The genocide in Srebrenica is the biggest crime in Europe after the Second World War, and a new chapter in the story of its cruelty is the discovery of the remains of bones found under a fountain in the yard of a house in Brcko, where they were buried in 2012.
On Wednesday, September 20th, the remains of a victim, most likely killed during the genocide in Srebrenica, were exhumed in the Brcko district. The Institute for Missing Persons, on the basis of witness statements and precise information about the location of the remains, exhumed them in the yard of the family house of N. M.
“During the exhumation, the remains were found under the fountain, and according to information from the Institute for Missing Persons, the assumption is that they are the remains of a victim of the genocide committed in Srebrenica,” said Emza Fazlic, from the Institute for Missing Persons.
“The remains were most likely brought immediately after the war, i.e. in 1997, but in 2012 they were hidden in the yard, i.e. buried, and a fountain was built over them. Those remains would not have been found if there had not been a witness who revealed the exact location,” Fazlic added.
As we unofficially learn, it was N.M. from Brcko who hid the remains, and an investigation by the state prosecutor’s office has been opened in this case.
According to reports, N.M. studied the remains, and it was he who brought them immediately after the end of the war. Also, the man in whose yard the bones were found allegedly left the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
There is a lot of evidence and stories about the crimes during the war in BiH that are difficult to comprehend, but the case from Brcko underlines another line of evidence about the primordial fascist basis of the crimes committed against Bosniaks, and even though the murders were committed 28 years ago, the crime is still being carried out.
Dehumanization that continues
Namely, in this case, it is not about denying genocide and crimes, but about the awareness that a crime happened and that there is nothing wrong with it. While it is inconceivable for a reasonable human being to hide human remains in his yard where he spends his time every day, at the base of the fountain for which he receives compliments from friends, it is possible for a morally eccentric person. This kind of behavior can only be explained by the doctrine of dehumanization, which was designed in Nazi Germany and thanks to which the victims were deprived of their human identity.
In this case, the Bosniak, who was first killed in the genocide, then exhumed, taken to Brcko where his remains were studied, and then buried again in the foundations with the intention of never being found, was deprived of his status of a human being in the eyes of those who did this. Just as for the Nazis the Jews and the Romani people did not represent anything of value, so for the one who put the remains of the victim under the fountain, Bosniaks were not human.
Deafening silence
But all this was followed by a deafening silence from the authorities of the Republika Srpska (RS) entity. Like never before in this case, it was necessary for the holders of public office to publicly condemn this crime, and to call on everyone who is familiar with this case to come out and say where the remains of thousands more murdered Bosniaks are.
Although the deafening silence should not surprise anyone in the entity where denial of genocide is the rule, and the day after this discovery, President Milorad Dodik, commenting on the High Representative, said: “What Memorial Center, he should bring it back with him”. From this statement, it could be concluded that the president of the entity of the RS is irritated by the graves of Bosniak victims of the genocide, and the desire to move the bodies was already realized by the authorities of the RS earlier when excavating secondary and tertiary mass graves.
The doctrine of dehumanization originated in Germany and was accepted with open arms by those who committed genocide and then continued to carry it out through hiding the remains and denial, but that is where the connection with Germany ends because the German attitude towards crimes is clear.
Finally, there is a clear difference as to why Germany faced these crimes and expressed guilt, while in BiH the crime continues to be carried out by hiding the remains.
After the Allied troops liberated the camps in 1945 in which Nazi Germany kept and killed Jews, Romani people, and others who were destined for death, they wanted the German people to face those crimes, and the inhabitants of the surrounding towns were shown a film about the crimes, and in some places the population was forced to rebury the dead prisoners of concentration camps and victims of executions or to walk past thousands of bodies of dead detainees in order to understand what the Nazi regime had done.
Such a process was supposed to ensure, among other things, that no one would even think of denying crimes, but also that everyone would face their own conscience, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
