Nick Teunissen was 13 years old when, in July 1995, he watched footage of the Srebrenica genocide on television in the Netherlands. Although, as he recalls, these were vivid images of a town located in Europe, they were difficult for a child to comprehend. Twenty-six years later, at the age of 39, Nick is preparing to release a book on July 10 titled “Searching for Esmir,” about a Srebrenica boy.

It all started with one photograph.

My friend Serge Janssen sent me a picture of a boy smiling at the camera, amidst hell on earth. That face told me a completely different story. It was contrary to the well-known images we had seen on the news. It was a human portrait. And it turned out to be Esmir’s photograph.

Serge Janssen was a member of the Dutch battalion, known as Dutchbat. He entered Srebrenica in February 1994 and left in July of the same year. He was an amateur photographer, and during those few months in Srebrenica, he took many photographs.

His photograph of Esmir is on the cover of the book, which Nick says is not fiction but a story of humanity in Srebrenica before the lives of the people in this town were turned into statistics.