Names are not numbers.

The Kosovo Memory Book

The Kosovo Memory Book is a project of the Humanitarian Law Center that aims to record by name every person killed or missing in connection with the war in Kosovo, regardless of ethnicity or of their status as a civilian or a member of an armed force. For each person, the project gathers and cross-checks information from multiple sources — family testimony, documents, reports and institutional data — to avoid duplicates and misidentification.[1]

According to the report HLC published in February 2015, the database recorded 13,535 people killed or missing between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2000. The figure includes civilians and members of the armed forces of all sides and covers a longer period than the war of 1998–1999. Later HLC pages give updated figures, so every figure should be cited with its year. The Human Rights Data Analysis Group has publicly evaluated the database's methodology and completeness.[1][2]

This archive does not copy the Kosovo Memory Book database. It cites it, explains how it was built and directs readers to it; any future import of records would take place only under a licensing agreement and with accurate attribution.

The missing

More than two decades after the war, the fate of more than 1,500 people missing in connection with the conflict remains unresolved, according to figures published by Kosovo's institutions and by the International Committee of the Red Cross. For their families the question is not historical but daily: where are the remains, and what happened? Figures change as remains are identified, so they must always be cited with their source and date.

The search for the missing is bound up with justice. The postwar discovery of mass graves in Serbia, including at Batajnica near Belgrade, showed that the bodies of many Albanian victims had been moved and concealed. In the Đorđević case, the ICTY found that police structures were involved in concealing bodies. At the same time, Serbian, Roma and other families also continue to search for relatives who went missing during and after the war.[3]

Why we do not publish lists of victims

A list of names looks like a complete record, but without methodology, sources and consent it can contain duplicates, misidentifications or the names of people who are still alive. Such errors cause pain to families and hand arguments to those who wish to deny the crimes.

This archive therefore does not publish long lists of names in order to appear complete. Memorial profiles are added one by one, based on identified sources and, where possible, with the family's consent. A data schema for verified imports exists, but it is used only with a licence, attribution and editorial control.

Memorials

In many places in Kosovo, the memory of the war has become part of public space: at the Memorial Complex in Prekaz, where Adem Jashari and many members of his family were killed in March 1998; at Reçak; and at Krushë e Madhe, where the victims of the killings of March 1999 are commemorated. Village memorial stones and family memorials matter just as much, even when they do not appear on official maps.

In Prishtina, the “Heroinat” memorial, unveiled in 2015, is dedicated to women in the war, including survivors of sexual violence. The archive is building records for memorials with location, date of unveiling, creator and source; they appear on the map under the “Memorials” layer only once the data have been verified.

Memory without false equivalence

This archive remembers all civilian victims of the war and of the postwar period, regardless of ethnicity. An Albanian civilian killed during the expulsions of 1999, a Serb farmer killed at Gracko after the war and a Roma family driven from their home all have a name and a right to be remembered.

Remembering everyone does not mean equating responsibility. The scale, organization and responsibility for crimes are established by evidence and, where they exist, by court decisions — not by a need for symbolic balance. Shared memory does not require all histories to be merged into a single narrative; it requires that no name be used against another people.