This week, to mark the ten year anniversary of the genocide against the Yezidis, 12 testimonies from female survivors of these atrocities have been deposited in our collection.
Almost ten years ago today the international terror organisation, ISIS, perpetrated a genocide against the Yezidi minority in Iraq. Men and boys were slaughtered and thousands of women and girls were taken captive.
In 2023 Dr Becky Jinks, a Senior Lecturer at Royal Holloway University of London, travelled to Sinjar in southern Iraq and interviewed female survivors of ISIS’ atrocities. Each of those testimonies, now preserved in our collection, bears witness to the horror of the genocide, which was formally recognised by the UK government last year.
As well as marking a grim ten year anniversary, the accession of these testimonies constitutes a continuation of the Library’s long history as a guardian and safe repository for first hand accounts of these crimes, from the 1930s to the present day.
While thousands of testimonies have been gathered by lawyers, journalists, and humanitarians, almost none are available for future research. Depositing these interviews at the Wiener Holocaust Library is thus a very significant moment, ten years after the genocide.
I spoke with my Yezidi interviewees just before the ninth anniversary of the genocide. All were clearly ground down by years of living, surviving, as IDPs – in limbo. Now, on the tenth anniversary, their future looks even more precarious as the Iraqi government and Kurdish Regional Government waver over whether and when to close the camps.
Dr Becky Jinks
Several of these testimonies were featured in a recent exhibition at the Library, Genocidal Captivity: Retelling the Stories of Armenian and Yezidi Women. This section of the exhibition intended to draw attention to the ongoing plight of Yezidis, thousands of whom remain stuck in displacement camps, unable to return to their homes.
As part of the accompanying events series we heard from representatives from the NGO, Free Yezidi Foundation, about the current situation and their efforts at securing justice and accountability for the victims and survivors. You can watch the full event here: The Yezidi Genocide today – ‘It’s been nine years, and we are still there, in the tent’.
I’d like to thank the women who agreed to share their stories with me. Many emphasised very strongly that they wanted the world to know what happened, and is still happening, to the Yezidis – and that’s why they agreed to archive their testimonies. I hope that in future more testimonies will be collected and made available to researchers.
Dr Becky Jinks
We also heard from photojournalist Claire Thomas, whose photographs of the Yezidi women who were interviewed were also featured in the exhibition. She discussed her experiences of photographing Iraq since the genocide. Watch this talk here: Sinjar Destroyed: Photographs and stories of the aftermath of ISIS genocide in northern Iraq.
These important testimonies will be available to researchers through our Reading Room soon.
