Based in and around the derelict battery factory that served as the Potočari UN base, this memorial centre incorporates a major display entitled Srebrenica Genocide – The Failure of the International Community. However the main focus of the complex is the extensive cemetery directly across the road, with row after sentinel row of pointed white Islamic-style gravestones, each commemorating a reburied victim.
More bodies are added each year as the painstaking examination of bone fragments, rotted clothing and DNA samples slowly reveals the identities of more 'missing' individuals, dumped originally in mass graves and often reburied several times in an effort to hide the crime. Within the cemetery, a one-room subterranean photographic gallery powerfully evokes the trauma of this heartbreaking identification process.
You could easily spend hours exploring the main exhibition, starting by watching a 30-minute film and then examining the photographs, in-depth displays, graffiti left by Dutch peacekeepers and video testimonies of survivors.
The deeply moving experience is made all the more intense when accompanied by a guide – likely a survivor whose own family was decimated in the events.
