While their peers are spending their free time on skiing, or on holidays abroad, the students of the fourth grade of the First Bosniak Gymnasium: Amina Ibisevic, Amra Kitovnica, Esma Djulovic, Nedzmija Camdzic, Amna Omerovic, Medzida Hidic, as well as from the Fifth Gymnasium Nejla Emso, Hana Suljevic, Adna Kurspahic, Nadja Fejzic decided to spend this winter break in a unique way. They decided to volunteer at the Museum of Crimes against Humanity and Genocide 1992-1995, which was opened in July 2016 in Sarajevo.
Every day of their winter break, they are spending a few hours in preparing new exhibits and translating statements and stories of victims, they are creating promotional materials of the museum, welcoming visitors to the museum and helping them. Moreover, they collect statements from victims who donate exhibits, etc. This is their way of fighting for the truth and the memory of aggression during which they were not even born, and as such, it is a very important gesture.
They will continue to volunteer after their winter break, as much as their school obligations allow them.
Lamija Kurtic, a student of the First Bosniak Gymnasium, said that she was born in September 1999, four years after the end of the war, and she never felt all horrors of the war on her own skin, but she is thinking about the victims of the war.
“You know, we post-war generations probably cannot fully understand what that even means. I just know that those who went through all of that nonsense are still scared of every firework. They maybe think that they still need to find a shelter.
I know that someone is still dreaming of his father’s hug, the love of their husband, brother’s kiss and son’s smile. Someone still dreams of some happier times, when the families were full and houses filled with children’s laughter.
The museum leaves a huge impression on people. Lamija noticed that even visitors and those who come with a smile, never “leave the Museum with the same expression on their faces.”
Curator Midheta Soljic welcomed the decision of these students to volunteer in the Museum.
“Considering the fact that personal items that belong to victims, such as letters and photographs, are coming on almost daily basis, the support provided by these volunteers is the best thing that could happen to this Museum. In this way, we are all learning some new details from the war and the past together, and trying to do everything possible in order to speak on behalf of those who cannot do it and with the aim that memories of numerous tragic fates never fade away. Both the victims, and us, and our homeland, and future generations, deserve it,” stated Soljic.
(Source: Radiosarajevo.ba)
