Germany has withdrawn its proposal to award Israeli historian Gideon Greif with the country's Order of Merit, [1] after the academic was widely criticized over his report, which denied the Srebrenica genocide.
Germany had announced earlier last year that it planned to award Greif for his contributions to Holocaust research, which focuses on the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.
However, a wave of criticism followed, as Greif served as head of a commission that published a controversial report in July 2021 concluding that a genocide did not happen in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 1995, contradicting rulings by international courts. [2]
Bosnia's Serb-run entity of Republika Srpska had commissioned Greif to conduct the report. Serb leaders openly deny the genocide, including Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of the country's tripartite presidency who is now seeking secession for the entity. [3]
The award ceremony was supposed to take place on November 10, but Germany postponed the event until further notice and said it was reconsidering its decision.
On December 29, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a letter to Esnaf Begic, president of the board of directors at the Islamic College in Osnabruck, Germany, that the foreign ministry had withdrawn its decision to present the award to Greif.
"The Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs has withdrawn his proposal to award Professor Greif the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany," the letter said. "Professor Greif was therefore not awarded the Order of Merit."
The now-closed International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Court of Justice (ICJ) long concluded that the systematic massacre of some 8,000 Bosniak men and boys by Serb forces in July 1995 constituted a genocide - the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.
Greif's work on the Srebrenica genocide was denounced by many, including Menachem Rosensaft, general counsel of the World Jewish Congress, who said he was "appalled by the report's shameless manipulation of the truth".
Emir Suljagic, director of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, told Al Jazeera earlier last month that Greif "has been paid by a genocide-denying autocrat to peddle falsehoods and airbrush Bosniaks out of their own history, only because they are also Muslims... And that is how he should be remembered for the rest of his life and in history," Suljagic said.
The Institute for Research of Genocide Canada (IGC) called Germany's decision "another big victory for truth and justice". "This is another victory in the fight against genocide deniers; falsifiers of historical, judicial and scientific facts about the genocide; and glorifiers of convicted war criminals," institute director Emir Ramic was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera. "The voice of victims, witnesses to the genocide, and genocide researchers needs to be heard more loudly. "IGC will continue to vigilantly follow activities that are directed against Bosnia and will insist on justice and truth each time," Ramic said.
Gideon Greif
Speaking to Israeli newspaper Haaretz recently, Greif claimed that cancelling the award would mean a German attack on Holocaust memory, and that Bosnian objections were fuelled by anti-Semitism.
"I think that Holocaust remembrance is under attack - not just me personally - so I can't imagine that the German government will even consider not giving me the medal, which I deserve, because this will be interpreted as a denial of the Holocaust," Greif said.
"Where did all this come from?... As far as I know, it comes from Muslim circles. Bosnia is a Muslim country and so we can say, if we analyze it, that it's a Muslim attack on a Jewish scholar - you can find there even anti-Semitic characteristics."
Genocide denial is part of a growing culture of impunity, triumphalism and division in the region, according to the Srebrenica Memorial Center, an alarming trend for Bosnian survivors of war and genocide.
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