We have completed our eighth action of marking unmarked sites of atrocities. With nine new marked locations, that makes 67 sites we have marked ourselves and one we marked in cooperation with the Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Croatia.
On a foggy morning, we set of from Sarajevo to meet our associate in Vitez, a war veteran who was to be our guide to the sites we were planning to mark. It was going to be a long day. The first site was in the centre of town, the Culture Centre in Vitez is the hub of social activity and also houses the offices of Croat Homeland War associations. In 1993, the basement of the building was used as a detention facility for Bosniaks from Vitez. The facility was under the control of the HVO Knights Brigade. We were attaching our signs right above the basement rooms where the detention facility was situated, which attracts the attention of people working in nearby offices. They ask us who we are and why we are attaching a sticker to the Culture Centre. As we’re answering their questions, we see a man walking straight towards the wall where we had attached the sign reading “site of atrocity”, he reads it and tears down right in front of us. Another passer-by tells us that things will never change with people like that man around and that we should be marking the sites. We leave the location with photos of how we had marked it.
Legacies and the cursed war
We continue on to Kruščica, a village near Vitez, and its imposing wooden Black House with a memorial plaque in front dating from after the Second World War when the forces of the Independent State of Croatia had established a detention facility there for those considered undesirable by the regime, mostly communist party members and Jews. In 1993, this state-owned memorial was soon repurposed for the new war. ARBiH units used it as a detention facility for Croats from Vitez. The building is now in ruins, as if the ghosts of the past are holding it hostage. This “double” camp seems like an inescapable fate. Next to the plaque commemorating victims from the Second World War is now our sticker marking it as a site of atrocities.
The next location was on a hill to the north of Vitez, where the road turns off towards Zenica. For us, this site was perhaps the one that made us most nervous because of the heightened tensions among the local population since a few days ago, when a number of ARBiH veterans from the area were arrested on suspicion of war crimes. The fact that the building was located in the centre of the village did not do much for our sense of security. The Social Centre in Počulica served as a detention facility for Croats from the area in 1993. On 24 April 1993, a member of ARBiH seeking revenge fired shots through the door, killing three and wounding nine prisoners in the building. We mark the site with just one curious passer-by looking on and we continue to our next location, the Dubravica Primary School in Vitez.
In 1993, the Dubravica Primary School served as a detention site for Bosniaks from Vitez. We place the sign in front of the school, taking care not to disrupt the schoolchildren and the integrity of the institution. Having completed our action in Vitez, we head on west and I keep thinking about the hard time that Vitez had in the war with civilian casualties and war crimes that have marked the municipality. I try to reconstruct how it must have been. The old part of Vitez was under the control of the Army of BiH, but it was encircled by HVO forces, with the rest of the municipality under their control, but again encircled by the Army of BiH. The cursed war.
Krajina’s death mountains
On the evening at the end of our first day, we met with the president of the prison camp survivors association of Bosanski Petrovac. We presented our activities and told him about our plan to mark nearby sites. He expressed support for our efforts and told us how to reach former detention facilities in Kozila, Prekaja and Manjača where the prison camp survivors hold commemorations once a year. He could not confirm anything about the site near the motel in Bosanski Petrovac where, according to the indictment against Atif Dudaković and other members of ARBiH, in September 1995, a group of Serb civilians and soldiers was executed, because at that time, he had already been expelled from Bosanski Petrovac. In Bosanski Petrovac, we were joined by our associate and veteran from Bihać.
The first site we planned to mark on the second day of the action was the Kozila forest estate, once belonging to the Bosanski Petrovac Municipality, but today belonging to the Drinić Municipality in Republika Srpska. The winding but asphalted road through the forest lead to Kozila, where in 1992, Bosniaks from Bosanski Petrovac were held in detention. Most of the buildings have been torn down and a hunting lodge was built in their place.
After photographing and marking Kozila, we set off for Drvar where we marked the abandoned Prekaja Primary School, now in ruins.
Together with Kozila and Kamenica (which we marked in 2016), the Prekaja Primary School made up a detention complex where units of the VRS Second Krajina Corps held numerous Croat and Bosniak civilians and soldiers from across western BiH prisoner, subjecting them to inhumane conditions and forced labour.
The next location was close to the intersection of roads leading to Drvar, Ključ and Bihać on the way into Bosanski Petrovac. In September 1995, during the SANA 95 operation, the Motel at the intersection was the command HQ of the advancing 5th Corps of ARBiH. Following interrogations at the command HQ, many Serb prisoners, at least four and, according to the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, up to 40 persons were executed in the field behind the Motel.
Having marked this site, we continued down AVNOJ [Antifascist Council of the People’s Liberation of Yugoslavia] Road that connects Jajce and Bihać to reach our final planned location for the day, Manjača.
Symbol of imprisonment
The Manjača Camp became a synonym of imprisonment already in 1991, during the war in Croatia, when it was under JNA control and its hangars served as the central detention facility for prisoners of war from Croatia. The facility was shut down at the end of 1991. It was reopened in 1992 when over 5000 Croats and Bosniaks from across BiH were held prisoner there. Prisoners were either brought to Manjača directly or transferred there from other detention facilities, especially those around Prijedor. They were subjected to inhumane conditions, abuse, beatings and forced labour. By the time the facility was closed in December 1992, at least ten prisoners had died as a result of being torture there. The facility was run by VRS units. Today, the site is a working farm estate and when we arrived, we asked for permission to take photographs. They refused, so we opted for a “guerilla” action. Pretending that we had given up and moved away from the main gates, we set up our sign and took photos. We don’t like doing this, but sometimes it’s the only way.
The last location on the third day was in the village of Grabovica near Kotor Varoš. The Grabovica Primary School had been a detention facility for Bosniaks and Croats from Kotor Varoš captured while fleeing the village of Večići. Some 250-300 prisoners were held at the school building, subjected to inhumane conditions, abuse and interrogations. In the night between 2 and 3 November 1992, 161 prisoners from this facility were executed in the school yard. After marking this site, we went to Travnik and met with representatives of the Vrbanja victims’ association which brings together victims and their families from Kotor Varoš and we told them about our action to mark the site.
Since our seventh action, our activities have also expanded to Croatia where, with our support, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights marked Pavilion 22 at the Zagreb Fair.
Are things changing?
After our eighth action and 68 marked sites of atrocities, we can say that we have travelled through the whole of BiH, investigated much of its bloody past and realised that this was just the beginning. We wonder whether it is good to mark every blood-soaked stone. We’re not sure, but we know it is important to speak out and warn about what happened at each of those stones. The culture of memory is not made up of just monuments, the culture of memory also means fostering constructive narratives about the past. If we stop speaking out, the past will come back. We must create commemoration opportunities that will not serve as inspiration for future conflicts.
Our activities continue on social networks.
You can view the video from the action here:
Some of the media reports are available at the following links: