Jasenovac, Not Srebrenica: Victimhood and the Eclipse of one Genocide with Another

Abstract This article outlines the ways in which the genocide against the Serbs, Jews and Roma in Jasenovac during WWII is increasingly being used in Serbian and Bosnian Serb political and academic discourse to eclipse the genocide executed by the Bosnian Serb Army in Srebrenica in 1995, thus highlighting a new method of genocide denial. These efforts to deny the genocide find their parallel in similar efforts by eastern European countries to distort their involvement in the Holocaust. Thus, in using the legacy of Jasenovac for the purpose of genocide denial, the aforementioned elites also engage in Holocaust distortion. This is demonstrated through analysis of the discourse and actions of the political leaders, academics and relevant institutions in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Republika Srpska. This process sits at a nexus of three theoretical fields: genocide denial studies, European Holocaust memory studies and Holocaust denial/distortion studies, each of which contribute the framing of the issue.