Making Sense of War Memories: An Analysis of Dutch Veteran Return Trips to Former Yugoslavia

This article analyzes the war memories and processes of meaning-making Dutch veterans who returned to places related their deployment in former Yugoslavia 1990s. It argues that incentive return can be found difficulties have assigning positive meaning because existing collective cultural about genocide Srebrenica do not align with many veterans’ experiences during after war. In analysis interviews conducted seventeen veterans, attention is paid wartime memories, motivation return, trips. Returning provides a way reconcile especially traumatic ones. The building these passes through several phases: introspection; opening up family, friends, relatives; helping others.