A ko će nama vjerovati?
Crochet-patterns (2025)
International criminal law classifies the massacres that took place during the fall of Srebrenica as genocide. Many other mass killings that took place between 1992 and 1995 during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina fell below that qualification, often due to “insufficient evidence.”
In Bosnian households, elaborately woven clothing textiles are common decorative items.
These specific crochet patterns are connected to stories tied to each of the phases of genocide, and originate from Kozarac (municipality Prijedor, Bosnia and Hercegovina) - the “biggest small town in the world.”
Although the horrors are not always directly recognizable in the chosen motifs, they are deeply embedded in the patterns and come from often unspeakable experiences.
THE 11 PHASES (OF GENOCIDE)
1. Classification
The society is divided into a we-group and a they-group, often on the basis of ethnicity, religion, or nationality.
The they-group is viewed as inferior and deviating from the norm (the we-group).
In Kozarac, and in Bosnia more broadly, little distinction was made between people based on religion, work, or relationships in the years before the war.
Shortly before the war, differences were increasingly emphasized, and Bosniaks were, for example, called “bearded Muslims,” while non-Serbs were called “Ustaše” (a fascist ultranationalist movement).
2. Symbolisation
The they-group is given symbols or names to make them recognizable.
On 31 May 1992 the non-Serb population of the municipality of Prijedor, including Kozarac, was ordered to make themselves visible by hanging white sheets from their windows and tying white bands around their arms.
3. Discrimination
Laws and regulations are introduced to limit the rights of the they-group. They are isolated, often in ghettos or concentration camps.
In Kozarac, Bosniaks had their electricity and phone connections cut; they were forbidden to travel freely. Schools were closed and a curfew was imposed. Muslims and Croats - with the exception of a few Serbs who stood up for them - were fired, arrested, or accused of being paramilitaries. The crochet-pattern on the left shows the gates to Omarska.
4. Dehumanization
The they-group is no longer seen as human - more as diseased or impure, a threat that must be eliminated.
Media, art, and culture contribute to this dehumanizing image.
Since the 1980s, politics, media, and art increasingly portrayed everything Serbian as noble victimhood and everything “Turkish” (Bosniak) as evil.
In 1992 the Bosnian-Serb politician Biljana Plavšić, later convicted of genocide, called Bosniaks “genetically deformed people,” a danger that needed to be surgically removed.
5. Organization
Detailed planning: leaders are cleansed of members of the they-group, and paramilitary groups are established to carry out abuses.
The political and military top plays a central steering role.
The little personal belongings preserved since the partisan era were collected and redistributed among the local population, while propaganda was spread depicting population groups as threats to each other.
6. Polarization
Hate propaganda. Moderate voices within the we-group are silenced because they could provide connection.
Before the war, TV and radio stations on Mount Kozara were taken over, and nationalist propaganda was spread. Journalists were told that Muslim extremists were attacking the town. After the war, it turned out that all 16 mosques had been destroyed, while all the towns churches had remained intact.
7. Preparation
Name lists are made; bulldozers and materials for mass graves are made ready. Everything is carefully prepared. Terms like “self-defense,” “civil war,” or “conflict” conceal genocidal intentions.
In the Prijedor region three concentration camps were set up:
Omarska (mine complex), Keraterm (ceramic factory), and Trnopolje (school building with surrounding grounds).
These so-called “transit camps” became places of torture, rape, and murder. All three buildings are again in use today for these original purposes.
8. Persecution
The they-group is identified and completely isolated, often in concentration camps or ghettos.
The first killings are carried out to test how the international community will respond.
The image on the left depicts so called 'fire shadows', peaking above windows and other openings of burned houses. On the right the largest civilist cementary.
9. Mass Murder
Organized and systematic, with Srebrenica as the deepest point.
Next to the “white house” (shown in step 7) in Omarska, every morning there would lay at least 10, sometimes up to 40 bodies.
Murder there happened very slowly, and very brutally.
There was a leather jacket going around in the camp, 'lend out' to anyone who was called out for so called "interrogations" (torture).
When Emir Karabašić was summoned for such "interrogations" by his formerly very close if not allegedly best friend Duško Tadić (a policeman, karate trainer, bar owner - then turned camp guard, known for his perverse preference of genital mutilation and forcing prisoners to sexually assaulting each other - later being the first and for an unfortunate long time only warcriminal prosecuted by the ICTY in the Hague) he refused the jacket, as he knew he wouldn't survive this.
As reported by witnessing inmates, during this murder, Dusko played the song 'Pusti me da zivim' by Sinan Sakic.
Tadić was sentenced to 20 years in 1997, released in 2008, and today (on Facebook seemingly not unhappily) lives in Serbia with his family.
The crochet-pattern is based on the leather jacket that Tadic wore during the ICTY trial on 26 April 1995.
10. Denial
Perpetrators and allies minimize the number of victims, destroy evidence of genocide, or present crimes as normal.
In Bosnia, mass graves were repeatedly re-dug to obscure them.
In Prijedor, a permanent memorial for 102 murdered children has been requested, petitioned, and protested for since 2012, but the local authorities refuse to allow as little as a plaque with the names. Meanwhile, monuments for fallen Serbian soldiers are widely present.
As a response, survivors commemorate the victims on 31 May by putting on white ribbons and placing 102 white roses on the floor in a circle in the city center as a temporary monument.
11. Glorification
When denial continues, perpetrators are glorified and monuments erected. The genocide is presented as a necessary cleansing or even heroic.
In Bosnia, including Prijedor, murals appear glorifying war criminals such as Ratko Mladić as heroes. Murals of partisan victories from WWII and the Yugoslav era are repainted to reflect the 1990s war, attempting to tie the images together to rewrite history.
