Ethnic cleansing and destruction in Stolac
Destroyed Islamic heritage in Stolac
- Hadzi Salihova Mosque
- Hadzi Alijina Mosque
- Sultan Selim Javuz Mosque
- Silahtar Yusuf Pasa Hamam
- Ali Pasa Rizvanbegovica House
- Old House (Museum)
- Dzulhanumina House
Destroyed Libraries in Stolac In the aftermath of the 1992-95 genocide
in Bosnia, we are beginning to see publications put together by exiles and refugees
seeking to preserve the memory of their shattered communities as well as the
memory of what was done to them … and the names of those responsible.
From the information on what was destroyed in just one municipality (see excerpts
below), one can get some sense scale of the losses, in most cases irretrievable,
of unique original manuscripts, historical documents and the records of communal
and private libraries and archives throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.One such
volume was published by the presidency-in-exile of Stolac Municipality, entitled:_Crimes
in Stolac Municipality (1992-1994)._ 84 pp. : ill., maps [no date of publication
indicated; acquired in Sarajevo in 1996].The volume records in careful and
detailed fashion the human rights violations inflicted on civilians from Stolac,
lists of those killed and imprisoned, and item-by-item details on the systematic
destruction of non-Croat cultural property in Stolac – including all Islamic
and Orthodox Christian houses of worship – by the Bosnian Croat nationalist
militia (HVO), including:
- 4 mosques in Stolac (dating from the 16th-18th centuries), destroyed by
an HVO unit in the summer of 1993; - 7 mosques in villages near Stolac, destroyed by HVO in the summer of 1993;
- The Orthodox church of the Holy Assumption of Christ (built 1870, with a
painted iconostasis from the 18th century); interior torched in the summer
of 1992 by an HVO unit from Capljina; - Ottoman-era mansions (konak) and residential ensembles, markets, shops and
baths (hamam), dating from the 17th-19th centuries, destroyed by HVO in the
summer of 1993. - Also included, as part of a listing of the destruction of movable cultural
property in Stolac (pp. 49-54), is the following information on the fate of
public and private libraries, manuscript collections, and archives:.
