Srebrenica 'with or without bones' land joke
anecdote · Slovenian/Yugoslav ·
retold in 9 talks
A Stanford friend's research on how survivors of the Srebrenica massacre and the Holocaust coped by telling dirty jokes about themselves, an admission the trauma is too great to mourn properly; Wiesel, whom Žižek otherwise dislikes, collects such theological and Bosnia jokes.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 10
“they survived by making fun of themselves, by telling dirty jokes about themselves”
“do you want it with bones or without bones...this joke is at the same time a recognition that it's too horrible to do it directly.”
“because you know srebrenica is full of buried people… want want it with or without bones.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
alienation as a good thing
×1
permanent trauma
×1
comedy as the only honest form for extreme horror
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Bob Geldof2Giancarlo Giannini2Richard Gere2Lina Wertmüller2Peter Mandelson2Tim Cook2Umberto Eco3Roberto Benigni3
alongside works
Every retelling 10
A Stanford friend's research on how survivors of the Srebrenica massacre and the Holocaust coped by telling dirty jokes about themselves, an admission the trauma is too great to mourn properly; Wiesel, whom Žižek otherwise dislikes, collects such theological and Bosnia jokes., illustrating comedy and trauma,tragedy and extremity
Survivors of Srebrenica tell jokes about the massacre, including one where a returnee asks about land prices and is told 'it depends, do you want it with bones or without bones?' Žižek cites this to argue that obscene humor is the only honest way to cope with extreme horror, and that sentimental identification ('we are all in Srebrenica') is the real vulgarity., illustrating alienation as a good thing,jokes and obscenity as honest response to catastrophe
A survivor of Srebrenica (where the mass graves are) asks the price of a plot of land and is asked 'with or without bones?', a riff on the old Yugoslav butcher's 'with or without bones?' for meat. Žižek uses this as an example of obscene humor as the only way to process extreme trauma., illustrating obscene humor and solidarity,psychic survival of trauma
A vulgar Bosnian joke about Mujo and Fata: after the Srebrenica massacre, they collect disfigured bodies, finding only penises. Fata rejects several as not belonging to Mujo, and one not even from Srebrenica, illustrating how trauma is processed through vulgarity and denial rather than serious mourning., illustrating trauma,ideology,everyday-life
A joke from the Srebrenica massacre where survivors frame their survival as 'sabotage' by the KGB/enemies, illustrating how humor allows survival in traumatic contexts., illustrating history,geopolitics-war
A survivor of the Srebrenica massacre, now working in Germany, returns to ask about buying land to build a house. His friend asks, 'Do you want a parcel with or without bones?' referencing the Yugoslav custom of buying meat with bones for soup, turning the horrific loss of bodies into a mundane commercial transaction., illustrating comedy as confrontation,trauma processing