“This play examines the position of all of us in the audience—how we understand and relate to those who survived the genocide in Srebrenica. This perspective is especially important to me as someone coming from Serbia. It is our artistic way of questioning and trying to understand the fates and consequences of the wars that took place across the former Yugoslavia. I deeply believe that without empathy and the acceptance of responsibility, there can be no lasting peace in this region. As this artistic act strips away all the big and somewhat worn-out political words we constantly hear in discourse, we attempt to live on stage the lives that are no longer with us. But we also begin to understand and feel that survival—for those who remain—is not only about the sorrow of loss, but also about a profound fear of being forgotten. Forgetting, both personally and collectively , kills. Forgetting is a punishment for the victims, and a balm for the perpetrators and for those who continue to carry criminal ideologies.

You will meet Sadika, a fictional character, and her family—also fictional—whom she lost and never truly had. You’ll hear the voices of those who were never born and those who never grew up to celebrate their milestones. On her birthday, in a Dutch nursing home, Sadika becomes a grand tragic heroine, bringing back memories and hopes, preserving birthday gifts and other little things that keep her alive. She is alive, and she hopes she will never forget. Her daily routine is interrupted by Martin, who became her caregiver simply because of a shared language. Although he cannot fully comprehend Sadika’s fate, he tries to be helpful and ease her lonely final days. Azem is there—or perhaps he isn’t. Can people truly continue to live if we remember them? And what happens if we forget? In modern theater, it’s easy to imagine knights, kings, and heroes, but we rarely focus on the small, ordinary lives for whose deaths we may bear some responsibility—or who were our contemporaries, living at the same time as us, tormented by the same anxieties and fears for the future. Now, as this play is being created, we here in the Balkans are once again hearing similar voices—those who hate, who spread fear, and who deepen the consequences of a war that ended thirty years ago. – Andrej Nosov, director