Join us for the launch of Hikmet Karčić’s monograph Torture, Humiliate, Kill: Inside the Bosnian Serb Camp System (University of Michigan Press, 2022) on March 23, at 16.00 CET!

Torture, Humiliate, Kill centers on multiple examples of experiences at concentration camps in four towns operated by Bosnian Serbs during the war: Prijedor, Bijeljina, Višegrad, and Bileća. Chosen according to their political and geographical position, Karčić demonstrates that these camps were used as tools for the ethno-religious genocidal campaign against non-Serbs.

Karčić develops a collective traumatization theory, which contends that the concentration camps set up by the Bosnian Serb authorities had the primary purpose of inflicting collective trauma on the non-Serb population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This collective traumatization consisted of excessive use of torture, sexual abuse, humiliation, and killing. The physical and psychological suffering imposed by these methods were seen as a quick and efficient means to establish the Serb “living space.” Karčić argues that this trauma was deliberately intended to deter non-Serbs from ever returning to their pre-war homes.

Torture, Humiliate, Kill is a thorough and definitive resource for understanding the function and operation of camps during the Bosnian genocide.

The discussants will be Jessie Barton Hronešová (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and Mirza Buljubasic (University of Sarajevo). The event will be moderated by Niké Wentholt (University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht).

This event will take place online, on Zoom. Please register via the following link: