Historiography, Sources in

Suppressing, denying, or eliminating evidence of genocide is patently wrong. Morally and ethically, justice ought to mean the punishment of all culprits—political, religious, and media leaders from afar, and executioners in the killing fields alike—in proportion to their misdeeds. The duty of professionals assigned to study specific cases is to record legitimate, authentic documentation, not to prepare prosecutions or facilitate harmony. Meticulously and accurately—in the original language to prevent any misunderstandings and the potential loss of context in translation—reconstructing criminal events is their primary responsibility.

An expert analysis of personal testaments and written submissions by eyewitnesses to mass murders, particularly in terms of their inclusion in academic scholarship or journalistic publications, is highly problematic, especially in traditional cultures. Dilemmas concern the enormous risks inherent in identifying victims. Innocent people may be stigmatized, losing respect and dignity in their neighborhoods. Sensitivity and even self-imposed ethical boundaries—such as the scope of questioning—to determine authenticity are warranted. The brutally wounded suffer physical injuries and psychological troubles, having lost both close friends and relatives. Their pain endures, even if they survived without visible scars. To desensitize such traumatized people is a major challenge.

Nevertheless, even the most sympathetic researcher needs to probe for exact details, including time, place, scope of atrocities, names, and the severity of crimes. Interviews often involve deep memories of humiliation, for instance, those commonly associated with rape. They therefore remind subjects of personal shame, likely triggering immediate and or long-term psychological impact. These emotional circumstances may obscure the retrieval of imperative facts, or credible transcripts may be subsequently reversed during a judicial hearing, due to fears of a public loss of dignity or communal pressure. The creation of comprehensive archives with concrete evidence is crucial to determining the truth about perpetrators, and to bringing them to justice through a formal indictment.

An accurate, systematic, and balanced methodology is thus a necessity for responsible officials or human rights organizations. The advent of technology has provided some answers. The use of tape recorders, video cameras, websites, and the Internet in general allows the compilation of a multitude of resources and the classification of such accounts, while making them widely accessible. Another solution, after the violence has ended, is to treat the collection and assessment of information, and signed summations, as part of the healing process that collectives and individuals ought to face.

Rules to ensure consistency in analyzing evidence—especially in the most common form, oral history—have emerged gradually. They are not yet uniform, nor universally accepted, as so many individuals, organizations, and governments are involved. Conventional practices of qualitative analysis to evoke well-structured narratives of memories take psychological research theories on cognition into account. Oral and written data culled through methodologies employed in a plethora of academic pursuits enrich and make more sensitive mainstream thinking on how to best gain and assess relevant knowledge.

Any effort to reconstruct events related to genocide and crimes against humanity must incorporate input from segments of numerous traditional scientific authorities. Important disciplines include law, sociology, forensic and clinical psychology, medicine, pathology, social work, criminology, criminal justice, ethnography, cultural anthropology, gender studies, education, media and communications, history, political science, international relations, strategic and military studies, comparative literature, theology, philosophy, geography, demography, and economics. In addition, studies of racism, especially of anti-Semitism, coupled with the exploration of colonialism and the customs prevalent among particular urban or rural populations, are helpful. This comprehensive effort must be complemented by an analysis of the specific circumstances defining the lives of victims, such as Jews, Armenians, and any other affected groups, nations and tribes alike, in Africa, Asia, and Europe, and indigenous populations in Latin America and Oceania.

How killers and their cohorts reach the degree of hatred or vengeance necessary to commit crimes against humanity is another important query. The trials and tribulations of German and Jewish history, as obvious examples, are worthy of thorough exploration. Objective assessments of powerful social, economic, and political relationships in affected societies are necessary to understand, perhaps corroborate, although never justify, the circumstances attendant to a particular genocide, not the least of which is the context of the oral and written evidence provided by witnesses.

In sum, no one solution exists that perfectly addresses all the major dilemmas and boundaries faced by practitioners in the field on how to aptly translate the horrors of genocide into recognizable, perceptible terms and appropriate sources. Only a combination of standards, compassion, and common sense provides a flexible guideline. Exposing as many people as possible around the world to the visuals, graphics, and sounds inherent in genocide, thus educating them about such circumstances, may be the best measure to prevent future atrocities.

SEE ALSO Evidence; Historiography as a Written Form

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Daley, Peter M., ed. (2001). Building History: The Shoah in Art, Memory, and Myth. New York: Peter Lang.

Goldberg, David Theo and John Solomos (2002). A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.

Lorey, David E. and William H. Beezly, eds. (2002). Genocide, Collective Violence, and Popular Memory: The Politics of Remembrance in the Twentieth Century. Wilmington, Del.: SR Books.

Smith, Helmut Walser, ed. (2002). The Holocaust and Other Genocides: History, Representation, Ethics. Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press.

Itai Nartzizenfield Sneh