Narrating Srebrenica: Conducting Oral Histories with Genocide Survivors

In the hills of eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina sits the small town of Srebrenica–once known for silver mines and health spas, now infamous for the genocide that occurred there during the Bosnian War. In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb Army captured and murdered over 8,000 Muslim men and boys, while forcibly bussing the women and girls away from the enclave. Twenty-six years later, many of Srebrenica’s surviving men and women continue to wrestle with coming forward to talk about their harrowing experiences. Join the Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College for a conversation about the practical, ethical, and gendered challenges involved in conducting oral history interviews with and obtaining consent from genocide survivors. Featuring the authors of Voices from Srebrenica: Survivor Narratives of the Bosnian Genocide (McFarland & Company, 2021), Hasan Hasanović, Head of the Oral History Project at the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial and himself a genocide survivor and Ann Petrila, Professor of the Practice and Coordinator of Global Initiatives at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work, as well as Selma Leydesdorff, Professor of Oral History and Culture at the University of Amsterdam and author of Surviving the Bosnian Genocide: The Women of Srebrenica Speak(Indiana University Press, 2011).

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This event is co-sponsored by the Harriman Institute at Columbia University; the Sam and Frances Fried Holocaust and Genocide Academy at the University of Nebraska at Omaha; the Center for the Study of Genocide & Human Rights at Rutgers University; the Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College; and the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust and Humanity Center.