Jews and Muslims commemorate Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia together

SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Jews and Muslims gathered in Bosnia on Monday on the eve of the 28th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.

More than 8,000 Bosniak – mainly Muslim – men and boys were killed in Srebrenica in July 1995 after Bosnian Serb forces took control of the eastern town.

The slaughter was classified as genocide by two U.N. tribunals.

Menachem Rosensaft, general counsel of the World Jewish Congress, said Jews and Muslims must ensure that such atrocities are not repeated in the future.

Founded in 1936, the World Jewish Congress is the leading international organization connecting and protecting Jewish communities in more than 100 countries.

Rosensaft led a delegation of Jewish scholars and young diplomats to attend a conference on preserving the collective memory of genocide victims.

“If we as Jews and as Muslims understand that we are also joined by that pain, we can build on that constructively to also forge the world beyond suffering in which (genocide) becomes unimaginable,” he said.

The conference also addressed issues of Holocaust and genocide denial.

The conference was jointly organized by the World Jewish Congress and the Srebrenica Memorial Center.

Rosensaft’s parents survived Nazi concentration camps in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.

The Srebrenica massacre was the bloody climax of the 1992-95 Bosnian war that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia.

In this war, Bosnian Serbs fought against the country’s two other main ethnic groups – Croats and Bosniaks.

In July 1995, Bosnian Serbs overran a UN-protected refuge in Srebrenica.

They separated Muslim Bosniak men, chased them through forests, and slaughtered them.

Serb leaders in Bosnia and neighboring Serbia continue to deny that genocide took place in Srebrenica.

However, the remains of the massacre’s victims are still being excavated from mass graves and identified through DNA analysis.