Photo by Leslie E. Kossoff; courtesy of American University AU-PORTRAITS Diane Orentlicher

This Friday, Diane Orentlicher, one of the world’s leading authorities on human rights law and war crimes tribunals, will speak at Affton High School. Afterward, she’ll sign copies of her latest book, Some Kind of Justice: The ICTY's Impact in Bosnia and Serbia.

The presentation is sponsored by Fontbonne University’s Bosnian Memory Project, which has already taken oral histories from more than 120 survivors (more than 360 hours of recordings).

“With more than 60,000 Bosnians, our city is the largest Bosnian community outside of Bosnia,” says project director Benjamin Moore, an associate professor of English at Fontbonne.

This year, a National Endowment for the Humanities grant kicked in, allowing Moore to hire Adna Karamehic-Oates as associate director. Because of her language skills and Ph.D. in Bosnian studies, “we’ll be able to expand our work,” he says with relief. “She put the Diane Orentlicher event together.”

Professor of law at American University’s Washington College of Law, Orentlicher will speak at Affton High School, which, along with Oakville and Mehlville, partners with the Bosnian Memory Project to offer a class in Bosnian American studies. We asked Moore for some insight in advance.

Why is it important to make an enduring record of these survivors’ experiences?

Because we are documenting the stories of people who have experienced atrocities but remained whole. And that is a source of hope.

Was there anything that made the Bosnian genocide different from other atrocities?

One thing that makes it specific is, the world knew. It was documented by journalists as it was happening. And it therefore represents a failure on the part of other nations to make any substantive intervention. [He pauses, then resumes, now speaking with slow deliberation.] Also, this was in Europe, in an advanced, educated society. And it therefore flies in the face of what we often think about when we think about genocide and ethnic violence. It suggests that genocide can happen in places where we may not expect it.

Are there any misperceptions the oral histories correct?

That the genocide in Bosnia was due to ancient ethnic hatreds and longstanding blood feuds. Our interviews tell us that nothing could be further from the truth. There was a long history of ethnic cooperation: People went to school together, established businesses together, intermarried. This was very much a top-down movement by leaders who sought to establish and exploit ethnic hatreds. They weren’t so much digging up old hatreds as creating new ones to advance themselves politically.

Are you finding any commonalities that explain why some people managed to be resilient?

Their dedication to family is a key factor in their ability to survive—and then, once in the U.S., to thrive. There are many people born in the ’60s and before who found meaning in their children and grandchildren. When we are talking about hosting refugees in the U.S., it’s a reminder of how important it is to keep families together.

What are the less obvious losses that continue to haunt the survivors?

They lost their country. Their place. It’s easy to forget how important that is. When a person is forcibly expelled from a country, she or he loses status, connections, relationships, and identity. Even though we see people remain whole, that identity that they lost can never be fully recovered. New identities can be forged, but the old ones can’t be reestablished.

Is it healthier to be nostalgic for the old life or to cut it off sharply?

It’s a good question. What we see is people engaging in this ongoing dialogue between their past and their present: remembering the life they had before, the relationships and values, and using those as a basis for moving forward here. Which is one reason preserving memory is so important—and I don’t mean just the memory of the atrocities. One of the difficulties younger Bosnians face is they don’t have ready access to the things that made their parents’ lives so rich before the war. Parents don’t want to talk about it—or are not able to find a way to talk about it.

Yet it’s important for kids to know their parents’ world.

It gives you a sense of belonging to a family history.

Is there anything that’s been lost, culturally, that’s almost impossible to recreate?

The friendships they had with people of different ethnicities. Before the war, if you were Muslim, you could celebrate Christmas, and if you were Christian, you could celebrate Ramadan. That was the character of life in Bosnia. It will take a great deal of trust to reconcile that now.

Does your project include any Serbian oral histories?

Yes. A few. I would like to be able to include more. No one narrative can encompass everything.

Diane Orentlicher will speak at 6 p.m. on September 28 in the auditorium of Affton High School.