The Placeholder is a temporary site marker to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide, composed of 8,372 broken stone fragments created collectively to honor the victims. Because process of creating a permanent national memorial remains slow, a symbolic timeline of stones is embedded in the ground, adding a new stone for each year a permanent memorial is delayed. The concept was developed together with the NMSG’95.

Since the 1990s genocide, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been dotted with memorial cemeteries featuring tall, white tombstones known as nišani (traditional Islamic grave markers). The temporary site marker in The Hague is constructed from the residual stone left behind during the fabrication of nišani. This material was brought to the Netherlands, where community members carefully fragmented the stone in a collective act of remembrance to honor the victims of the Srebrenica genocide. Ultimately, 8,372 stone fragments – one for each person murdered – were embedded into the Placeholder. Serving as a symbolic carrier of memory, this Placeholder actively anticipates and urges the government of a future permanent memorial. It was inaugurated in 2025 and is situated in front of the former International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at Churchillplein 1, a national heritage site of immense architectural and memorial value. Alongside the memorial, plans are underway to establish a documentation/information center in the former Yugoslavia Tribunal building to preserve this vital history.