Croatia remembers war-time cameraman Gordan Lederer

The 35th anniversary of the death of Croatian Radio Television cameraman Gordan Lederer was marked at the "Broken Landscape" memorial on Čukur Hill above Hrvatska Kostajnica on Monday. Lederer was killed there by an enemy sniper on August 10th of 1991, while filming the Serbian attacks on the Pounje region.

Representing the General Director of the national broadcaster (HRT) was Siniša Galar, who noted that Gordan had put his life on the line to ensure that people would know the horrors Croatia was being subjected to in the early 1990’s: "For us Gordan is a symbol of the courage of all those people who risked their lives to report the truth about what was happening in our homeland. That's why this place here, cannot simply be a reminder of a tragic event, but also has to be a reminder of honest reporting."

"I was afraid of his work in the field, but he was completely unafraid. He would tell me that I didn't understand that the situation we had found ourselves in, in 1991, was a historic moment. But at that time, you couldn't stop the young people who were defending Croatia from going, they simply felt it and that's what guided them," added Gordan's widow Ana Lederer.

Also on hand for the commemoration was Deputy Prime Minister and Veterans’ Affairs Minister Tomo Medved. In his address Minister Medved emphasized that Gordan’s life was cut short, but that his legacy will live on forever: "Gordan Lederer was only thirty-three years old when enemy fire took his life here on Čukur Hill. But his story did not end on that day. It continues in every frame he captured, in every young person who sees his footage of the dawn of war in Banovina and asks themselves: who were these people who in the summer of 1991 stood before an incomparably stronger force and said: this is our home, we will stay here and we will defend Croatia."

Source: HRT