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    The aim of the project Unveiling personal memories on war and detention is to affirm personal memories of all interested witnesses of political events in Croatia and to preserve them from falling into oblivion.Read more

    The methodology which Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past uses in collecting personal memories is partially grounded in the basic methodological principles of the oral history method. It has been used since 1948, when the oral history method was accepted in the scientific community as a technique of documenting history and it enables Documenta, as a human rights organization working on the process of dealing...Read more

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    The CroMe project is financed by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Matra Programme: supporting social transition. The Matra programme supports countries in Southeast and Eastern Europe in the transition to a pluralist and democratic society, governed by the rule of law.Read more

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Sanja Sarnavka

Sanja Sarnavka was born in 1954 in Skopje, in Macedonia. Her father was a serviceman, a member of the People's Liberation Movement. During the whole of the Second World War he fought in Slovenia. In the period of Yugoslavia he showed disagreement with the system and with political conformism. Sanja was raised in a freedom-loving spirit. Her mother's first husband was killed in Bleiburg and after the War she had to manage with a small child from that marriage. Sanja Sarnavka graduated Comparative Literature and Yugoslav Languages and Literature. Just prior to and at the start of the war in the 1990s she worked at the Trešnjevka Centre for Culture, and later at the XVIII Gimnazija high school in Zagreb. During that period she witnessed the influence of war on her students, as well as the new models of behaviour based on national homogenization, which were advocated and implemented in schools from the highest levels. Since 1996 she has been involved in the work of the B.a.b.e. women's human rights group. Today she is the head of the organisation and she leads its human rights program.

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Family origin Legacy of Second World War Sister Mother's story Father Collective identity Attitude towards religion in the family Losing faith National identity Inter-national relations in Yugoslavia Self-management socialism Issue of women Feminism Education Destruction of individualism Trešnjevka Centre for Culture Opening up of Yugoslavia in the 1980s Father's death Failure to learn from history Summer before the war National homogenisation Work in a school in the 1990s Religious education in schools Anti-War Campaign Influence of war on children State of war in Zagreb Identifying with the war Dealing with the past War crime trials Expectations for the future
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