Date: May 4, 1995
Author: Valentina Krčmar, Thornhill, Ontario
Addressed to: Letters to the Editor, The Globe and Mail
View the Original Letter: krcmar book 3_Part2_Part42.pdf
About This Letter
In this deeply personal letter dated May 4, 1995, Valentina Krčmar responds to The Globe and Mail article “New Hatred Shadow Camp Ceremony”, which reported on a commemorative event held in Westerbork, Netherlands — a site of immense suffering during the Second World War.
The article rekindled in Krčmar both sorrow and hope: sorrow for the recurring horrors in the Balkans, and hope that voices of truth still existed in the world.
“For the longest time I have lived in a nightmare: is it possible that the world does not see the horror of the Balkans? Doesn’t the world see that in spite of ‘never again’ it is happening all over again?”
Krčmar draws a painful parallel between the atrocities of the Second World War and the ongoing suffering in Croatia and Bosnia. For her, the world’s failure to recognize or confront Serbian aggression represents a betrayal of the postwar vow that such crimes would never again be repeated. Yet amid her despair, she finds solace in the courage of individuals such as Ms. Leslie Renault, whose remarks at the ceremony she praises for cutting through moral complacency.
“Your article has given me strength to go on, because finally somebody had enough courage to remind the world… ‘What about the Balkans today?’”
Krčmar admires Renault’s moral clarity and laments how few possess such strength of conviction. She imagines how history might have unfolded differently if more people had refused to accept the false narrative of shared guilt — the notion that “everyone is guilty in different degrees.”
“If there were more people like Mr. Renault, who even at 22 knew the right way… today Sarajevo would be free, the town of Vukovar would be as beautiful as ever, and there certainly would be no need for the ‘safe havens’ in Bosnia.”
Through this letter, Krčmar mourns both the victims of past and present wars while imploring the world not to grow numb to suffering disguised by political rhetoric. It is a reminder that moral courage — the willingness to name injustice — remains humanity’s only defense against repeating history’s darkest chapters.
