A “Thin Place” - Srebrenica #2

It is said that “Thin Places” are the spaces where life here on earth and heaven are at their closest. But here in Srebrenica it is where the space between earth and hell seems to have disappeared.

A day of meeting the survivors and mothers and visiting the museum and memorial. My mind is still to overwhelmed so nothing coherent or reflective yet - give it time Louise - but there are moments that weigh heavy tonight...

A recording of a Father being ordered to call to his son hiding in the mountains to come to where the soldiers were, resulting in both their deaths. His voice is echoing around my head...

Peacekeeping soldiers tearing a child from the arms of his mother and handing him to his executioners....

State engineering companies providing the diggers to destroy the mass graves....

The survivor telling us how much he had wanted to die in that moment when he was shot, to end the suffering...

Walking out of the film - having watched men and boys being shot on screen - as a school party came in - with teenage doppelgängers of those on film....

That there is a new Major of Srebrenica who denies the genocide ever took place...the very place where it happened...

The mother who set up her shop across the road from the memorial cemetery so she could be near the recovered remains of her husband and son. She spends her days with them still....

The reek of corrupted power, using “othering” to exploit and manipulate...

And how invisible the women are in the formal records of the time - a concern they may be written out of history unless their stories are shared...