“A woman who lives alone.”

She remains in the back­ground in the pho­to. She is not loo­king at the came­ra. Her gaze is direc­ted upwards, into the distance. She holds three lar­ge pho­to­graphs, framed school por­traits of her sons Almir and Azmir and a pic­tu­re of her hus­band Abdu­lah. Pass­port pho­tos of hers­elf and her hus­band are tucked into the right-hand cor­ners of the framed pic­tures. We see her with her fami­ly, and we see her alo­ne in the back­ground. In the pic­tu­re she is wea­ring a headscarf. We see her hands befo­re we noti­ce her face. It is the face of a serious, deter­mi­ned woman. We know not­hing about her, about this mother, about this fami­ly, and yet we suspect at first glan­ce that this pho­to is pre­ce­ded by a tra­gic sto­ry. This is becau­se we are fami­li­ar with such images: Sin­ce the 1970s at the latest, they have beco­me sym­bo­lic signs of pro­test against sta­te cri­mes and poli­ti­cal vio­lence.¹ From the “Mad­res de Pla­za de Mayo” (“Mothers of the Squa­re of the May Revo­lu­ti­on”) to her, Hati­dža Meh­me­do­vić, and her “Majke Sre­bre­nice” (“Mothers of Sre­bre­ni­ca”), women hold pic­tures of their dis­ap­peared fami­ly mem­bers into came­ras and demand cla­ri­fi­ca­ti­on as to their whe­re­a­bouts. Their pho­tos have thus beco­me powerful signs of resis­tance and sym­bo­li­ze the mul­ti-laye­red and com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ve cha­rac­ter of pho­to­gra­phy as a poli­ti­cal medi­um.²

The pic­tu­re of Hati­dža was taken by pho­to­grapher Amel Emrić in 2009, 14 years after the geno­ci­de in Sre­bre­ni­ca. When the sol­diers of the Bos­ni­an Serb Army, sup­port­ed by poli­ce and para­mi­li­ta­ry Serb units, con­que­r­ed the UN pro­tec­tion zone of Sre­bre­ni­ca on July 11, 1995, Hati­dža’s fami­ly had alre­a­dy sur­vi­ved a three-year long sie­ge, accom­pa­nied by the most adver­se con­di­ti­ons. They were Bos­ni­aks, Bos­ni­an Mus­lims who had suf­fe­r­ed per­se­cu­ti­on and expul­si­on sin­ce the out­break of the war in Bos­nia-Her­ze­go­vina in April 1992.³ The Dutch UN sol­diers found them­sel­ves over­whel­med by the attack­ing Ser­bi­an tro­ops. It quick­ly beca­me appa­rent that the pro­mi­se of the pro­tec­tion zone was worth not­hing. The Repu­bli­ka Srps­kas army under the com­mand of Rat­ko Mla­dić took con­trol: his sol­diers dro­ve the peo­p­le out, kil­led them in their homes, picked them up in the forests, kil­led them in pits, in for­mer fac­to­ries, on the spot, sim­ply becau­se they were Bos­ni­an Mus­lims. Hati­dža had made it from her vil­la­ge to the UN head­quar­ters in Potoča­ri. Her sons and her hus­band did not trust the UN and wan­ted to walk the 70 kilo­me­t­res to the Bos­ni­an-con­trol­led ter­ri­to­ry through the woods.⁴ They were right: in Potoča­ri, the Ser­bi­an sol­diers sepa­ra­ted men from women in front of the Dutch blue hel­mets. The men were later mur­de­red. Women, child­ren and old peo­p­le were depor­ted to Tuz­la in buses. Hati­dža got on a bus and hoped to meet Abdu­lah, Azim and Almir in Tuz­la. On the side of the road, she saw Bos­ni­aks being taken away with their arms rai­sed. A boy was for­ci­b­ly sepa­ra­ted from his mother and taken away from the bus. She did not belie­ve they would sur­vi­ve, but that they would all be mur­de­red. No one from the UN was the­re to moni­tor what the Serb units were doing to them.

Nevert­hel­ess, she mana­ged to reach the area con­trol­led by the Bos­ni­an army. The­re she wai­ted with other women for her rela­ti­ves, but they never came. After six days, a few others made it and brought back ter­ri­ble sto­ries. Over 8,000 peo­p­le were miss­ing. The sur­vi­vors who had wal­ked through the forest repor­ted arrests, shoo­tings, gre­na­des and death. Hati­dža had sur­vi­ved, but from now on she was alo­ne. Days pas­sed in wai­ting. Weeks of wai­ting. And every day she sear­ched for her rela­ti­ves. News trick­led through, here and the­re sur­vi­vors clai­med to have seen Abdu­lah, others Azmir, others Almir. Hati­dža did­n’t know what to belie­ve. In the refu­gee camps, the sur­vi­vors laun­ched a first initia­ti­ve and coll­ec­ted pho­tos of their “dis­ap­peared”. The­se were often pass­port pho­tos from docu­ments that they had car­ri­ed with them in their pla­s­tic bags when they fled. The women of Sre­bre­ni­ca acted instinc­tively when they dis­play­ed the­se pass­port pho­tos of their hus­bands, giving them a face. Lists of names have a dif­fe­rent effect than pho­to­graphs. And even though Sus­an Son­tag cri­ti­cal­ly asses­sed pass­port pho­tos as the appro­pria­ti­on of indi­vi­du­als and their adapt­a­ti­on to the sche­ma­ta of sta­te clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on and sto­rage,⁵ in this case they con­firm­ed that the dis­ap­peared men had inde­ed lived. With the pass­port pho­tos of their hus­bands, the women bore wit­ness to the fact that the sys­tem nega­ted the exis­tence of the men it had its­elf docu­men­ted. Silence pre­vai­led about their dis­ap­pearance in the Serb-con­trol­led part of Bos­nia-Her­ze­go­vina (Repu­bli­ka Srps­ka). While sur­vi­vors tur­ned to offi­ci­al and semi-offi­ci­al aut­ho­ri­ties, inter­na­tio­nal and natio­nal orga­niza­ti­ons and known and unknown peo­p­le to obtain infor­ma­ti­on about the “dis­ap­peared”, tho­se respon­si­ble in the ter­ri­to­ry of the Repu­bli­ka Srps­ka tried to cover up the mass kil­lings. They ope­ned the mass gra­ves, dug up the human remains and buried them, some­ti­mes hundreds of kilo­me­t­res away, in pits, dams and old open-cast mines.⁶ As few remains as pos­si­ble were to remain in a mass gra­ve in order to con­ce­al the geno­ci­dal natu­re of the crime.

In 2009, when her pic­tu­re was taken, Hati­dža’s sons and hus­band were still con­side­red miss­ing. Sin­ce 1996 and the first dis­co­very of mass gra­ves, she had been sear­ching for them, tog­e­ther with other women from Sre­bre­ni­ca, as part of her orga­niza­ti­on “Majke Sre­bre­nice”, which they offi­ci­al­ly regis­tered as an asso­cia­ti­on in 2002. Hati­dža rose to beco­me its chair­wo­man. The geno­ci­de forced the­se often very tra­di­tio­nal women out of their pri­va­te roles and into the role of acti­vists who made poli­ti­cal demands in public and rai­sed cri­ti­cal ques­ti­ons about the respon­si­bi­li­ty of the inter­na­tio­nal com­mu­ni­ty. Their loss and their united stand gave them moral legi­ti­ma­cy, which they repea­ted­ly used in public. In 2002, Hati­dža was one of the first to return to Sre­bre­ni­ca, living among peo­p­le who shared respon­si­bi­li­ty for the geno­ci­de of Bos­ni­aks, for the mur­der of her fami­ly mem­bers. Peo­p­le who dro­ve buses, who trans­por­ted men, who secu­red shoo­ting sites, who shot.

As a sur­vi­vor, Hati­dža holds up the memo­ry of her miss­ing sons and hus­band with her tes­tim­o­ny. By put­ting her who­le fami­ly in the pic­tu­re, she made it clear what geno­ci­de means for the sur­vi­vors. That they remain alo­ne. Her pic­tu­re stands for the remar­kab­le strugg­le of a mother, sur­vi­vor and acti­vist for truth and jus­ti­ce. A fight against the ongo­ing vio­lence of geno­ci­de deni­al. And a strugg­le to wri­te her own sto­ry, her sto­ry of the geno­ci­de. Her pic­tu­re the­r­e­fo­re inter­wea­ves dif­fe­rent levels of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on: It con­nects the past with the pre­sent, com­me­mo­ra­tes her rela­ti­ves, insists on the fact that they were part of a fami­ly, a com­mu­ni­ty, it remem­bers her child­ren and her hus­band. This pro­cess inte­gra­tes indi­vi­du­al expe­ri­en­ces with broa­der, uni­ver­sal­ly reco­gni­zed prin­ci­ples, pla­cing them within a wider frame­work of visu­al pro­test move­ments across the world. With her self-por­trait, Hati­dža makes a glo­bal­ly reco­gnizable state­ment against for­get­ting, against inju­s­ti­ce, against deni­al, against geno­ci­de, against war. The pho­tos of her fami­ly show her being hap­py in a bet­ter time. They awa­ke in the view­er an inten­se fee­ling of empa­thy becau­se we see peo­p­le who lived a dif­fe­rent life, our life, befo­re the geno­ci­de. They also gene­ra­te soli­da­ri­ty with the suf­fe­ring mother – a “coll­ec­ti­ve mother­hood ”⁷ that is repea­ted­ly rewrit­ten in the visu­al reper­toire from Pie­tà to Käthe Koll­witz and acti­va­tes poli­ti­cal action. At the same time, the con­trast bet­ween the images of the fami­ly and the image of the lonely Hati­dža in the back­ground reminds us of the trau­ma­tic rup­tu­re of her mother­hood. The rup­tu­re that forced her into the public eye and led into resistance.

Her tes­tim­o­ny makes it clear that she rejects the vio­lence and the eth­no­na­tio­na­list poli­ti­cal pro­ject of the Ser­bi­an mili­ta­ry and poli­ti­cal lea­der­ship, which cut her off from her life befo­re the mas­sacre. It took her fami­ly, her land, her gar­den, her house, her pho­to albums and her child­ren’s exer­cise books. Hati­dža’s pic­tu­re shows that she does not accept this vio­lence and does not for­get it. She refu­ses to remain silent. She refu­ses to accept a vio­lent order of war. This refu­sal reminds us that we can­not accept sol­diers mur­de­ring more than 8,000 peo­p­le in just a few days sim­ply becau­se they belong to a cer­tain natio­nal, eth­nic or reli­gious group. It is unac­cep­ta­ble that their mor­tal remains are dug up and buried else­whe­re so that their rela­ti­ves must embark on a deca­des-long pil­grimage from mass gra­ve to mass gra­ve in the hope of fin­ding traces to bury their fathers and sons and hus­bands. It is unac­cep­ta­ble to remain silent about this.

Hati­dža’s image thus illus­tra­tes the cen­tra­li­ty of the pho­to­gra­phed per­son for the ana­ly­sis of the pho­to­graph its­elf. The pho­to­grapher Emrić remains in the back­ground. It is Hati­dža’s actions that deter­mi­ne the mea­ning of the pho­to­graph. It is her life that is shown to us. It is her sto­ry that Hati­dža pres­ents to us, with the strength of a mother who rebels against injustice.

Trans­la­ti­on: Nils Bergmann