Ethnic Cleansing/genocide involves the systematic annihilation of sacral monuments, libraries, museums, and all other traces

Photo:

Bosnia's National Library in Sarajevo, was shelled and burned by Serb military forces on August 25-26, 1992 in the largest book burning in history.

[IMG]http://i45.tinypic.com/2s847km.jpg[/IMG]

Bosnia's National Library Sarajevo in the past

There are many people all over the world interested in Bosnian architecture and historical artifacts. One of them is Andras Riedlmayer, Bibliographer in Islamic Art and Achitecture Fine Arts Library, at Harvard University. He presents interesting facts about Bosnian history, heritage, and the systematic attack in 55 minute tape that shows pictures of the monuments before and after their destruction before destruction and after.

[IMG]http://i47.tinypic.com/2qldhg9.jpg[/IMG]

Bosnia's National Library Sarajevo in the war 1992 Photo by Larma Rikard.

It is called Killing Memory: Bosnia's Cultural Heritage and Its Destruction (Philadelphia: Community of Bosnia, 1994). This work is very important in the understanding of cultural genocide in Bosnia or anywhere else. Ethnic Cleansing/genocide involves the systematic annihilation of sacral monuments, libraries, museums, and all other traces that the targeted people ever existed.

[IMG]http://i50.tinypic.com/2hwjod5.jpg[/IMG]

Bosnia's National Library Sarajevo after the war

Some destructions:

– The burning of the Oriental Institute on May 17, 1992 in which the largest collection of Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Aljamiado manuscripts in Southeast Europe went up in flames;

– The attack on the National Museum of Sarajevo;

– The dynamiting of the great mosques, including the sixteenth century Ferhad Pasha mosque in Banja Luka and the Aladza (Colored) Mosque in Foca,

– Masterworks of Balkan architecture; the destruction of entire ancient towns such as Pocitelj, Stolac, and Zitomoslici,

– The annihilation of the Mostar bridge and attempt to destroy all of Islamic heritage in Mostar and the campaign to rewrite history by claiming that there "never were any mosques" in Zvornik and Foca, after Serb religious nationalists destroyed dozens of mosques.