Nobel Committee Chairman Anders Olsson responded to a letter from survivors of war crimes and victims and witnesses in Bosnia and Herzegovina protesting the decision to award the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature to Austrian writer Peter Handke.
In a letter sent to Murat Tahirovic, president of the Association of Victims and Witnesses of Genocide, Olsson said they received the letter with “concern and deep sadness.”
“It is obvious that we understand Peter Handke’s literary work in very different ways. However, we seem to have a common view that we all rely entirely on the legitimate and careful conclusions of the Hague Tribunal. For us, the Tribunal’s decisions form the basis for understanding the essential part of the European a history from which, hopefully, we can all learn, “the letter from the Nobel Committee chairman said.
Victims and witnesses of war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina sent a letter to the Nobel Committee on Literature in late October expressing their protest and deepest disappointment at the decision to award the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature to Austrian writer Peter Handke.
The letter stated that they profoundly offended the victims of genocide, the survivors of the inmates, the victims of rape and torture.
The Association of Victims and Witnesses of Genocide, in cooperation with the Association “Movement of Mother Enclave of Srebrenica and Zepa” and seven associations of victims of war from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in a joint letter, recalled the crimes committed in the territory of BiH from 1992 to 1995 by those who the Nobel Prize winner supports.
