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Hasan Nuhanović is a survivor of the Srebrenica genocide, during which his father, Ibro, mother, Nasiha, and younger brother, Mohammad, were all killed. Only by virtue of being a UN interpreter was he spared. He has since dedicated his life to fighting for justice. A landmark civil case that he brought against the Netherlands found the country liable for the deaths of his father, brother, and others, establishing an important precedent in international law. Many hundreds have since been compensated for their loss. 

He also played an important role in the establishment of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, the primary site of remembrance for the Srebrenica genocide. The semi-circular stone memorial wall is engraved with the names of the 8,372 victims. In the museum, housed in the old battery factory where Dutch peacekeepers were headquartered, displays personal items recovered from mass graves. The Center serves as a research institute, archiving oral histories and working to combat genocide denial. 

Hasan begins by disputing the use of the term ‘reconciliation.’ ‘I have always insisted that "reconciliation" could easily be replaced by the term "facing the past”,’ he says, arguing that ‘facing the past is the essential step our society must take before we can move toward reconciliation.’ ‘It is a necessary precondition,’ he emphasises, and that without it use of the term ‘reconciliation’ is premature. 

Whilst some speak about building a ‘culture of remembrance,’ Hasan prefers ‘memorialisation,’ because ‘it specifically includes physical memorials.’ ‘Someone might argue we can have a culture of remembrance without physical markers, but look at the political elites in Banja Luka and Belgrade - I am not sure they appreciate the existence of the Memorial Center,’ he contends. Tangible memorials can, in this sense, help prevent the erasure of history by political elites. 

It is a direction that survivors like Hasan have spent thirty years trying to find. ‘We chose to mark the places of executions and mass graves,’ he points out, but ‘this has happened very little in Western Bosnia and parts of Eastern Bosnia.’ ‘We have the cemetery in Potočari - the largest in the country - and smaller memorials in places like Bratunac, but there are still so many obstacles,’ he says, particularly in places like Prijedor and Foča. 

There is a profound geography of memory and erasure. Višegrad is a case in point. By focusing on the Ottoman era and the bridge made famous by the Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić, they have, in Hasan’s words, ‘turned it into a place of falsified history.’ Though the bridge was used as a place of execution in 1992, today, ‘survivors and families go there once a year, just on a single day, to throw thousands of roses into the Drina River.’ ‘They spend an hour there, and then they have to leave,’ Hasan reiterates, whilst members of the Chetnik movement gather with their ‘beards and uniforms.’ ‘We have several layers of the past overlapping at multiple places in BiH,’ he contends, ‘but some layers are being intentionally obscured.’

For the sake of BiH’s future, the prosecution of war crimes must continue. ‘In law, the statute of limitations cannot be applied to war crimes or crimes against humanity,’ Hasan says, insisting that ‘just as Germany still arrests Auschwitz guards today, people who are even one hundred years old, this process should never end.’ ‘Many who want the past to be forgotten actually want impunity to continue,’ he contends. 

Whilst there is an obligation to prosecute, there is ‘no law on reconciliation’; no state or region-wide policy on how to approach facing the past. The onus has instead fallen almost entirely on survivors and civil society, often funded by external donors, who have been ‘the loudest in the fight for justice.’ ‘The question remains - what are governments doing when it comes to facing the past, to facing the nineties?’ Hasan asks. 

Survivors live in an environment where every day they are confronted by, in his words, ‘forces hinting or explicitly saying that they intend to tear this country apart.’ ‘In which country will I live if that happens?’ he asks, ‘where would my wife, daughter, friends, and neighbours - we don’t want to be a stateless people.’ ‘90% of the civilian victims were Bosniaks, so Bosniaks still fear this,’ Hasan explains, ‘they’re telling us the war is over and look to the future, but what are you going to do about our country - are you going to help us heal the wounds from the past and join the EU?’ ‘We are continually moving between the past and the future,’ he adds. 

Politicians win elections by ‘spreading the lie that different ethnic groups cannot live together…[even though] we have lived together for centuries.’ ‘They manipulate religious differences and project false images to make people scared,’ Hasan describes, ‘they try to reduce my entire identity down to one label - Muslim.’ ‘Everyone has multiple identities - reducing a person to a single identity is what the Nazis did to the Jews,’ he explains, ‘I am a citizen, a Bosnian, a Bosniak, and a Muslim.’ 

‘A normal society should be able to honour victims and acknowledge the past whilst simultaneously working for a better future,’ Hasan insists, ‘we don’t need collective amnesia to join the EU - unless that is a condition?’ ‘It’s not going to disappear from our memory,’ he adds. 

‘I do not have a choice,’ Hasan says when I ask how he remains motivated to work on such issues - ‘I cannot close my eyes and cover my ears; if I do, they might knock at my door again one day.’

Ian is a writer based in the Balkans. He is the author of 'Dragon's Teeth - Tales from North Kosovo' and 'Luka'. Follow Ian on Twitter @bancroftian.

Currently in: Belgrade, Serbia —  @bancroftian