The Graves: Srebrenica And Vukovar [Hardcover]

Eric Stover (Author), Gilles Peress (Photographer)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

On the morning of July 16, 1995, after storming the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, Serbian militiamen massacred hundreds of Muslim civilians. They buried their victims in a mass grave in a wheat field on the outskirts of town, after having been congratulated by their general, Ratko Mladic, who told them, "Finally, the time has come to take revenge on the Turks."

Mladic and his soldiers went about orchestrating other atrocities, but the dead of Srebrenica came back to accuse them through the work of an American-led team of forensic anthropologists who reconstructed erased lives from scraps of bone and cloth. Eric Stover's well-written account of the scientists' work in the killing fields of Bosnia, accompanied by photographs by journalist Gilles Peress, makes for disturbing but hopeful reading---hopeful because, through such documentation, the perpetrators may eventually be brought to justice. --Gregory McNamee

Product Details

• Hardcover: 333 pages
• Publisher: Scalo Publishers; First Edition edition (August 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3931141764
• ISBN-13: 978-3931141769
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,130,191 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #36 in Books > History > Europe > Croatia
  • #87 in Books > History > Europe > Bosnia and Herzegovina

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, Powerful Account of War Crimes February 4, 2000

By richard_t

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Stover and Peress, through searing words and photographs, have created a record of the two greatest war crimes in the conflicts that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia. The sack of the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar in 1991 by Serb forces, and the subsequent mass murder of over 200 patients and staff from the local hospital is still a powerful and pivotal event, not only because of the sheer magnitude of the atrocity, but also because it was the first. Vukovar came before the siege of Sarajevo, the rape and torture camps in Prijedor and Foca and elsewhere, before the destruction of Mostar bridge, and the massacre at Srebrenica. Vukovar set the standard for the atrocities that were to come, and eight years after its destruction, the town is still a hollowed-out ruin with weeds poking through shattered buildings and one-fourth of its prewar population clinging precariously to subsistence in a destroyed economy. The siege and fall of Bosnia's Srebrenica in 1995, engineered by indicted war criminal Ratko Mladic has been amply documented elsewhere, but this book is not a military history or the reconstruction of the crime. Rather it is about the search for the missing and the identification of bodies pulled from mass graves. The authors follow the forensic specialists, the anthropologists and physicians who have created a sad but necessary specialty in this field. The exhumations are part of the search for the truth, not only for the half-grieving, half-hopeful survivors who cling to rumors about their loved ones, but for all people of compassion who hope that finding some finality, and perhaps some justice, at the bottom of these graves will serve both the living and the dead.... The exhumations and identifications are carried out according to strict forensic standards so the results can be used as evidence at the Hague war crimes tribunal. If we are to forge any positive legacy from these atrocities, it may lie in allowing the children of both the victims and the executioners to lead normal lives, free from fear and revenge and poisonous hatred. Memories are long in this region, and vengeance can take decades. The woman who runs an orphanage for young Srebrenica survivors observes, "What is important now is the message the international community sends to these boys and what they then tell their own children. If you say to a child, `Look, that man there killed your father, and now he lives in your house.' What kind of message is that going to send? But if you say, `That man killed your father and that is why he is in prison.' The message is very different. So, for now, there might not be a lot of hatred or revenge, but if we don't find a way to punish those responsible for these crimes, it will surely be something we can count on in the future." To date, neither Mladic nor the "Vukovar Three" are in the tribunal's custody. For the children's sake, we can do better. Read more ›

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Peress' photographs convey much more than words. November 17, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Having seen first hand the atrocities carried out in the former Yugoslavia, I was surprised by the stark reality of the superb photographs in this book. Black and white images always seem much more effective than colour. The text does not confuse the reader who knows little about the work of PHR but gives an idea of how immense the scale of the identification programme is. The book tells it like it was, and still is, for not only those people who lost friends and family, but for those people involved in the grave work. Forensic Archeologists, Anthropologists, Pathologists, Technicians and SOCOs' from all over the world give their time and energy to help identify bodies and bring the perpetrators to trial. This book puts across, in words and pictures, the real horrors of what happened in the former Yugoslavia. It is a most effective way of telling the world what did go on,and how it is still affecting, and will continue to affect peoples lives for a long time to come.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent June 9, 2001

By Pepper

Format:Hardcover

This is an amazing book, detailing evidence collection by the ICTY war crimes tribunal at two mass grave sites - Srebrenica, a predominantly Muslim town in eastern Bosnia; and Vukovar, a mixed Serb-Croat town in eastern Croatia (contrary to the view of the previous reviewer, Vukovar is neither Muslim nor Bosnian). The photos are phenomenal. After a wrenching reading, one comes away with a few scattered thoughts. Namely: 'never again, and 'thank god there is an international tribunal to carry out prosecutions for these events when domestic courts are unwilling to do so'.

There have now been two ICTY indictees arrested for Srebrenica, the trial is ongoing as of this writing. None of the 'Vukovar Three', reportedly hiding out in Belgrade have been arrested yet.

Justice is far too slow. But at least with the ICTY, there is some chance for a bit of justice after all.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply Moving and engrossing October 11, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

The war crimes comitted in Bosnia should be more at the forefront of today's headlines. The photographs by Gilles Peress are absolutely magnificent. They capture the love, life and death of a group of people as I haven't seen since photographs of the holocaust in Germany. Each picture tells a story, and though it could have said much as a pictorial the text only enhances the things we don't see. Eric Stover has brought to life the group of people working for Physicians for Human Rights and lets each reader know them and what the organization is about. This is not only a historical document, but a testament to the good and bad in humankind.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A book about human sorrow and misery..in images and writing. September 26, 1998

By Stefan Schmitt ([e-mail])

Format:Hardcover

I was involved in some of the forensic investigations which took place in the former Yugoslavia and are described in the book. If there is a way to bring this human misery, sadness and sorrow closer by reading a book, Eric Stover and Gilles Perez have managed to do it. I will be teaching a class at University. This book will be instrumental in explaining why it is so important that issues such as the genocides of our world have to be documented and investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice.

3 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Sickeningly beautiful; tough to take but necessary May 11, 2000

By David J. Loftus

Format:Hardcover

This is a hard book to rate, for any number of reasons. For one thing, it's not nicely rounded; it doesn't tell a complete story, but provides a blistering snapshot of a small slice of history and an investigation still in process. For another, its photos and text don't work closely together, but provide approximately parallel looks into the same awful tale. Hardest of all is the stunning vividness of the photography by Gilles Peress, and the nagging suspicion that we share some small portion of blame for this.

Simply put, _The Graves_ is a collection of photographs of dead bodies and skeletons, the anonymous mass graves from which they were exhumed, the remnants of their clothing and contents of their pockets, the relatives that survived them; and a text that describes the painstaking and horrifying process of trying to identify them and divine how they came to die.

Srebenica and Vukovar are two towns in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina, where in July of 1995, hundreds of Muslim men -- unarmed, defenseless, and bound -- were apparently shot by soldiers of the Serbian army under Ratko Mladic and then bulldozed under mounds of earth.

Five years later, most of those responsible still roam freely in the former Yugoslavia, though the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague steadily sifts evidence and issues warrants for their arrest. This book depicts some of the effort to establish evidence of their guilt ... and is itself damning evidence.

The photos by Peress, all black and white, are horridly beautiful in their mute, pinpoint clarity. They record a creepy new form of archaeology, where shiny white teeth peek out of the dirt, leg bones remain encased in socks and athletic shoes, entire bodies rise out of the near past, shorn of flesh but still comfortably clothed.... They could be ancient remains, and one struggles to comprehend that they were alive, page after page of them, not very long ago.

Stover's text gives some historical context for these graphic images, records the testimony of surviving witnesses, and offers brief portraits of the men and women -- forensic pathologists, archaeologists, x-ray technicians -- who sift through this grisly treasure. Peress also photographs them at work, relaxing with a guitar, and the waiting, anxious families with their charity canned goods and stuffed toys.

This is a stark, stolid book, one that serves as a necessary reminder that what happens on the other side of the planet matters, and that no matter how much relative attention we give them, some things are worse than being sent back to Cuba to live with one's father. Much worse. Read more ›