The Memorial Center of the Republic of Srpska has started the collection of audio-video testimonies in Foča

The recordings are taking place in the premises of the Memorial Room dedicated to fallen fighters, located within the “Stara Hercegovina” museum.

One of the first testimonies was given by Milijana Drakul, who spoke about the death of her brother Milan Mališ. He was a captain in anti-aircraft defense in the ranks of the Yugoslav People's Army, and later in the Army of the Republic of Srpska. As a young officer, he participated in battles on various fronts, starting from Croatia, and continuing to Kalinovik, Nevesinje, Grahovo, and Treskavica. He was killed on Treskavica on October 4, 1995, just a few weeks before the signing of the Dayton Agreement. Milijana testified about her brother together with their mother Milica Mališ. Testimonies about their loved ones were also left by Cmija Bilinac, Gospava Čolaković, Milan Tadić, Ljubinka Ivanović, and Ljubo Simović.

Dušanka Lalović, secretary of the Organization of Families of Killed and Captured Fighters and Missing Civilians of Foča, notes that the testimonies are full of emotion. “It is hard to listen to mothers when they talk about their children from birth, how they sent them off to war, how they survived their deaths, children who do not remember their fathers but proudly carry their pictures. They open their souls, tell their stories—there are tears—but every story ends with them being proud of their children, their fathers, of their Republic of Srpska, and there is always that sentence: let us preserve the Republic of Srpska,” Lalović emphasized.

According to Ljubomir Tešinić from the Memorial Center of the Republic of Srpska, the goal of this initiative is to create a multimedia archive through which the personal memories of families of the killed and missing will be preserved, and the suffering of the Serbian people during the wars of the 1990s will be presented. “This is the ninth studio center—eight are in Srpska and one in Belgrade. It is difficult to estimate how long the entire effort will take, because the Republic of Srpska has more than 23,000 families who lost someone in the war, and as a people we must not allow any of them to be forgotten,” Tešinić says.

Data from the monograph of the Veterans’ Organization of Foča indicate that more than 400 fighters of the Army of the Republic of Srpska, as well as 148 Serbian civilians, lost their lives from this municipality during the war. The President of the Veterans’ Organization in Foča, Ljubomir Dostić, believes it is important to convey their truth about the wartime events through the personal testimonies of family members. “To reach the final truth—that this was a defensive, patriotic war and that the Serbs in these areas were defending their hearths,” Dostić stated.

The Head of the Municipality of Foča, Milan Vukadinović, emphasizes the strategic importance of this municipality in the wartime events and adds that it is important to remind younger generations of those who gave their lives for the Republic of Srpska. “This is a small contribution to rescuing from oblivion what these people did and to telling future generations that the fighters of the Army of the Republic of Srpska were not aggressors, but true heroes who defended our hearths,” Vukadinović said.

The initiative was also supported by the collective of Radio Foča. Editor-in-Chief Radmila Prvulović stresses that they joined this project with a great sense of responsibility. “It is our moral obligation and social duty, and in a way perhaps we ourselves were eagerly waiting for the opportunity to participate in revealing and exposing all those long-standing media narratives and media propaganda that has been conducted against the Serbs. And even when you are in the minority, truth is still truth,” Prvulović emphasized.

The “Stara Hercegovina” Museum, which houses the Memorial Room, is the only museum institution in the Republic of Srpska with a permanent exhibition dedicated to the last war. Museum Director Danko Mihajlović notes that the collected material will contribute to the modernization of the exhibition through contemporary audio-visual presentation. “The material that the Center will collect will be significant for us because we will use it during the modernization of the exhibition for audio-visual presentation of the events from the past war, with the aim of countering negative propaganda against the Serbian people,” Mihajlović said.

In addition to families of the killed, the project plans to record testimonies of war military invalids, former camp prisoners, victims of torture, and women who survived wartime traumas.

The Director of the Memorial Center of the Republic of Srpska, Denis Bojić, invites all family members of killed and missing civilians and soldiers from the Defense-Patriotic War to share their testimonies and thereby permanently preserve the memory of their loved ones. All those from the municipality of Foča who wish to leave a testimony can contact the office for veterans’ and disability protection at the telephone number: 058 213 302, or the Organization of Families of Killed and Captured Fighters and Missing Civilians of Foča at the telephone number: 065 001 390 (contact person: Dušanka Lalović).

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