SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Ratko Mladic died this week. He was the Bosnian Serb general known as the Butcher of Bosnia. He died while serving a life sentence in The Hague for genocide and other crimes against humanity during the Bosnian War. Mladic was found responsible by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for the Srebrenica massacre, which left more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys dead, including all the adult men in Ahmed Hrustanovic's family. Ahmed Hrustanovic joins is now from Srebrenica, where he lives and is an imam. Thank you very much for being with us.
AHMED HRUSTANOVIC: Thank you very much. It's my pleasure, really, to talk with you.
SIMON: What went through your mind and heart when you heard that Ratko Mladic had died?
HRUSTANOVIC: Really, nothing. There is no emotions. There is no - nothing about him - I don't even want to say his name - just something that I don't want to remember, something that will history remember as a war criminal, the worst war criminal after Hitler in Europe.
SIMON: Can I ask you to tell us about that July in 1995? I gather you were 9 years old.
HRUSTANOVIC: Yeah. Yeah. I was 9 years old during that time. I was lucky that I moved from Srebrenica in 1993 with my mom. She was pregnant. So my father and uncles and grandfathers - all of them stayed here in Srebrenica. So we were separated for two years. And in July 1995, I saw my mother - she was crying. And we saw on the news these guys talking about revenge on the Turks in Srebrenica. He took the Srebrenica with his army. We immediately knew what will happen with our fathers, our grandfathers, our brothers.
And several days, we were trying to get any information about my father and other family members, but we didn't have any information. Time passes - months, years. We were hoping maybe they are somewhere in Serbia in concentration camp. But when I was in college in Sarajevo in 2007, I get information from unification center that they found the bones of my father.
SIMON: Can you tell us about your father?
HRUSTANOVIC: My father - he was 31 years old when he was killed in Kravica. So I'm now almost 40 - I'm older than him. He was really a hard worker guy, trustful guy. I remember he was writing us letters and he was saying, don't worry. I will be with you soon as possible because the United Nation - NATO aircrafts will save us, but that didn't happen. So he - my father, he had two brothers younger than him. My grandfather, Ismat (ph) - he was 49. My other grandfather from my mother - he was also 49. So those guys were so young.
All of them were found in the mass graves. My father was, and his brother were found in several mass graves. We had first funeral of my father in 2012. It was only 14% of his bones founded. So in 2021, they call us again and they tell us, we found more bones of your father. Do you want to have another funeral? It was really hard for us. We had another funeral. Still, we didn't have his skeleton complete. So maybe - I don't know - like 10% of his bones are missing.
SIMON: Why did you decide to return to Srebrenica and raise your family there?
HRUSTANOVIC: Because if we didn't return here, if we didn't - all mothers, if they didn't return here, nobody will talk about Srebrenica again. This genocide will be forget. So that could be a good message for whole people who are suffering. You have to talk about what you survive. This is the truth. This is something that you cannot be afraid to speak of, you know?
SIMON: I mean, we asked you what it was like. It must hurt you a lot to have to talk about it all over again.
HRUSTANOVIC: It's a process of healing. When I'm talking about that, for me, it's a process of healing, really. We have to talk. I have to talk for myself, for my kids. For me, there is no other way. If I quiet, it hurts me a lot. I'm trying to deal with those memories. It's what's really hard for me. I don't know - I'm 40-years-old, but I still - I feel like a 9 years old boy, so I have to talk. Yeah. Thank you for opportunity to speak with you. It's a really honor to me.
SIMON: Ahmed Hrustanovic, who is an imam in Srebrenica, Bosnia. Thank you so much for being with us.
HRUSTANOVIC: Thank you very much, Scott. Thank you very much.
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