About the project

"The Lives Behind the Fields of Death" is a joint project by the Srebrenica Memorial Center and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network Bosnia and Herzegovina, which filmed 100 testimonies from surviving witnesses of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.

The content produced during the project forms part of the permanent exhibit at the Srebrenica Memorial Center museum in Potocari.

Through the project, the Memorial Center and BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina want to link individual testimonies with items in the museum collection of the Memorial Center which have been donated by genocide survivors.

By giving space to families of victims and sharing stories about people killed in the Srebrenica genocide, BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Memorial Center want to contribute to MATRA’s project goal "to contribute to social change" by countering the denial of genocide and discrimination against post-war returnees to Srebrenica who lost their loved ones in the genocide.

The primary target group of the project are genocide victims, their families and people directly or indirectly affected by the crime, as well as returnees to Srebrenica and its broader surroundings.

Through this project, BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina is giving voice and space in the public sphere to victims so they can share their stories, while the Memorial Center will collect and keep the personal items of victims who were found in mass graves and use them for exhibitions, telling stories about the real lives cut short by the 1995 genocide.

The significance of this project is reflected in the preservation of testimonies for posterity, as many have not lived to tell their stories. Two people interviewed during the project, Djulsa Velic and Senahid Mehmedovic, passed away while other testimonies were still being filmed. Once all the testimonies had been filmed, another interviewee, Hajra Catic, also passed away.

The filming began in October 2020 and continued in Srebrenica, Sarajevo and Tuzla throughout 2021.

During the project, a documentary based on the testimonies, as well as a documentary about the filming of the project itself, were produced.

Video content and exhibits are part of a permanent exhibition that is on display at the Memorial Center in Potocari, Srebrenica.

The project is financed by the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands through its MATRA – Regional Rule of Law Programme.