On February 13th, 2009 BAACBH Executive Director Ms. Elmina Kulasic was cordially invited by the Lab School of Washington to be one of the keynote speakers at the “History Doesn’t Have to Repeat Itself” assembly. The purpose of the assembly was to open a dialogue about the occurrence of genocide and how we can all be active global citizens in working to ensure that these atrocities do not repeat themselves. The assembly provided a forum for survivors, such as Ms. Kulasic, to have a voice in our community. The assembly included survivor speakers from Sudan Mr. Jimmy Mulla, the son of a Holocaust survivor, and Susan Siegal the Deputy Director in the Department of Justice’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which has handled the U.S. government’s Nazi persecutions for the last 29 years.

Ms. Kulasic shared her personal story of surviving the Trnopolje concentration camp in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina and emphasized the importance of giving a voice to the voiceless. Ms. Kulasic signified that one of the primary missions of an active global citizen should be to preserve the memory of those who suffered and to disseminate the knowledge about Bosnia and Herzegovina and other places where genocide occurred.