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"We were beautiful and as such we should be remembered."
Her green eyes beam. Tea Tupajić looks at the man sitting next to her and her face is aglow. She is a Bosnian theatre director, who experienced the siege of Sarajevo as a child. His name is Olaf Nijeboer, and he is the chairman of the assocation Dutchbat III. Back in 1995, he was 19 when he joined the Dutch batallion of blue helmets, who were supposed to protect Srebrenica. Before being sent off, he was trained to stay strictly neutral and to avoid any personal contact with the local population. Their major warned the young conscripts, a random sample of boys and girls from all over the country who were looking for adventure, a decent paycheck or to make the world a better place, that the Bosnian Muslims were "pure scum".
Two days before the thirtieth commemoration of the genocide when Serb troops killed 8372 Bosniaks, mostly boys and men, we gather in an Amsterdam theatre. Olaf is here because he participated in a performance directed by Tea, in which eight Dutchbat veterans spoke about their experiences of guilt, indifference and shame. The occasion: the publication of her book Black Summer. Tea has transformed the Dutchbat stories into a composition of poetic, chilling effect.
As the host of this talk, I witness the trust that they have established among each other, and how they agree that nobody who survived Srebrenica emerged as a complete human being.
From Srebrenica to Gaza: Genocide Denial and the Long Struggle for Justice
On the 30th anniversary of the largest mass killing in Europe since 1945, Martin Shaw compares it with how the West is now treating the ongoing genocide in Gaza
Martin Shaw
Last year, the United Nations designated 11 July as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica. These days, an exhibition at the headquarters in New York shows 200 portraits of those killed, alongside their personal belongings that were found in the forests surrounding the town. Down the road from Srebrenica, newly found human remains will be buried at the sprawling cemetery in Potocari, facing the former battery factory that served as the Dutchbat compound. During those sweltering days of the black summer, thirty years ago, this was where the men were separated from the women, children and elderly, never to be heard from again. Today, it is the home of the Memorial Centre.
Dutchbat has long gone. On the walls of the compound, it left behind graffiti, now carefully preserved, like: No teeth…? A mustache…? Smel like shit…? Bosnian girl!
For over thirty years now, Srebrenica has been a story of insult, neglect and denial. Both within Bosnia and Herzegovina, and between the country of the 8372 and the country of Dutchbat. It is a story of trauma pa
Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features
SUBSCRIBE TODAY
"We were beautiful and as such we should be remembered."
Her green eyes beam. Tea Tupajić looks at the man sitting next to her and her face is aglow. She is a Bosnian theatre director, who experienced the siege of Sarajevo as a child. His name is Olaf Nijeboer, and he is the chairman of the assocation Dutchbat III. Back in 1995, he was 19 when he joined the Dutch batallion of blue helmets, who were supposed to protect Srebrenica. Before being sent off, he was trained to stay strictly neutral and to avoid any personal contact with the local population. Their major warned the young conscripts, a random sample of boys and girls from all over the country who were looking for adventure, a decent paycheck or to make the world a better place, that the Bosnian Muslims were "pure scum".
Two days before the thirtieth commemoration of the genocide when Serb troops killed 8372 Bosniaks, mostly boys and men, we gather in an Amsterdam theatre. Olaf is here because he participated in a performance directed by Tea, in which eight Dutchbat veterans spoke about their experiences of guilt, indifference and shame. The occasion: the publication of her book Black Summer. Tea has transformed the Dutchbat stories into a composition of poetic, chilling effect.
As the host of this talk, I witness the trust that they have established among each other, and how they agree that nobody who survived Srebrenica emerged as a complete human being.
From Srebrenica to Gaza: Genocide Denial and the Long Struggle for Justice
On the 30th anniversary of the largest mass killing in Europe since 1945, Martin Shaw compares it with how the West is now treating the ongoing genocide in Gaza
Martin Shaw
Last year, the United Nations designated 11 July as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica. These days, an exhibition at the headquarters in New York shows 200 portraits of those killed, alongside their personal belongings that were found in the forests surrounding the town. Down the road from Srebrenica, newly found human remains will be buried at the sprawling cemetery in Potocari, facing the former battery factory that served as the Dutchbat compound. During those sweltering days of the black summer, thirty years ago, this was where the men were separated from the women, children and elderly, never to be heard from again. Today, it is the home of the Memorial Centre.
Dutchbat has long gone. On the walls of the compound, it left behind graffiti, now carefully preserved, like: No teeth…? A mustache…? Smel like shit…? Bosnian girl!
For over thirty years now, Srebrenica has been a story of insult, neglect and denial. Both within Bosnia and Herzegovina, and between the country of the 8372 and the country of Dutchbat. It is a story of trauma pa
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