The testimonies of those who survived the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995 will be the lasting evidence of the crimes committed there and it is extremely important to collect as many testimonies as possible in order to prevent attempts to deny what happened there, said Arthur Schneier, Senior Rabbi of Park East Synagogue in New York, who arrived in Srebrenica for the central commemoration of the 17th anniversary of the war atrocities in that eastern Bosnian area.
This rabbi, a well-known advocate of ecumenical work on behalf of religious freedom, human rights, peace and inter-religious dialogue, today drew a comparison between attempts of Serbs to deny the Srebrenica genocide and what Iran is doing today, when, he said, is trying to deny the Holocaust.
I was there and you cannot tell me that it did not happen, said Rabbi Schneier, who lived under Nazi occupation in Budapest during World War II and survived the Holocaust in which his grandparents were killed.
As for Srebrenica, he said that It was important to collect as many testimonies from the survivors as possible as he deemed testimonies to be the strongest instrument to prevent the denial of the facts.
Currently, the central commemoration, including the burial of 520 the recently identified victims, is under way in the Potocari memorial centre outside the town of Srebrenica.
In mid-July 1995, over 8,000 local Bosnian Muslims were killed when Serb forces led by General Ratko Mladic raided Srebrenica which was a UN safe haven at the time.
