Riada talks with Hikmet Karcic about Dervis Korkut, Bosniak scholar who saved Sarajevo Haggadah in WW2 - PART 2

Dignified Resilience with Riada Akyol

In the second part of the conversation on the magnificent Sarajevo Haggadah, Riada talks to Dr. Hikmet Karčić, a genocide scholar based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is the author of the most recent biography of Dervis Korkut, a Bosnian Muslim scholar who saved the Sarajevo Hagaddah in WW2 while he worked for the National Museum in Sarajevo. We spoke about Dervis Korkut's family background, his consistent legacy of advocacy for the protection of all minorities and everyone's religious freedom, and how he stayed faithful to those principles even when the consequences were dangerous and circumstances difficult. He risked his life many times and stayed true to anti-fascist principles. We also talked about the history of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region during WW2 and beyond, we examined different versions of stories on how Korkut actually saved the Haggadah from the Nazis, and then of course how did it survive during the war between 1992- 1995. We addressed the long history of Jewish presence in Sarajevo starting from the time of the Ottoman rule on. It was fascinating to listen Dr Karcic powerfully argue why it is so important to celebrate people like Dervis Korkut in today's day and age, and thus offer a crucial counter-narrative to the extremist nationalist forces that aim to suppress the existing historical facts of peace, harmony and caring about neighbors regardless of ethnicity or religion. Many Bosnians, including myself, but also so many people who are not Bosnians but who appreciate Sarajevo and its history and people, truly value the Hagaddah as one of the symbols of the city we all love. This episode is my humble contribution to digital history - towards preservation of the story and the celebration of the universal values, of dignity and the resilience of the book itself, the city of Sarajevo and all the people who have preserved the Sarajevo Hagaddah throughout history. Hikmet Karcic is a Researcher at the Institute for Islamic Tradition of Bosniaks (IITB) and a Senior Fellow with the Center for Global Policy. His research is focused on genocide and Holocaust studies, Islamophobia, memory studies and extremism.