Darko Cvijetic is a Bosnian-Serb writer, filmmaker, and poet, renowned for his novel Schindler Lift. In this book, he depicts the gradual disappearance of a once peaceful and tolerant way of life through the daily lives of residents in a multi-ethnic residential building in Prijedor. Photograph by Fabrice Dekoninck.

​

For background, Dekoninck describes a sinking disillusionment during the first months of the conflict in Bosnia: “By not naming the attacker, the international community did nothing else but deny the humanity of the Bosnians, especially the Muslim Bosniaks….it encouraged the attacker to pursue its criminal intentions”. In short, a refusal, as Dekoninck says, of the truth. From there, he names the perpetrator: “the ominous project of ‘Greater Serbia’: a nationalist doctrine promoted by Belgradian ideologists and fed on the devouring ambition of a power-hungry politician, Slobodan Milošević”.

 

This opening essay gives historical context, describes Dekoninck’s role as an outsider to Bosnia, explains his methodology, and lays out why he has conducted this work, which is, in part, to fight a culture of silence that has dominated in areas, particularly the Serb-majority state of Republika Srpska.

 

The book is a project of memory, and while Dekoninck is a photographer, the texts throughout are vital to framing his endeavor and expanding what we see in any single image. Accordingly, Between Fears and Hope tackles injustice, genocide, denial, and the ways in which the past seeps forward through generations. As Nicholas Moll, a historian, writes later in the book, “Since the self-proclaimed political representatives of the three national groups each have their official legal structure within Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are three simultaneous official narratives of the war as well as three history teachings in an equally divided educational system”.

 

After Dekoninck’s opening, and still before we encounter his many photographs, we read words by Philippe Simon, a correspondent for France Inter-radio in 1993. His essay includes a petrifying excerpt, apparently from the draft of a column he wrote in November of that year. Describing a schoolroom scene where a teacher and her students were finishing class as a mortar shell landed just outside, the write-up ends with gruesome details of death. The chilling final words simply state: “The class was over”.

 

So begins our journey through a modern-day hell. Where Dante gave us visually vivid text, Dekoninck offers actual imagery. Organized by sections, corresponding to cities around Bosnia (Srebrenica, Prijedor, Sarajevo), the reader encounters a spectrum of photographs, ranging from grainy black and white scenescapes, to detail shots, to desaturated color visuals that sometimes present an otherworldly place long since uninhabited. When we do see people, they are anything but otherworldly—that is the point. The traumatic legacy exists ingrained in society and impacts a current population in ways that are, at times, nearly imperceptible. But what seems a pedestrian moment becomes much more. As Dekoninck says, “Photography is my way of questioning the world”. He prods his reader as he prods himself to push deeper into a history that carries into the present.

 

The images themselves are not heavy-handedly stylized, which contributes to Dekoninck’s emphasis on the everyday quality of this festering history. Moreover, the layout provides a rhythm, alternating text and imagery, single page photos as well as full two-page spreads. Of particular note are the many portraits throughout, each accompanied by the individual’s story. For instance, Almasa, whose 17-year-old brother Abdulah was handed over to Serb forces by Dutch peacekeeping soldiers. His body was later found in a mass grave.

 

This book stands against “historical revisionism,” to borrow a phrase of Jene-René Ruez, who led the investigation into suspected crimes against humanity at Srebrenica and who is interviewed for this book. It also announces its significance beyond the Balkans. This is a text to teach us about wider acts of conflict and atrocity, as the concluding essays move to the present moment, asking us to consider the currently ongoing situation in Ukraine.

 

In the end, one could say this book stands as a call to action toward remembering the past, and for establishing justice. We are told that thousands of war criminals have gone unpunished for their crimes during the Bosnian War. But Dekoninck knows that courtroom justice is unlikely for those thousands and is not the only form of justice for society. He posits the idea of a protected collective historical memory such that partisan biases cannot occlude the factual realities of crimes committed. This, he conjectures, may be a way of moving toward a space of greater reconciliation in a region still rife with civil, religious and cultural animosity.

 

Ultimately, this haunting book will leave its reader uncomfortable—in a productive way. It demands that we confront the legacy of war and injustice.

​