2025 marks the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, when Bosnian Serb forces massacred more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys. Yet despite the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’s ruling that the Srebrenica massacre constituted genocide, denial remains prominent in Bosnian Serb political discourse. 

The Srebrenica Memorial Center lies at the heart of efforts to remember the genocide and resist its denial. The center, founded in 2000, is located in Potočari, a village outside the town of Srebrenica. On July 11, 1995, after three years of Bosnian Serb forces surrounding the U.N. declared safe zone in Srebrenica, Serb forces overran the town itself and committed massacres in Potočari and other surrounding areas. Today, one of the center’s core activities is organizing an annual Day of Remembrance on July 11. 

This year’s anniversary comes at a time when museums and sites of memory around the world are grappling with how to be responsible stewards of history in an age of rising ethnonationalism and the shifts in knowledge production and transmission brought by the digital age. Holocaust memorial sites, for example, are increasingly considering turning to digital tools such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality to connect with younger audiences, amid troubling levels of limited Holocaust knowledge and the nearing prospect of a “post-survivor world” with no living survivors left to support educational programming. 

The Srebrenica Memorial Center has also entered the digital memorialization sphere with the app Srebrenica 2.0. Developed in collaboration with the Italian cultural association ARCI Bolzano, the center describes the app as “an innovative platform that connects the memories of the Srebrenica genocide with future generations through modern technologies.” The app offers a virtual map of Srebrenica and the surrounding areas where massacres occurred, with key sites marked. Users can access key historical documents, photos, and videos connected to each of these sites. For example, clicking on the marker for the former department store in Srebrenica brings up a video of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladić stating it is time to take revenge against the “Turks,” referring to Bosnian Muslims. Mladić was the leader of the Republika Srpska forces and was later found guilty of committing genocide in Srebrenica by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

For Andrea Rizza Goldstein, one of the managers of the Srebrenica 2.0 project, remembering Srebrenica is a unique challenge. Srebrenica is, in his view, a dystopic situation marked by the intentional erasure and denial of the genocide by the now-Serbian-governed municipality, which means one can move through the town while seeing no acknowledgement of the violence behind its present state. The town of Srebrenica is now part of the Serb-majority Republika Srpska, led by a Serb mayor who has denied the genocide, similarly to Republika Srpska’s President Milorad Dodik.

The political challenges to physically bearing witness in the town, according to Goldstein, make a virtual space a vital way to remember in Srebrenica. And for Goldstein, remembering what occurred here is vital for understanding how to prevent future genocides. 

Goldstein has extensive experience in the field of memory, as a trainer for citizenship education projects and as a member of the Memory and Anti-Fascism Commission of ARCI. Goldstein has also worked with international NGOs promoting inter-ethnic dialogue with young Serbs and Bosnian Muslims in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, in addition to leading visits to Srebrenica for activists from abroad. 

Kosovo 2.0 spoke with Goldstein to discuss the development of Srebrenica 2.0, the purpose and politics of memory, and the possibilities afforded by digital memory in addressing the challenges of remembering Srebrenica. 

K2.0: Can you explain how the app came about and the purpose you had in mind for its development? 

Andrea Rizza Goldstein: We noticed that it was very difficult for foreign visitors to imagine: “What was Srebrenica?” in that period [from 1992 to 1995]. Still nowadays, it is really difficult to imagine that it was like an open-air concentration camp for three years with thousands and thousands of people living on the streets, every house crowded with people, and so on. 

For the youngsters from both Serb and Bosnian Muslim communities, it was as far in their perception of time as the Second World War, with the difference that the wars in the ‘90s were in color and the Second World War is black and white. [That was] the only difference, because it was so distant for them and they couldn’t imagine that [the genocide] happened in that way. 

So we had these layers of needs to fill in the representation of the memory for the people that came there [to Srebrenica]. They listened to the narratives of the witnesses and so on, but they couldn’t imagine how it was. That’s the first thing.

The second purpose was to make, like, a resistance action against the denial of the genocide and of what happened there, because we think it’s very important to understand what happened there during those three years of war. The genocide didn’t happen only on the 11th of July. All the people that come to Srebrenica say, “Aha, okay, yeah, the genocide in Srebrenica, the Serbs came into town, they killed more than 8,000 people, and that’s it.” No. You have a lot before that, and we can explain why the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina began, how we came to the 11th of July, what the role of the international community was, and how the genocide happened and where it happened.

Why was a digital platform chosen, and how does it fit with those goals? 

Because there is no memorialization in Srebrenica. The administration in the last 15 years is completely denying the genocide. So they wouldn’t allow it to have permission to make some physical remembrance in the city. We thought at the beginning to make something like the Stolpersteine [memorial markers placed in the ground to commemorate the last known place of residence, work, or school of the victims of Nazi persecution]. But it was impossible because we would have had to ask the permission of the municipality and no way they would have agreed.

The second option was to make something like QR codes, but you also need physical places to put them, and the friends of Srebrenica [people affiliated with the Memorial Center] said they will last two days, and then someone will scratch them off. And that’s why the only possible place was a virtual space. 

And it’s very important because you can see the difference between what a community wants to remember, and wants to forget.  For example, in the very center of Srebrenica, there’s the place where [in July 1995] General Ratko Mladić made a speech and said, “It’s time to take revenge against the Turks [referring to Bosnian Muslims].”

So that’s the place where the genocide was ordered, and you have no sign of it. You have another sign that’s really absurd, a monument to peace in the world, where you have three kids that dance around the world, and so it’s dystopic. Totally dystopic.

So, there was a challenge posed by the physical landscape?  

We saw that young Serbs had a huge social pressure, and they couldn’t afford to enter the memorial site of Srebrenica. [We] had some cases [like] two friends, two Serb guys from very nationalistic families. They decided to make, like, a catharsis in their identity and to start a dialogue with the Muslims about what happened. And so we sent them in Belgrade, [Serbia] to make them acquire some education about the Yugoslav wars and the genocide in Srebrenica, and then they decided to visit the [Srebrenica] memorial site. Obviously, the family was informed and not to, let’s say, to not have problems in the community, the two guys were thrown out of their homes and they have a lot of problems with friends in the school. 

So, there are the conditions to make a group visit or [an] individual visit with young Serbs from the region to the memorial site. How can you have the possibility to get informed the or let’s say, to hear the other side of the story? So that’s why we choose to make a digital space that is portable on private devices like mobile phones, where everyone can access it privately. So we made a huge communication campaign last year in the main Bosnian media. So, we are sure that the whole community of Srebrenica and around Republika Srpska knows that this application exists.

Screenshots from the application.

Could you speak more about the importance of connecting to these physical sites of memory? Why is it so important that people can connect written accounts of what happened to the places where it happened?  

Imagine not having Auschwitz. With Auschwitz, you have the original place where the things happened conserved in all its meaning. Because the places speak. Places tell stories, you can see the places tell us about who built them, about who was inside, about who isn’t alive anymore. Imagine not having Auschwitz, how difficult it would be to understand the dimensions of Birkenau, for example. But now someone tells you: “Yes, here in this place [this happened]”, where you see that the camp was so big and you can see the end, you can imagine. So the places are, I think, really important to locate the stories.

There are five main places where the main killings of the genocide [in Srebrenica] were done, and they have a lot of meaning. First, they are the crime scene, so it’s important for the trials and for justice to do research and prove that it’s true that they were killed in that place at that number. Second, it’s important for the survivors, for the wives, and for the kids to have a place to come to commemorate their father, who was killed in that place. And third, it’s important to reconstruct the story. Why were they brought to that place and not another one? Who helped? Did the people who were around there see something or not? Which community lived in that place? You can reconstruct the topography of the genocide and understand the so-called socialization of the genocide, so you can figure out the mechanisms that made it possible. 

So, the app provides a foundation for that sort of imagination of what happened?

Yeah, we tried it. This was the concept that we shared with the Memorial Center and they were absolutely happy to have the possibility to enlarge in a virtual space. The app enlarges the virtual and physical territory of the Memorial Center because now the app goes out until Srebrenica town, to the places of extermination [in the mountains surrounding the town].

And that’s the same when you go to Auschwitz, you hear the guides that tell you “Ah before Birkenau, you had the Judenrampe, and Judenrampe was six kilometers from Auschwitz.” Where? Where is it? You cannot imagine it. What is a Judenrampe? If you had something like an app you can see, “Ah okay I’m here, the Judenrampe is here.” So, I can imagine the trains that are coming, the people walking and passing through Arbeit macht frei [a phrase found above the main entrance to Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps which translates into English to mean Work sets you free]. Otherwise, I cannot connect the information and where I am now, in this moment.

And can you say more about the possibilities afforded by digital memory, specifically to add to the goals of memory? 

It was in 2018, I think, that I brought two young guys from Srebrenica, one Serb and one Muslim, to Auschwitz. And they started to talk between themselves and they said. “Now we are thinking about the fact that we have no idea where we are walking in Srebrenica. Because, okay, I know that my father was killed there, but I was born in 1994, so I have no images in my memory of what Srebrenica was before the war and what Srebrenica was during the war. So I’m walking with no memory, with nothing in my head, no pictures, no stories from my grandparents or my father. I don’t know what this park was, what this house was, what this place was. And so, I live in a dimension that is dystopic because I’m here today. I know something, but I don’t know where I’m stepping.” 

If memory doesn’t have the function to open a discussion about what happened, it has no sense. It’s like a cold memory; it has no practical power. Memory should be like a base to open a discussion about what happened before, because the people that lived there after the genocide live in a structure — a social, cultural, anthropological structure, that has an origin and it’s the genocide. So you are influenced by this structure, but you don’t know that structure. 

The only way possible [to address this] was to make a digital space where we have the total freedom to map, mark every place we want. This was the process and why we chose to use this kind of instrument, that is, digital memory. And going back to Auschwitz, at that time they didn’t have a digital tool that tells you where the Judenrampe was or where Monowitz [a sub-camp of Auschwitz] was, because otherwise you arrive there with the buses and you are disgorged in front of Arbeit macht frei and have no idea of the topography of the camp. 

I think it’s very important to know the system. If you understand the system, maybe you understand a lot of other things. A lot of people think that every Jew passed under this Arbeit macht frei, this very famous Arbeit macht frei. But it’s not true. For example, Primo Levi [a famous Italian-Jewish writer and Auschwitz survivor] only saw it after ‘45, he returned there [after the war], and he passed under Arbeit macht frei.

It’s the same [problem] to understand the dynamics of the genocide of Srebrenica. A lot of people think that it was so: in 1995, the Serbs won the battle against the Blue Helmets [UN peacekeepers], they entered the city, and they killed 8,000 people. No, it’s not so. It doesn’t happen that way. And I think it’s very important to have a prelude. You have to include what happened from ‘92 to ‘95, to understand one huge topic: the responsibility of the international community in the mismanagement of the war, the crisis from ‘92 to ‘95, and the responsibility and the failure of the international community in letting the genocide of Srebrenica happen. 

Why is it a huge topic? Because if the lessons from Auschwitz are about the importance of human rights, the lessons from Srebrenica are about the need for the instruments to prevent genocide. We already had human rights and international justice [law and treaties] during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. What was difficult to implement were the instruments of prevention of the genocide. And this is the problem nowadays with Gaza and with Ukraine. 

So the failure of the international community [in Srebrenica] has a lot of reasons. You have to understand them to open a discussion. Memory has to have the power to open a discussion in the present. The model of Srebrenica has passed without any discussion in the public opinion around the world. There are commemorations, there is sadness about the victims, and so on, but the real use of this memory should be to ask, “Okay, why is genocide happening? What is going wrong? What do we need to have instruments of prevention? Why don’t we have blue helmets anymore? Who can go to stop Putin and Netanyahu?” 

The origin of these questions is the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the genocide of Srebrenica. And this digital tool [Srebrenica 2.0] can be used by everyone, around the world, to ask these questions because it’s free. 

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Feature Image: Srebrenica Memorial Center.

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