Entering the partisan graveyard in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, I literally stumble on the remnants of a young life. From the fragment of stone I can tell the young anti-Nazi militant lived from 1923–1943, but not make out his name — nor, therefore, his religious or ethnic background. Like all seven hundred graves in the monument, his tombstone was smashed to pieces last week in a coordinated night attack conducted by Croat fascists.

Mostar lives in the shadow of its recent history. As the Yugoslav federation broke up alongside the collapse of the USSR in the 1990s, a socialist country known for decades as a site of relative tolerance between minority populations and uniquely open relations with both East and West underwent a rapid reversal. The region was plunged into ethnonationalist war and ethnic partition imposed by both local actors and international powers. The conflict was marked by atrocities committed by all sides but particularly Serbian forces, principal among which was the Srebenica genocide conducted against (Muslim) Bosniaks by (Orthodox Christian) Serbs.