Trnopolje and Omarska

On Monday and Tuesday nights our group stayed at a peace center in the town of Kozarac. Kozarac is a predominantly Muslim town in Republika Srpska (the Serbian entity within Bosnia). It is also located near a string of concentration camps. We visited two of them during our stay.

The first was Trnopolje. We visited with a woman named Emsuda. She runs the peace center and was also detained in Trnopolje during the war. As we visited the site she told us her story. She was "lucky" - her family secured a small room near the rear of the building, so they escaped the notice of the Serbs who every night went through the camp raping, torturing, and shooting the detainees. Her other stories, compiled from various victims, were horrifying. Family members were forced to rape each other, torture was commonplace, and the shooting started at sunset and went on until dawn. Trnopolje was one of the more well known concentration camps - the pivotal image of the war (starving men behind barbed wire) was taken there. As a result, the camp was shut down relatively quickly.

The camp was run in a school and adjacent building. Today the school is once again in use and Bosniak children must attend school in the very rooms were their parents were detained. The adjacent building was used as a discoteque for years. As we walked the grounds, I noticed beer caps everywhere. There were children playing football in the field. There is a complete lack of respect for the suffering people faced there. Even worse, at the front of the building is a memorial to the fallen Serb soldiers. This is completely disrespectful because no Serb soldiers died in the area, so its placement is purely for the purpose of distorting history. The camp I visited last year had a memorial and was no longer used, so seeing this was very shocking to me.

Emsuda has been working to have the memorial removed. She has had some success. Schoolchildren (including Bosniaks whose parents were detained at the camp) used to be required to place flowers at the memorial on holidays. That is no longer allowed, although she still sees flowers placed there on holidays. Hopefully the memorial will be moved in upcoming years - once that is done, acceptance and healing can begin.