Starting in 1991, 46 years after the Holocaust in Nazi Germany was revealed to the world, ethnic cleansing happened again in Bosnia. This was after people vowed for genocide to never happen again. Unfortunately, humanity had not changed. As George Santayana said, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The purpose of educating people about the horrors of the Holocaust is to prevent such atrocities from happening in the future. Yet during July of 1995 in the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica, “more than seven thousand boys and men were systematically slaughtered in a carefully planned operation” (Markusen). Although the Serbs, Muslims, and the Croats all committed ethnic cleansing, “there is a general consensus that the vast majority of the perpetrators were Serbian and the vast majority of victims were Muslims” (Markusen).
In the Boston Globe, the July 15, 1992 article “Croatioan units join battle for control of Bosnian capital” describes the Serbian forces brutal attack on Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. This article was a current event when it was written, and thus is a snapshot of when the genocide was occurring. According to Dr. Arif Amajkic, head of Bosnia’s Medical Crisis Committee at the time, “All over Bosnia, genocide is being committed on a massive scale” (Nickerson). Radio reports further claim that “Muslim males have reportedly been crucified while women and girls have been raped before being buried alive (Nickerson). The world knew exactly what was happening, but did not act quickly enough to stop these crimes against humanity. The United States in particular “chose to maintain a policy of disengagement…emphasizing the different, unique character of the Holocaust from what was taking place in the former Yugoslavia and by underlining that ‘there are atrocities on all sides’ (Markusen 77).
As revealed in an NPR broadcast interview of two Muslim survivors of the Bosnian Genocide, the past Holocaust in Nazi Germany was repeated. In the interview of the couple, Dr. Edina Karahodzic said, “We were so mixed and we were always saying no, it’s not going to happen to us. There are so many intermixed marriages, so many kids from those marriages, so many, I mean, friendships that we just didn’t believe that” (Balkan). But Dr. Said Karahodzic, the husband of Edina sad, “Overnight, we – everybody lost job. But beside paychecks, we lost bank accounts” (Balkan). Their interviewer, Matt Sepic said “all non-Serbs were forced to wear white armbands” (Balkan). Then many of their friends and relatives went missing. In the interview, Dr. S. Karahodzic said, “Sometimes, somebody ask us, can we forgive? I always said, yes we can. But to do that, somebody have to say I’m sorry” (Balkan).
The fact that genocide was repeated again in Bosnia in the 1990’s after the Holocaust in Nazi Germany questions whether or not inhumanity is constant. We have Holocaust survivors to remind us to never repeat genocide again, yet ethnic cleansing did happen again not only in Bosnia, but in Rwanda and Darfur. Under Josef Tito, leader of Yugoslavia from 1945 – 1980, “politics based on ethnicity were discouraged. There was for example, a high rate of intermarriage among the different ethnic groups, particularly in urban areas” (Markusen). However, after the fall of Tito, heavily nationalistic leaders rose to power, once again basing politics on ethnicity. Humanity still has yet to learn from its history.
