Exhibition in Srebrenica shows personal items of victims before the 30th genocide anniversary

SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Broken glasses, watches, combs and crumpled, faded identification documents.

They were among the personal items belonging to the victims of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica that were displayed at an exhibition on Thursday before the 30th anniversary of Europe's only acknowledged post-World War II genocide.

More than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were executed in just several days three decades ago after Bosnian Serb fighters overran the small eastern Bosnian town during the final months of the interethnic war in the Balkan country.

The bodies were dumped in mass graves around Srebrenica and later reburied multiple times to hide evidence of the crimes. Remains of the Srebrenica victims are still being excavated and buried annually on July 11 when the killings started in 1995.

Many of the items shown at the “Lives behind the fields of death” exhibition at the Srebrenica memorial center were found in the mass graves or in the forests around the town.

“It is a unique exhibition in the way that it highlights individual stories, individual lives and it does that by showing artifacts belonging to the victims,” Dutch Ambassador Henk van den Dool told The Associated Press.

The exhibition, he added, is showing that “genocide is not about facts and figures and statistics, but that genocide is about individual people, individual lives, young people, older people, men, women, people with dreams and people with ambitions.”

The exhibition also contains recorded testimonies of the survivors of the Srebrenica massacre — part of a joint project by the regional BIRN investigative network and the memorial center.

The testimonies are “small monuments to lives,” van den Dool said, teaching future generations about what happened in Srebrenica.

Remains of seven more people will be laid to rest on Friday at the cemetery near Srebrenica where fresh graves have already been dug. Last year, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide on the July 11 anniversary.

The conflict in Bosnia left more than 100,000 people killed and millions displaced.

Both Bosnia’s Serbs and neigboring Serbia still refuse to acknowledge that the massacre in Srebrenica was a genocide despite rulings by two U.N. courts. Scores of Bosnian Serb political and military officials have been convicted and sentenced for genocide.

A shirt found in a mass grave is shown as a part of the exhibition "Lives Beyond the Fields of Death" opened at the Srebrenica Memorial Center in Potocari, Bosnia, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)

Eyeglasses found in a mass grave are shown as a part of the exhibition "Lives Beyond the Fields of Death" opened at the Srebrenica Memorial Center in Potocari, Bosnia, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)

Pocket watches found in a mass grave are shown as a part of the exhibition "Lives Beyond the Fields of Death" opened at the Srebrenica Memorial Center in Potocari, Bosnia, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)

Woman watches a video, part of the exhibition "Lives Beyond the Fields of Death" opened at the Srebrenica Memorial Center in Potocari, Bosnia, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)

Personal documents found in a mass grave are shown as a part of the exhibition "Lives Beyond the Fields of Death" opened at the Srebrenica Memorial Center in Potocari, Bosnia, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Richard “Dick” Codey, a former acting governor of New Jersey and the longest serving legislator in the state's history, died Sunday. He was 79.

Codey’s wife, Mary Jo Codey, confirmed her husband’s death to The Associated Press.

“Gov. Richard J. Codey passed away peacefully this morning at home, surrounded by family, after a brief illness,” Codey's family wrote in a Facebook post on Codey's official page.

"Our family has lost a beloved husband, father and grandfather -- and New Jersey lost a remarkable public servant who touched the lives of all who knew him," the family said.

Known for his feisty, regular-guy persona, Codey was a staunch advocate of mental health awareness and care issues. The Democrat also championed legislation to ban smoking from indoor areas and sought more money for stem cell research.

Codey, the son of a northern New Jersey funeral home owner, entered the state Assembly in 1974 and served there until he was elected to the state Senate in 1982. He served as Senate president from 2002 to 2010.

Codey first served as acting governor for a brief time in 2002, after Christine Todd Whitman’s resignation to join President George W. Bush’s administration. He held the post again for 14 months after Gov. Jim McGreevey resigned in 2004.

At that time, New Jersey law mandated that the Senate president assume the governor’s role if a vacancy occurred, and that person would serve until the next election.

Codey routinely drew strong praise from residents in polls, and he gave serious consideration to seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in 2005. But he ultimately chose not to run when party leaders opted to back wealthy Wall Street executive Jon Corzine, who went on to win the office.

Codey would again become acting governor after Corzine was incapacitated in April 2007 due to serious injuries he suffered in a car accident. He held the post for nearly a month before Corzine resumed his duties.

After leaving the governor’s office, Codey returned to the Senate and also published a memoir that detailed his decades of public service, along with stories about his personal and family life.

“He lived his life with humility, compassion and a deep sense of responsibility to others,” his family wrote. “He made friends as easily with Presidents as he did with strangers in all-night diners.”

Codey and his wife often spoke candidly about her past struggles with postpartum depression, and that led to controversy in early 2005, when a talk radio host jokingly criticized Mary Jo and her mental health on the air.

Codey, who was at the radio station for something else, confronted the host and said he told him that he wished he could “take him outside.” But the host claimed Codey actually threatened to “take him out,” which Codey denied.

His wife told The Associated Press that Codey was willing to support her speaking out about postpartum depression, even if it cost him elected office.

“He was a really, really good guy,” Mary Jo Codey said. “He said, ‘If you want to do it, I don’t care if I get elected again.’”

Jack Brook contributed reporting from New Orleans.

FILE - New Jersey State Sen. and former Democratic Gov. Richard Codey is seen before New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy delivers his State of the State address to a joint session of the Legislature at the statehouse, in Trenton, N.J., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)