Berlin: Srebrenica’s Pillar of Shame

Artists in Berlin have built a mountain of shoes before the iconic Brandenburg Gate to mark the 15th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre of Muslim Bosnian men and boys.

The Srebrenica massacre, perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces, is widely considered Europe’s worst atrocity since World War 2.

Philipp Ruch is heading the committee building the monument:

[Philipp Ruch, Artist and Initiator of Memorial]:           
„The point that we want to get across here is the unbelievable failure of the international community and especially the United Nations, who back then promised protection. 8,372 people died in Srebrenica but there were 40,000 civilians in the protection zone who all believed in the west’s promises of giving these people military protection. But instead of doing that, we did nothing, we really did nothing to keep the aggressor away from the protection zone.“

The monument, which is intended to publicly accuse the west, has been named the „Pillar of Shame“.

The artists plan to travel throughout Europe with the monument, before installing a permanent version in Srebrenica in 2011.

[Mensud Bjelusevic, Artist]:            
„We also want to travel with the mountain of shoes. We will try to make it to Paris and London. We want to go to The Hague to the Karadzic trial. And our final goal of course, we would really like to make it in front of the Serbian parliament in Belgrade before the shoes are finally dipped into cement and the ‚Column of Shame‘ is erected in Srebrenica.“

The final monument will consist of 16,744 shoes, one pair for each of the 8,372 victims of the atrocity.

Foto: NTDTV