RAPE IN BOSNIA INSPIRED HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS TO TALK

PHOTO #1: Traumatized woman, Bosniak rape victim. Serb forces used rape as a weapon of war in Bosnia. Photo taken by Antony Loyd, noted war correspondent and former British Army officer. Image used for Fair Use Only and in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 for research and educational purposes.

PHOTO #2: Bosniak woman Aziza (not her real name) is a 29-year-old mother of 3 who was raped in front of her children by Serbian troops at Brcko. After repeated rapes, Serbs then urinated in her children's mouths. This is just one example of massive brutality that Serb forces committed against Bosniak women and children. During the entire month of December of 1992, the rapes continued and she was 2-months pregnant and wants an abortion. Bosnian Muslim women were systematically raped during the Bosnian Genocide (1992-95). Photographer: Sophie Elbaz
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Rape in Bosnia Inspired Holocaust Survivors to Talk About Their Experiences During the Holocaust

Sonja Hedgepeth is a professor of foreign languages and literature at Middle Tennessee State University. Rochelle Saidel is a political scientist, author, and the founder and executive director of the Remember the Women Institute in New York City.

These two women hope their book will spark serious discussion and exploration. But it resulted, at least in part, from an effort to keep them silent. While running a workshop for teachers five years ago at Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial, the pair raised the subject of sexual violence against Jewish women.

The path to this discussion has been paved by developments only seen with the passage of time.

Men made up the bulk of those who interviewed survivors in the first 40 years after the war, Goldenberg says, and they may have been reluctant to raise the question of rape. But after mass rapes during the Bosnian War of the 1990s came to light, she says some Holocaust survivors began, when she asked them, to share their own stories -- in whispers and out of earshot from their husbands. Continue reading this story on CNN >>>