GRAORAC: I AM PROUD OF MY FATHER STEVO WHO GAVE HIS LIFE FOR SRPSKA

BANJA LUKA, JULY 30 /SRNA/ - In a testimony given to the Memorial Center of Republika Srpska Isidora Graorac expressed pride in her father Stevo, who, on this very day 30 years ago, went to defend his ancestral land and ultimately gave his life for Republika Srpska and a peaceful life on centuries-old Serbian soil.

"Exactly 30 years ago, on Margaret the Virgin - July 30, 1995 - my father Stevo left to protect our lives and defend the ancestral homes of the Serb people. He went missing, and then, exactly 20 years ago, again on Margaret the Virgin in 2005, he returned to us. He was identified after 10 years of uncertainty, sorrow, pain, and not knowing, and was buried with dignity," said Graorac. Graorac, who also serves as President of the Republika Srpska Organization of Families of Captured and Fallen Soldiers and Missing Civilians, said her father was never a nationalist, that he loved people regardless of who they were, and that even today people speak of him as a good man and a friend "a man who would not hurt a fly". She emphasized that both she and her sister Slavica are proud of their father, while their mother Grozda remains proud of her husband. "We pass down the memory of our father to our children so that they may at least know him in this way, so that one day they may be proud to say their grandfather gave his life for Republika Srpska," she said. Graorac recalled the day in 1995 when her father left on a journey from which he never returned alive, saying she remembers it vividly and will never forget it. "Equally painful was the fact that we searched for his remains for 10 years, awaiting every day for a call, a voice, a message that he had been found. It was unbearably hard and deeply sorrowful to accept that father, husband, brother, and friend Stevo Graorac was gone," she added. She stressed that everyone today owes it to them, and to future generations, to ensure that the truth about the suffering of Serbs in these lands is recorded and preserved through digital archives, memory, and testimony. Graorac called on all citizens to share the truth about the fate of their families. "We speak today so that our descendants may listen tomorrow, so that they may learn from our experiences and never again allow such a tragedy to happen to anyone," she said. According to Graorac, the Serb people must honor the sacrifice they made in order to prevent future suffering from reminding them of past losses. "I am proud to be my father's daughter, because I know he would be proud of us for ensuring that his death is not forgotten, that the truth of those war years is known, that people were killed and disappeared, and that 1,617 people from the Republika Srpska list of the missing have still not returned home," she said. "For them, and for the 24,000 fallen and a total of 35,000 Serbs who suffered, we must not remain silent. No one must remain silent. Graves remind us and compel us to speak, to write, and to record testimonies, for history and for the future," concluded Graorac, who has left a permanent record of her father's death and her family's fate. Director of the Memorial Center of Republika Srpska Denis Bojić said such testimonies are of great importance for preserving historical truth. The Memorial Center is actively working to collect and archive all available testimonies about the suffering of the Serbian people, with the goal of creating the largest unified audio-video database of testimonies from families of fallen and missing civilians and soldiers from the Defensive-Patriotic War. The Memorial Center of Republika Srpska calls on all families of fallen and missing civilians and soldiers from the Defensive-Patriotic War to share their testimonies and thereby preserve the memory of their loved ones. Anyone who wishes to submit a testimony may contact the Center via email at: komunikacije@mcrs.vladars.rs or by phone at: 051/222-999. Any downloading, duplication, or use of this material for other purposes is prohibited without prior consent from the Memorial Center of Republika Srpska.