“I see the future of the Srebrenica Memorial Center as a gravitational center [for] the experience of one nation during the 1990s, with its own archive, research and museum capacities for the commemoration of the victims of Srebrenica, Sarajevo and Ahmići…because we are the generation that should give this institution a chance to survive and be the best for everything that comes in the future.”- Emir Suljagić, Director of the Srebrenica Memorial Center Emir Suljagić grew up in Bratunac. He was 17 when his family fled from the Drina Valley in 1992, escaping ethnic cleansing and taking refuge in Srebrenica. He learned English by himself and became a translator for the United Nations forces stationed in the city. After the war, Suljagić attended the University of Sarajevo and the University of Bologna and received his doctorate from the University of Hamburg. His book, “Postcards from the Grave,” is the first account of the Srebrenica Genocide to be published in English by a Bosnian who survived the Genocide. So far, it has been translated into nine languages. Suljagić was appointed director of the Srebrenica Memorial Center in October 2019. During 2020, his team in Srebrenica gathered numerous artists and organizations from all over the world to successfully organize the 25th commemoration of the Srebrenica Genocide, despite the challenges caused by the pandemic. The Memorial Center: A Place for Learning and Remembering The future of the Srebrenica Memorial Center will be researching and documenting the response of the former Yugoslav countries to the 1995 genocide. “I would like to work with civil society organizations and authorities from Slovenia to Northern Macedonia. I want to see how the former Yugoslavia can pay tribute to the victims of Srebrenica and find a way to continue living together,” Suljagić said. In the next three years, the Memorial Center plans to implement a comprehensive program with a number of activities. One of the new programs is the creation of personal files for those persons killed during the genocide in Srebrenica. “For me personally, our new project, which is supported by funds [from] the local authorities, is very important. We want to document and form a single database on human losses in and around Srebrenica from May 1992 to July 1995. I believe this is the first step towards expanding the narrative about Srebrenica, because people here have been victims of genocide for three and a half years, not just five days in July 1995, which is unfortunately the current narrative.” As Suljagić explains, for the Memorial Center, it is extremely important to preserve and renovate the infrastructure on the site of the Center. “The memorial room, for example, is in a rather dilapidated condition, that is, the complete physical infrastructure is in a dilapidated condition, and I hope that we will soon begin the renovation of the administrative building. We are already working on renovating the library and building the archives, and in the near future we will be able to inform the public that we have found a donor and that the repair of the roof on our main hall is about to start. When we finish these renovations, we will renew the heart of this institution,” Suljagić explains. Another goal of the Center is to give young people from Srebrenica the opportunity to actively work on building and preserving historical memory. “The Memorial Center should not exist unless it includes the generation of children of those who lost their lives here, the generation of children who may have been born after that, but whose lives are marked by Srebrenica,” says Suljagić Although funds for including young people are limited right now, Suljagić hopes that in the coming years more young people will come work for the benefit of Srebrenica. “And that’s why I will do everything in my power to increase the number of young people in the Memorial Center every year, because we are the generation that should give this institution a chance to survive and be the best for everything that comes in the future,” he says. When asked about daily life in Srebrenica, Suljagić says that memories and feelings come back every day through conversations with friends and acquaintances. “I am someone who was here in 1995, someone who lost family members and survived, who knows many people who lost their loved ones – none of us have survived Srebrenica and remained intact.” Although he spent part of his life getting educated abroad, Suljagić emphasizes that he never actually left Srebrenica, and that he went everywhere with the goal of bringing “at least one small piece to the victims; if not justice, than at least satisfaction.” “I still do not live here in the full sense.