On the 10th of July, 19 years ago, the World Community betrayed humanity, passively watching the massacre of 8,372 lives in Srebrenica.
Referring to this date, 4 years ago Phillip Ruch's Centre for Political Beauty built a monument of 16,744 worn shoes, each pair representing a victim of Europe's worst massacre since World War II, at Berlin’s Brandenburger Tor.
The political installation, accompanied by a fundraising, shall pave the way to raise a "Pillar of Shame" in the hills above Srebrenica referring to the United Nations and international leaders as the ones most responsible for failing to prevent the mass killings.
AP reported in 2010:
“The German activist describes his project as a "warning for all future U.N. employees never again just to stand by when genocide unfolds" — alluding to the failure of U.N. peacekeepers to protect the Srebrenica victims during the Bosnian war.
On July 11, 1995, more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and youths were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb troops in an enclave supposedly protected by U.N. peacekeepers.
The United Nations had declared Serb-besieged Srebrenica, some 90 km northeast of Sarajevo, a protected area for civilians. But the few hundred Dutch Blue Helmets on the ground were left short of credible weaponry or a clear mandate to protect the town.
Srebrenica fell to the Serbs after senior U.N. commanders dithered on Dutch requests for air strikes and its overwhelmingly Bosnian Muslim residents swarmed the U.N. military base, seeking refuge. But the peacekeepers allowed the Serbs to take away the townspeople when Gen. Ratko Mladic, their leader, said they would not be harmed.”
This project is further documented here: http://www.politicalbeauty.de/pillar.html