege for 87 days by the JNA and paramilitary forces from Serbia.
Muamer Džananović, member of the Committee for Dialogue and research associate of the Institute for Research of Crimes Against Humanity and International Law of the University of Sarajevo, pointed out that Vukovar is a symbol of mass crime and mass destruction from the recent past, but today it also symbolizes a place of survival and defiance.
- Unfortunately, the crimes committed in Vukovar were not enough of a warning to those who planned and carried them out. They designed and committed crimes in an identical way throughout Croatia, especially during the aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992-1995. years. The culmination of that criminal process was the genocide against Bosniaks in and around Srebrenica in July 1995. Regardless of the fact that in some way our everyday life and our life is a memory of war crimes, strong emotions are still awakened in a person when he passes through, for example, a hospital in Vukovar or Ovčare. We sympathize with the families of the victims, and we wish those who are searching for the missing victims of crimes in Vukovar to find their loved ones and that the victims and their families find peace. One of the common messages is that we want peace in the region and in the world and to remember in order to remind current and future generations that everything that happened in the region in the nineties did not bring anyone anything good. Our arrival, especially that the mothers of Srebrenica are also in the delegation, is the best indicator of how sincere our intentions are - said Džananović.
He said that the key thing from today's perspective would be for today's followers of big-state ideas to come here and to places like this where crimes are commemorated and express sincere sympathy for the victims, bow to them and give up any ideas of violence and crime, and finally turn to politics that will lead our societies to a more prosperous future.
By organizing this visit of the Dialogue Committee, the Srebrenica Memorial Center wants to remind the public of the consequences of genocide and crimes against humanity on the whole society, but also on the communities where such crimes are committed, reminding that such rhetoric and actions must be recognized and prevented at the earliest stages. Through cooperation and dialogue with other memorials and representatives of victims' families, the Srebrenica Memorial Center communicates the facts about the genocide in Srebrenica as well as the lessons learned from the memorialization of the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica, opening up space for dialogue based on facts and creating opportunities for building a society that is ready to face the past.
The dialogue committee of the Srebrenica Memorial Center consists of representatives of the association of families of victims of genocide in Srebrenica, representatives of the academic community in BiH, employees of the Memorial Center and activists from the field of transitional justice.
The mission of the Committee for Dialogue, which was formed this year by working on the project "Truth, Dialogue, Future" supported by the Government of the United Kingdom, is to commemorate the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica, and to visit other memorials and places of suffering of the civilian population in order to honor the victims and warn society to similar occurrences in the present, it was announced from the Srebrenica Memorial Center.