Ziad speaks softly and articulately over Skype, even as he describes the atrocities he has experienced. It has been less than a year since he left his family behind in war-torn Syria, hoping for the chance at a better life.

Now living in Europe, he still fears for his family. As a result, he is unwilling to reveal both his real name and current whereabouts.

Ziad was an organizer in the Syrian uprising that led to the civil war. He endured arrest and torture, and witnessed his friends fall amidst shots fired by the government forces sent to quell the 2011 protests.

The conflict that erupted out of those protests would evolve into a complicated war that has cost more than 200,000 people their lives and empowered ISIS—the terrorist organization that most recently claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks—to increase its territory and influence.

But, in 2011 when the uprising began, ISIS was still just an Iraqi cell of al-Qaeda. It was before Syria splintered and became ground zero for a proxy-war between several different countries, including the United States and Russia who have offered support on opposite sides. It was also before the body of three-year-old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi washed up on the shores of Turkey, sparking outcry around the world.

These are the things that now occupy both political focus and media attention. World leaders are grappling with how to solve the terrorist threats posed by ISIS and what to do with the 4 million refugees who have fled the violence and devastation.

The aftermath of the war is likely to be remembered; But, Ziad fears that the history of the uprising—and its causes—is being erased. That is why he has started collecting and archiving videos filmed during demonstrations in 2011 and 2012 to help historically preserve the protests—and make sure the world remembers what happened in Syria before the war.

In 2014, Ziad began the complicated endeavor of collecting the videos—scouring video sites like YouTube and LiveLeak—and cataloging the videos so they can be more easily archived. He posted his plans in a Reddit community dedicated to collecting, verifying, and organizing current information about the Syrian Civil War, and immediately, others chimed in with support and offered assistance.

Named “The Forgotten Revolution,” the collection spans over 200 videos. Next, Ziad says, the archive will be integrated into a searchable database that includes updated information about the uprising and what’s currently happening in Syria.

It is slow and complicated work, but Ziad and others from the community are dedicated. It’s worth it, he says, so that people will understand and know the full story behind the war.

“It saddens me that people don’t know why these things happened,” Ziad says. “They don’t know why the people went to the streets.

He pauses before solemnly adding, “And they don’t know what happened to them.”

* * * * *

Ziad was 16 when he first learned about the massacre.

In Syria, he says, it was rare to speak about the President or the atrocities committed by the ruling regime, in anything but hushed voices.

“Usually people would say, ‘ever since the incident,’ or, ‘since the events,’—something like that,” Ziad explains. “So finally I asked my father about the things that happened in the past.”

Pressed for information, his father let him in on what occurred in 1982 in the Syrian city of Hama.

Insurgents from the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic organization that was founded in Egypt in 1928, had risen up against the government. Under the orders of President Hafez al-Assad, the Syrian army leveled the city in response.

Over the course of three weeks, Hama was showered in gunfire. The city center was bombed to make way for tanks that rolled through in search of rebels. By the end, between 20,000 and 40,000 Syrian civilians had been slaughtered. In 2011, The Guardian called the 1982 Hama massacre “the single bloodiest assault by an Arab ruler against his own people in modern times.”

The massacre may have ended that uprising, but it also left a dark mark on history—and in the memories of the Syrian people. Ziad says hearing about what happened, even years later, sparked a fire.

“I started to build political awareness and form opinions,” Ziad recalls. “I wanted to know, why is Syria like this? But it became apparent—it was because of the state-sponsored corruption. That is how my political drive began.”

He pocketed that political drive for more than a decade. But on March 15, 2011, videos surfaced on YouTube showed more than 200 demonstrators in Damascus marching for the “Day of Rage” against the Syrian government—now run by al-Assad’s son, Bashar al-Assad.

Following in the footsteps of citizens from other Middle Eastern nations who rose up against their governments during the Arab Spring, it would be the start of something big in Syria. Within months, hundreds of thousands joined the movement in cities across the country.

Ziad contacted organizers and began coordinating protests in his town, fully aware of the risks he was taking. President Assad, like his father, had brutally suppressed protests in the past.

“I think in the beginning I was very very afraid,” he says. “We were all afraid.”

The fear was justified. With masses marching peacefully in the streets, Assad responded with gunfire. Tanks rolled through neighborhoods as security forces raided houses. Protesters who were detained were dragged away to Syria’s secret prisons to be tortured.

Many would never make it out of those prisons. As evidenced by 55,000 photographs smuggled out of the country by a Syrian military photographer known only as Caesar, 11,000 people were savagely killed in Assad’s jails during the uprising.

Soon after protests broke out in March 2011 Caesar, had been asked to photograph the bodies of civilian demonstrators who had been taken into custody. He was horrified by what he witnessed and decided to get the pictures out of the county.

“I had never seen anything like it,” Caesar told The Guardian in October. “Before the uprising, the regime tortured prisoners to get information; now they were torturing to kill.

“I saw marks left by burning candles, and once the round mark of a stove—the sort you use to heat tea—that had burned someone’s face and hair. Some people had deep cuts, some had their eyes gouged out, their teeth broken, you could see traces of lashes with those cables you use to start cars. There were wounds full of pus, as if they’d been left untreated for a long time and had got infected.

“Sometimes the bodies were covered with blood that looked fresh. It was clear they had died very recently.”

The photos have been verified by the FBI and international human rights advocates are using them to build a case against Assad for committing war crimes against his own people.

Ziad and his friends were among those arrested and tortured during that time. He was lucky to get out alive and says he believes it was a tactic to drive him away from participating in the movement. Torture did not derail his political determination, though. Instead, it strengthened his resolve.

“I have always heard about what happens in these secret prisons. But when I saw it first-hand, I had an even greater desire to try to change things with my own hands with something I can do. I can make myself heard. I can make my friends heard,” Ziad says. “At this point, I was not afraid anymore.”

Throughout the following year, the government would continue cracking down on its citizens. Protestors began to take up arms, forming the Free Syrian Army.

By March 2012, just one year following the first “Day of Rage,” an anti-Assad council began to officially organize rebel military resistance.

The uprising had officially turned into a war.

Ziad says he was critical of violent actions from the outset and was not part of the armed rebellion that resulted. But he hopes at least, his archive will help keep the story of the uprising alive and explain why people took to the streets.

Although the project hasn’t been completed yet, Dr. James Gelvin, a professor of history at UCLA and author of the book The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know, says the video collection is extremely important.

“March of 2011 was perhaps a culmination of the 30-year struggle that had been taking place in the Arab world,” Gelvin explains, emphasizing that the struggle for democracy and human rights in Syria goes back much further than most people in the West realize.

These videos, he says, could help make sure this uprising isn’t also forgotten.

“This is the only way that history will be preserved,” Gelvin says. “Syrians are so scattered at the present time that it is very easy to lose sight of how this thing began.”

Gelvin adds that the video record will be necessary to hold President Assad accountable for the atrocities committed in his name.

“We have gotten most of our information from citizen reporters, and understanding it is essential,” Gelvin explains.”But the documentation of what went on will be essential if there are ever prosecutions for war crimes.”

It’s uncertain when that will occur, but for now, geopolitical focus has been reframed around the threat posed by ISIS—and the United States and Russia are hoping to broker a ceasefire between Assad and the rebel fighters so that all parties can focus efforts against the terrorist organization.

An international committee of diplomats from 17 countries, plus the UN and the EU are also aiming to begin negotiations over how to officially end the four-and-a-half-year-old civil war.

Still, Ziad says he will only focus on preserving the past—Syria’s future remains uncertain.

“I am now in the process of building my life here,” Ziad explains. “I would still love to go back. I hope that things would change, but I also have the realistic thought—it is highly unlikely things would be like we were dreaming they would be in 2011. I think the dreams that we had back then, they are, unfortunately,” he waits a moment, then exhales loudly, “they are forever lost.”