Tag: Memories of Violence

Reanalysing Violence as a Tool for Justice

In this post, Svetlana Onye explores the way violence has been understood in society and question whether it can be reconceptualised as a tool for liberation.

What values have you amassed and embodied with such an ease that you have lost the ability to come to terms with your own psyche? 

In discussions of liberation, Western society encourages the idea of change through peace. Through collective silent walking, through speaking your thoughts freely but not loud enough as to rouse the baton of a police officer or to threaten a fragile yet fortified sovereign state. It can be argued that this is because of the Christian teachings which remain present in the values of Western society or it can be argued that submissiveness cast as peace allows one to be dominated in a way that appears to look like security and care. 

In the words of Assata Shakur, “nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who are oppressing them.” This quote challenges us to wonder what states of being and tools of change we are employing when seeking to make a difference and whether they will work. If we are employing tools given to us by those who oppress us to seek change, will change truly manifest or instead will it be hindered? Because those tools were never made to incite liberation but rather created to maintain the order which currently exists. Therefore, we ask ourselves whether peace is really a tool for change or instead does it come through violence.

Violence is often brandished with the label of barbarism, through the observance of its fatal and often ugly repercussions, as well as the belief that pursuing change through violence only prolongs one’s own injustice. The August 2011 riots against the unlawful killing of Mark Duggan, was called “criminality pure and simple” by then-UK Prime Minister David Cameron; in the US, American conservative personality Tomi Lohren called anti-police brutality riots in New York, sparked after the unlawful murder of Stephon Clark by police, as events which only “advance the ill and society grievances.” It is almost as if the perceived feral behavior of violence is something that should naturally not possess the civilised man, despite the fact that it is through violence we have built the civilised man. History shows us this. Slavery, with its subjugation, brutality and dehumanization was violent to the body as it was to the mind, othering black people through all facets of self in order to distinguish the binary of the civilized and savage man, creating a history of the plight of trying to rid the stain of the latter in order to become the former.

Or must we believe that violence is only innate to the man who lives in places of corruption? Or the man who does not have the moral values which have been shaped through socialised comparisons? If we understand violence as innate to all men and as integral to change, we can see violence as having been castrated to permit the violence of some and to dehumanise the violence of others, the latter of whom need to reclaim their natural state to capture their freedom. As humans, we are made up of violence as much as we are made up of love. History shows us that many men chose to create systems where worldly growth could only be yielded through violent means.  

We live in a world where the many things we consume, the many institutions we enter and the values which it teaches have manifested from violence. The great economies of the West are the residue of boats crossing cold waters while carrying black bodies, of displacement and rewritten histories, of labour without citizenship and many other acts of violence which could not be resigned to time for it now exists across generations. Such violence colonises some but permits freedom for others, oppresses many but spreads wealth to a few and in this inequity, it is those who have suffered from such violence who have been taught to dissociate from their own. 

In his 1961 book The Wretched of the Earth, Franz Fanon states that violence can be viewed as the remedy for decolonisation, as colonialism is “violence in its natural state, and it will only yield with greater violence.” If colonialism is violence in its natural state, then violence itself, which is structured and systemised, transcends merely physical violence. Rather, the form of violence which has structured the modern world is a violence which affects the mind, the body and the soul and dictates the course of life, death and culture.   

Why has this violence been normalised? It can be argued that is because we are surrounded by this violence in its natural state. For the nature of colonisation pulsates in the police force, in politics, in schools, in hospitals and many entities which enforce racial discrimination and social injustice. These methods of violence are normalized because it yields economic wealth and permits a system with a particular set of morals and norms that create order and assimilation, while violence for means of liberation threatens to incite the dismantling of it.

Or maybe we fear the capacity to which our violence can materialise when we use it towards our own betterment. When we are made to believe that violence is a dark physical energy that is not innate, but rather roused through poverty of upbringing or evil, we are unable to come to terms with the full capacity of it. Instead, we have pent up frustrations towards a system which seems too intangible to break, loneliness from a cyclical work life which juxtaposes the suffocation of our peak time trains, ideations of wealth and status and the ability to have access to the lives of others, comparing our loses to their gains, colours and weight and cursing at the fact that our appearances can dictate the paths some of us take.

Where do these grievances go? When they are built up inside, when they are reflected in the faces of our children and their children, when the people to blame appear too high to touch. These grievances are thrust upon another, the violence remains on the ground as people fight their neighbours, brothers and sisters, as we create gangs to belong and to release as people shout only at the people who are within their reach. These actions, these formations are then presented as examples of savagery. Examples of why the system exists, of why morality has to be shaped and moulded by those who will never have to fight to reclaim their stolen rights. 

Fanon tells us that violence is a tool for change and justice because it is retribution, the act of seeking liberation on terms which does not please nor align with what oppression has taught the individual. It is not about negotiations and empathy, it negates second thoughts and love because these are the very things that you have been denied. It is having access to a violence that you hold within you because “you now realise your life, your breath, your beating heart is the exact same as the settlers” (Fanon, 1961). 

Though Fanon employs the example of the Algerian revolution in his book, the Haitian revolution is also an example of how utilising violence incites change. The 1791 Haitian Revolution happened after years of slavery, discrimination, dehumanisation and abuse suffered by West African slaves in the colony formerly named Saint-Domingue. It was the ultimate sugar island at that time and a crucial source for the economic growth of France. The slaves believed that change could only come through violence because they had understood that there was no other way to demand liberation if those who you are asking to liberate you, do not see you as equal nor deserving of a quality of life. Therefore, they spoke to them with the same language they have been spoken too, reflecting onto them the horrors which they have suffered.

So, is violence the tool for change and justice? It is a question we should not be afraid to ask for through our exploration of the idea we may find the correct procedures in creating the changes that remain missing in the world. 

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0

Can Sinn Fein Move Beyond the IRA? The Future of Ireland’s Republican Party

In 1981, Provisional Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands – made famous as one of ten men to die during a hunger strike protesting the British government’s refusal to allow IRA members Prisoner of War Status — became the first Irish Republican to win election to the British Parliament. HIs victory, and subsequent death, opened the doors for an upwelling of political support for the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein. In 1983, Sinn Fein began to run for Northern Irish and British seats, even as the militant wing of the IRA continued to perform acts of violence — a strategy known as “The Armalite and the Ballot Box”. 

Nearly 40 years after Sinn Fein’s first electoral victories, and 15 since the complete disarmament of the IRA in 2005, Sinn Fein’s historical association with IRA violence has continued to cast a long shadow, making the political party a pariah in Dublin and London even as it represents the largest Nationalist (pro-Irish Unification) party in Northern Ireland’s Assembly. Yet two recent elections in both the Republic and Northern Ireland might have forever changed this dynamic. As Sinn Fein witnesses a surge in political support, the question of whether the organization can ever move past its historical association with violence has come into focus, presenting larger questions as to the political normalization of groups previously associated with the terrorism label. 

Two Elections, One Party

In the last year, two elections shook the foundations of Ireland’s political scene. During the December 2019 UK General Elections, Irish Nationalist parties won a majority of the votes in Northern Ireland, the first time the Assembly has ever seated more Nationalists than pro-UK Unionists. More recently, In an electoral earthquake in February 2020, Sinn Fein landed the largest share of votes in Dáil Éireann, Ireland’s parliament, overtaking the two dominant center-right parties that have exchanged power since independence. 

Part of Sinn Fein’s newfound success may lie in the symbolic break from the past under a new generation of Republican politicians. Sinn Fein’s leader, Mary Lou McDonald, has never been a part of the IRA and joined Sinn Fein only after the Good Friday Agreement ended Provisional IRA violence in Northern Ireland. In the 2020 Irish Elections, Sinn Fein positioned itself not as the political heirs of armed resistance, but as a left-wing alternative to the more center-right politics of the two dominant parties, emphasizing fair housing prices over Irish Unification. But even under a larger generational shift away from the conflict, Sinn Fein’s historical baggage has caused Ireland’s two other major parties to reject a governing coalition with the party. Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland the nationalists’ victory has masked a loss in support for Sinn Fein as voters have migrated to less polarizing parties, such as the SDLP and Alliance Party.

On both sides of the border, Sinn Fein’s history has hindered it from forming cross-border political dominance that could lead to political unification of the island. Although the party has experienced electoral success that would have seemed unimaginable 40 years ago, the terrorism association remains a substantial obstacle — one that Sinn Fein may not be able to overcome. 

Escaping the Terrorist Label

Given these realities, Sinn Fein presents an interesting case for the question of if former terrorist or insurgent groups can successfully transition away from the stain of past violence in a political process. While Sinn Fein attempts to reposition itself along the lines of leftist politics rather than sectarian identity, the memory of the IRA has remained strong enough to prevent the party from being fully normalized. Fair or not, the terrorist label remains, 25 years after the conflict officially ended. 

In his 2004 paper “Terror, Terrorism, Terrorists”, Charles Tilly states that the “terrorist” label becomes defining for any group that commits acts of terror or terrorism, to the point that a group’s non-terrorism activities and goals become submerged by its acts of violence intended to cause terror. Once identified as “terrorists,” political compromise becomes untenable with organizations linked to acts of terrorism, even after such groups have abandoned violence. For Sinn Fein, while “The Armalite and the Ballot Box” strategy may have permitted electoral success, the strong memory of the Armalite – a weapon used for decades as the IRA’s preferred tool for assassinations – has for now closed the door to achieving political power. The terrorist label persists, years after the men and women who committed acts of terror have been replaced by a generation that hardly remembers the conflict. This reality extends beyond Northern Ireland, from the political toxicity of forming coalitions with Spain’s Basque and Catalan Nationalist parties to the ethically and politically fraught prospect of forming a Taliban power-sharing agreement in Afghanistan. 

Yet keeping formerly terrorist-linked parties out of government poses its own risks. In Northern Ireland, the dissident Real IRA has been linked to the nationalist political party Saoradh, which has capitalized on some nationalists’ discontent with the speed of the political path towards Irish Unification and has been connected to recent shootings and deaths, including of Northern Irish journalist Lyra McKee. Even as Sinn Fein is rejected in the Dáil Éireann for past violence, still more extreme organizations wait on the sidelines, prepared to return to violence to achieve their aims. 

It is of course up to the people of the island of Ireland to determine whether Sinn Fein can be separated from the terrorist label and be allowed to move past its historic support of violence. For now, the elections in both the North and South have shown that the debate over Sinn Fein’s legitimacy and normalization has not subsided, even as more and more Irish voters seem prepared to offer the political party a second look.

Photo Credit: Devin Windelspecht

Under the Wire Review: The Perils of Reporting on Conflict

In 2018, the targeted killing and imprisonment of journalists reached its global peak in 10 years. From repression by autocratic regimes to assassinations linked to organized crime, journalists have faced untold risks as they attempt to report the truth. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Syrian Civil War, in which a reported 126 journalists, both local and international, have been killed attempting to report on the conflict.

Under the Wire brings home the real, human cost to journalists taking these risks, while also forcing the audience to once again to draw our eyes to the humanitarian catastrophe that is the Syrian Civil War. The film succeeds by showing the realities of reporting on conflict zones without romanticizing them, all while emphasizing the necessity of the work journalists do to tell the stories of the people most affected by conflict.

Under the Wire is first and foremost a personal story. It memorializes the legendary war journalist Marie Colvin, whose life was recently featured in the separate 2018 biographical drama A Private War. Centering on her working relationship and friendship with British photographer Paul Conroy, the film covers approximately two weeks that Colvin was reporting from Homs in 2012, during the assault by government forces on the rebel-held neighborhood of Baba Amr. It was an assignment that would cost Marie Colvin and French journalist Rémi Ochlik their lives in a targeted shelling attack, in what recently was decided in U.S. courts to be an “extrajudicial killing” directed by the Syrian government  — the first time that Assad regime has been held directly accountable in courts for a war crime.

While Colvin’s bravery, commitment to the truth, and impact on the lives of journalists such as Paul Conroy shines through the film, the documentary succeeds most when it focuses on the Syrian people themselves. It does so by showing the children who die for lack of medical equipment, the images of bereaved families within the “Widow’s Basement” huddle against the shelling of the Syrian army, and the kindness and selflessness of Syrians such as translator Wa’el and Dr. Mohammed Mohammed, who put their lives on the line to save the lives of Western journalists whom they barely knew. By forcing the audience to once again realize the humanity of the victims of the conflict, the film reframes the Syrian War once more as a fundamentally humanitarian catastrophe, in which the people who are most affected by the war are not faceless victims and refugees but are individuals who possess their own humanity and dignity.

There is great humanity in this film. It does credit to Conroy and the Under the Wire film team’s declared goal: to show the world the story of the Syrian people. By the end of Under the Wire, the audience is left with little doubt as to the courage of journalists such as Marie Colvin, or the necessity of risking danger—and ultimately their lives—to show the world what has occurred. But after eight years of ongoing conflict, and eight years of courageous reporting by Western and local journalists alike, the world has no choice but to acknowledge what is happening on in Syria. Yet the war continues.

For the audience of Under the Wire, this is the truth with which we must grapple. The work that Marie Colvin, and others like her, did and continue to do rests on the commitment of the rest of the world—governments and the public alike—to take action to end the continuation of the atrocities that have been shown to us by journalists such as Marie Colvin and Paul Conroy. There are great perils to reporting on conflict, but the greater peril is when we see the images and stories presented to us—and decide to look away.

Image Credit: Foreign and Commonwealth Office, CC BY 2.0

What do you do when your faith in the U.N. is shattered?

I arrived in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) for a Humanity in Action Fellowship in 2017 properly jaded. I had just completed a year-long stint with the U.N. office of PAX, where I worked on a series of reports outlining the particular cruelty and inhumanity of the sieges in Syria at the height of media coverage of the siege of Aleppo. It’s safe to say that I had a lot of feelings about spending the next month somewhere that had been kept under the longest siege in Europe since WWII.

Scrap of paper in front of government building which reads 1 March 1992: "do you vote for a sovereign and independent Bosnia and Herzegovina, a state of equal citizens and peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina - Muslims, Serbs, Croats, and of other people living in it?" 5 April 1992: First victims are killed at a peace rally
© Rachel Salcedo 2019

A frequent theme my cohort returned to—as is often (justifiably) the case in these conversations—was the failure and inadequacy of organizations such as the U.N. or USAID, and the Western states that frequently dominate them, to deliver on their promise to protect civilians and maintain international peace and security. And this is a fair point, the U.N. is one of the most powerful international institutions, but still is unable to effectively prevent, end, or resolve violent conflict—and if the UN is unable (or unwilling) to stir up political will to prevent or end conflicts, then what hope is there?

Scrap of paper in front of monument of canned beef, which reads the UN has trouble sending humanitarian aid to Sarajevo. The average civilian lives on 159g of food a day. When aid does arrive, citizens find biscuits and canned mean that had expired 50 years ago. Meanwhile, the UNSC "strongly condemns these acts of unspeakable brutality." UNSC Resolution 798, 18 Dec. 1992
© Rachel Salcedo 2019

During one incredibly poignant moment of my month in BiH, I was sitting at the back of the bus with a member of my fellowship who had lived through the war. He told me that as a child he hated the U.S. because of its inaction and resented having to suffer through trauma that no one should have to, while the U.S. stood by waiting, watching, pretending to care. But that wasn’t what stuck with me—it was that he shrugged, rather casually, and said, “but look at what is happening in Syria, and here I am, I’m doing nothing. So, who am I to judge?”

Scrap of paper in front of yellow high rise building which reads, Sniper Alley. Roughly 5-15 people were wounded each day by snipers, despite the presence of UN peacekeepers.
© Rachel Salcedo 2019
Scrap of paper in front of apartment complex, which reads 15 Jan 1993 8 civilians killed, 20 wounded by mortar shell while waiting for water. Azra & Asim Lačević were among the victims, leaving behind their children, Berin & Delila, who were among the severely wounded.
© Rachel Salcedo 2019

But isn’t that the whole point of an international community? Aren’t we exactly who is to judge? If not each of us, then who will judge the massive failure of the West and its international institutions?

Scrap of paper in front of marketplace which reads UNSC resolution 816 "deploring the failure of some parties concerned to cooperate dully with United Nations Protection Froce (UNPROFOR)" 31 March 1993
© Rachel Salcedo 2019

It is in the spirit of these questions that I compiled this photo essay during my time in Sarajevo. I wanted to highlight the hypocrisy of what the U.N. presents in official documents versus the lived experience of conflict. I was inspired by my colleagues—as well as the speakers who addressed us over the month we were there—to explore a Sarajevo that feels quite distant from the city you’ll find today. It is actually there, right below the surface, which in many ways feels like it is begging to be shown, not to be forgotten. I spent several days reading through UNSC resolutions about Bosnia, especially any that were around key dates and times. I explored the few resources online about the siege, and compiled enough information to create my own “walking tour” of the city.

Scrap of paper in front of broken concrete painted red to evoke blood spatter which reads of the 11,541 people killed during the siege, 1,601 of them were children. UNSC Resolution 820: "Deeply alarmed and concerned about the magnitude of the plight of innocent victims of the conflict" -17 April 1993-
© Rachel Salcedo 2019

I wanted to explore things that felt important to me personally, but also call attention to sites that—specifically tourists—might walk past without a second glance. Because of this, all of the sites photographed are easily accessible, notable, and are frequently seen or visited locations. The project is organized more or less chronologically, in order to give the viewer a visual timeline of the siege. The third photo in the series is irony meeting irony, as the canned beef monument—a literal larger than life rendering of a can of beef much like the ones dropped by ICAR, which Sarajevans would “rather die than eat”—is itself a jab at western aid agencies’ complete failure to provide humanitarian assistance.

Scrap of paper in front of state of a man yelling in a park which reads UNSC Resolution 819 "Demands that all parties and others concerned treat Srebrenica and its surrounding areas as a safe area which should be free from any armed attack or any other hostile act." 17 April 1993
© Rachel Salcedo 2019

In the background of the fourth photo, you can see the Hotel Holiday—the infamous yellow hotel that was notoriously inhabited by journalists bravely covering the siege—sitting along what was once one of the most dangerous streets to navigate, but is now one of the main thoroughfares and trolley lines in the city. The photo of the brewery was taken only one block from my apartment in Sarajevo, which felt exceptionally moving, to learn that there had been, within my lifetime, a massacre at a place I had just gotten drinks.

Scrap of paper in front of church which reads on average, 329 missiles were fired at Sarajevo daily. On 22 July 1993, 3,777 missiles hit the city in a single day.
© Rachel Salcedo 2019

The photo after this one is taken at the Markale Market in the center of the city, where some of the largest massacres once took place at the height of the siege. Today there is little more than a memorial wall, mostly hidden by the vendors. The Sarajevo Rose depicted is not one of particular note, as these memorials span the city, serving as their own unassuming reminder that we are never too far from history. I wanted to remind both myself and others, through the juxtaposition of the official documents about the conflict with the current state of the city, that the consequences of our actions are not theoretical—as they can sometimes feel as we sit in our comfortable London classrooms—but are in fact painfully real.

scrap of paper in front of dilapidated buildings which reads 10,000 buildings were completely destroyed. 100,000 buildings were heavily damaged. UNSC: "Decides to remain actively seized of the matter"
© Rachel Salcedo 2019

It’s something I have come back to a lot during my time at SOAS. As students at a highly critical university, learning about international institutions, norms, transitional justice, and peacebuilding through decolonial and feminist perspectives can make the world seem disheartening—but at the same time it helps prepare you for the realities of how the world functions. That being said, it’s natural to feel burnt out every so often, to wonder why we’re even bothering or if we should have just gone into banking or marketing. Or worse, to feel like you’ll have to end up working for and perpetuating the very systems about which you’ve spent an entire post-graduate degree learning. Because I very much want to continue working in the field of advocacy and transitional justice, this is something I have to reconcile on a daily basis.

scrap of paper in front of view of large village which reads UNSC resolution 900 "emphasizing the crucial importance of achieving complete freedom of movement for the civilian population and humanitarian goods and of the restoration of normal life in Sarajevo, determined to restore essential public services in Sarajevo" 4 March 1994
© Rachel Salcedo 2019

This was as maddening to navigate in BiH as it is today. Once you become aware of just how deeply broken everything is, it is incredibly daunting—and to be frank, depressing—to feel like one day it will be up to you to fix it all. I wish I could tell you that I’ve come to the solution, but I think we’ll have to keep on working through it together. I desperately want to do something right in a world that makes it feel nearly impossible, I hope that exploring what you can do when your faith is shattered can be one small thing to help us understand our positionality a bit better.

Remembering Mass Violence

The 27th of January marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and around the world people paid respect to the victims of the the Holocaust. In December, managing editor Megan Manion and senior editor Rachel Salcedo traveled to Poland and here offer some reflections on their visit to sites of Holocaust remembrance:

Poland in December likely wouldn’t strike most people as a desirable travel destination, but for us the dark, cold, and snow felt somehow fitting for what we had planned to be a decidedly sombre experience. We visited a number of memorials throughout the country—most notably, Auschwitz-Birkenau—as we sought to think through the vastly complex and layered histories of multiple occupations, mass atrocity, and the building of a national collective memory. As scholars of transitional justice, we were interested in understanding the praxis and politics of memorializing violence that occurs at such a large scale.

After suffering under the profound violence of German occupation, Poland was given little respite before Soviet occupation began, so remembering the damage of the Holocaust became caught up in the unfolding trauma of totalitarian repression. Thus, we considered the politics of identity in conflict settings and the narration of those identities in post-conflict reconstruction. We also contemplated what it means to memorialize certain instances of violence in lieu or at the expense of others. Below, we consider the politics of memorialization and the challenges of narrating a cohesive national memory that conflicts with the complexity of survivors’ realities.

What does it mean to be a memorial?

A memorial takes many forms, and largely depends upon who is doing the memorializing as much as what they are attempting to remember. A critical feature of memorials is that they engage the spectator in the experience of their subjects. Memorializing should be understood as an active process narrating an experience of violence; thus a site of that experience must be understood, at least in part, to be about evoking a response.

One of the key ways Auschwitz-Birkenau is effective in this regard derives from allowing visitors to live its history, standing where victims stood and imagining themselves amongst the prisoners. It is so difficult to fully understand how quickly and how brutally people lost their lives in extermination camps, particularly when today we are inundated with images of the Second World War and partly-fictionalized imaginings of what it was like for those who suffered in concentration camps. In reality, however, these images pale in comparison to what one is able to imagine when standing along the tracks leading to Birkenau’s gas chambers or in cells where prisoners were made to sleep eight to a bed, stacked on top of one another three bunks high.

Walking along these tracks toward the ruins of gas chambers that Nazi authorities destroyed before the camps were liberated, we imagined the racing thoughts that might have crossed a young mother’s mind as she made the same short walk seventy years ago: would she have been relieved by her decision not to be separated from her child? Would she realize that this decision sealed her fate, and that if she’d let an elderly woman take the baby she might have been allowed to live? Or would she be too tired and worn down and disoriented to have these thoughts, to be fearful anymore?

As the memorial stands, it demonstrates the damage of the Nazi regime and the evil contained in the camps by clearly showing the harm done to all groups targeted. In functioning as a museum, however, the site literally narrates the experience of a victim as they moved through the camp and the overall experience of those targeted by the Nazis. In this way, the amount of information presented to guests means that at times Auschwitz-Birkenau struggles as a site of memory: space for memorializing the victims is often truncated by the memory of what was done to them.

We felt this conflict through much of the camp, most palpably in the buildings that once housed prisoners at Auschwitz and which today display victims’ possessions. Walking along halls that contain thousands and thousands of shoes, stacked haphazardly on top of one another, looking almost as if they had been thrown into the display, our attention was drawn to the few dainty heels and sandals that lie alone toward the front. Another room offers the same organization of eyeglasses, another contains pots and pans, another suitcases—all labeled as though they might be reunited with their owners.

Another room contains orphaned prosthetics and crutches, another still is filled with hairbrushes and shaving materials. But none of these displays compare to the dimly lit room filled with a mountain of actual human hair, matted and tangled together so you can’t quite tell the hair color or type; in fact you don’t immediately identify the mountain as hair at all, in part because it is difficult to accept the reality that you are looking at. This literal dehumanization of victims in order to illustrate the dehumanization that occured at the hands of the Nazis acts at some points to overpower the individuals that were there.

Why is remembering different than memorializing?

Personal and public memory play different roles in post-conflict communities, and with those roles come particular politics. Remembering is a personal process of naming what someone has survived. To remember, one must engage in a performance of that trauma in order to take ownership of one’s narrative, body and agency. Engaging personally reimagines what it means to be a victim, and indeed, a survivor.

In the words of French philosopher, Paul Ricoeur, jailed by the Nazis as a prisoner of war, “The duty of memory is the duty to do justice, through memories to an other than the self” (89). Personal memory—a survivor remembering what was done to them, or a perpetrator remembering what they did—establishes a socially liminal site at which healing is presumed to begin. Remembering then can be understood as distinct from memorializing, in that remembering atrocity allows someone to grieve and mourn harm done to them, while memorializing serves to create a publicly meaningful truth of what happened to others.

It is of note, then, that Auschwitz-Birkenau attempts to narrate the objective truth of WWII by identifying the victims who exist outside of public meaning. As the text throughout the camp and our guide articulated, though Jews were targeted most in number and were most prevalent in Nazi documentation, others also lost their lives and their freedom. Persons with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals, people of color, political dissidents, ethnic minorities, religious communities, and prisoners of war were targeted alongside Jews: Nazis stole their property, their dignity, and their humanity before murdering them. In a way that seems to controvert public narratives, Auschwitz-Birkenau made explicit reference to these victims who also lost their lives, but are pushed to the margins of memory and memorial.

Where do we locate a person’s humanity?

This question is a central one that drew us to work in human rights and transitional justice in the first place. A critical factor of understanding atrocity and conflict is unpacking profound questions of what gives someone the right not to be brutalized, what is right and just in war and politics, and ultimately, what makes us human and why. But the politics of identity are a very real framework through which we individually and collectively identify who has the right to be; however, this approach risks being reductive and may distract from the lived reality of mass atrocity for victims and perpetrators.

At Auschwitz-Birkenau, we struggled to comprehend what it must have felt like for victims who lived and died there. But we also considered the experience on the other side of the fence. What must it have been like for the Nazis, what makes someone comfortable with such cruelty? It should be noted that, according to our guide at the camp, Nazi officers stationed at Auschwitz-Birkenau and other extermination camps throughout Poland had to request placement there; thus, we must argue against common narratives of complicity—camp authorities and operators perpetrated atrocity with measured intent and even enthusiasm. How was cruelty and hatred so effectively and efficiently weaponized?

At least one explanation is derived from the politics of establishing the ideal enemy. The millions of people who counted as the enemy were subjected to unbelievable cruelty and violence because they were treated as if they were not human. Where the enemy is not even human, violence against them is allowed and, more importantly, just.

Reflecting on the memorialization of these events, as well as the events themselves, feels especially urgent at this moment in history. As we see a surge of right wing leadership globally, as well as a rise in nationalism and xenophobia overall, it is important for us to consider the narratives we have constructed through memorials of the Holocaust in order to prevent us from going down a similar path. If we really mean it when we say “never again”, then we must begin to have more open conversations about our histories, and our performance of public and private memory surrounding atrocities—we hope that this can be a starting point.

Photo Credits: Rachel Salcedo