Genocides

The Armenian genocide (1915-1916) refers to the systematic annihilation of the Armenian Christian population living in the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) by the Ottoman government in order to establish Muslim Turkish dominance in the region. It has been estimated that between 664,000 and 1.2 million Armenian died during the genocide, either in mass executions and individual killings, or from the brutalities and deprivations they suffered during forced deportations.

• Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation by Arnold Toynbee (1915)
• The Armenian Genocide in Perspective edited by Richard G. Hovannisian (1992)
• Genocide and Human Rights: Lessons from the Armenian Experience by the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (1992)
• Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide by Donald E Miller and Lorna Touryan Miller (1999)
• The Transgenerational Consequences of the Armenian Genocide: Near the foot of Mount Ararat by Anthonie Holslag (c.2018)
• Killing Orders: Talat Pasha’s telegrams and the Armenian Genocide by Taner Akcam (c.2018)

External Resources

Genocide 1915. The website ‘Genocide 1915’ aims to inform about the Armenian Genocide and demand the affirmation of it as such. The website provides photos, a detailed timeline and external links.

Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Foundation. This foundation is dedicated to preserving the memory and legacy of the Armenian Genocide. Follow @ArmGenocide100

During the Bosnian Civil War (1992-1995), the Bosnian Serbs, one of the three main ethnic groups forming the newly independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, targeted Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslim) alongside Croatian civilians with the aim to “cleanse” Bosnia of its Muslim civilian population. An estimated 100,000 people were killed, 80,000 of which were Bosnian Muslims.

In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces exterminated as many as 8,000 Bosniak men and boys from the town of Srebrenica. It was the largest massacre in Europe since the Holocaust.

• Genocide on the Drina River by Edina Becirevic (c.2014)
• Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and its Reversal by Gerard Toal and Carl T. Dahlman (c.2011)
• Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of “Ethnic Cleansing” by Norman Cigar (c.1995)
• The Last Refuge: A True Story of War, Survival and Life Under Siege in Srebrenica by Hasan Nuhanović (2019)
• Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica, Europe’s Worst Massacre since World War II by David Rohde (2012)
• Western Intervention in the Balkans: The Strategic Use of Emotion in Conflict by Roger Dale Petersen (2011)

External Resources

Remembering Srebrenica: The British charitable initiative organises the UK events for the EU-designated Srebrenica Memorial Day on 11 July and runs the education programme ‘Lessons from Srebrenica’. The website informs about the projects and the memorial day gives detailed background information about the genocide and features survivor stories and links for further reading. Follow @SrebrenicaUK

Untold Killing is a podcast series that tells the story of the Bosnian genocide and ethnic cleansing through the voices of those who survived it.

During 1975 and 1979 in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge, under the leadership of Communist Party general secretary Pol Pot, carried out systematic persecution and mass killings of Cambodians deemed to be potential political enemies. In addition, ethnic minorities and members of the Communist Party of whom the Khmer Rouge were suspicious were also exterminated. This resulted in the deaths of an estimated two million Cambodians.

• Bou Meng: A Survivor from Khmer Rouge prison S-21: justice for the future, not just for the victims by Huy Vannak (c.2010)
• Survivor: The Triumph of an Ordinary Man in the Khmer Rouge Genocide and Chum Mey’s Confession by Chum Mey (2012)
• The Killing of Cambodia: Geography, Genocide and the Unmaking of Space by James A. Tyner (2008)
• The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79 by Ben Kiernan (2008)
• Voices From S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison by David Chandler (1999)
• Short Hair Detention: Memoir of a Thirteen-Year-Old Girl Surviving the Cambodian Genocide by Channy Chhi Laux (c.2017)
• Illiberal Transitional Justice and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia by Rebecca Gidley (c.2019)
• Buried by Charles Fox (c.2019)

External Resources

The Digital Archive of Cambodia Holocaust Survivors (DACHS): This digital archive features a historical overview, survivor stories, the Cambodian Genocide Justice Act (CGJA) and historical photographs. DACHS continues to look for stories and photographs from life under the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese occupation to grow the archive.

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum: The museum is located in Phnom Penh on the site of what was formerly used as Security Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge regime, one of at least 150 execution centres in the country. The website provides a brief history of S-21 and a collection of 114 photographs of its prisoners.

The Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-CAM): The independent Cambodian research institute, established in 1995, aims to preserve the history of the Khmer Rouge regime for future generations. The link to the resources provides access to the DC-CAM’s projects, publications, databases, survivor stories, family tracing, tribunal-related materials and the archives

Cambodian Genocide Program (CGP) – Genocide Studies Program, Yale University: The award-winning project, established in 1994, provides access to the 100,000-page archive of the Khmer Rouge regime’s security police, the Santebal. The project has also published biographic and bibliographic records, photographs, documents, translations, maps, a list of CGP books and research papers on the genocide, as well as the interactive Cambodian Geographic Database (CGEO).

In December 1975, the small territory of East Timor (Timor-Leste) was invaded by Indonesia. During Indonesia’s 24-year occupation (1975-1999), over a thousand civilians (up to a fifth of the East Timorese entire population) were massacred and eighty per cent of the buildings in the country were incinerated, while daily tortures and forced imprisonment into resettlement camps were common. The Indonesian occupation intended to terrify the population into submission.

• Darfur genocide. East Timor genocide, Guatemalan genocide, and Herero genocide
• Kiernan, Ben. Genocide and resistance in Southeast Asia: documentation, denial and justice in Cambodia and East Timor (2008)
• Robinson, Geoffrey. “If you leave us here, we will die”: how genocide was stopped in East Timor (2011)
• Indonesia: archipelago of fear by Andre Vltchek (2012)
• The new killing fields: massacre and the politics of intervention (2002)

External Resources

The Genocide Studies Program at Yale University’s MacMillan Center conducts research on genocides and has provided training to researchers from afflicted regions, including East Timor. For more information on the research products of the Yale East Timor Project please access the link here.

During the Rwandan Civil War, in only 100 days between April and July 1994, an estimated 600,000 members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu, were murdered in a pre-planned and state-sponsored genocide by the Hutu majority. While the Hutu-dominated government and others in the political elite orchestrated the genocide, civilians also participated to the mass killings.

• Genocide: My Stolen Rwanda: Surviving the Rwandan Genocide by Révérien Rurangwa (c.2009)
• Survival Against the Odds: A Book of Testimonies from Survivors of the Rwandan Genocide published by the Survivors Fund (c.2005)
• Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide by Linda Melvern (2004)
• Intent to Deceive: Denying the Genocide of the Tutsi by Linda Melvern (2020)
• Moral Equivalence: The Story of Genocide Denial in Rwanda by Linda Melvern, Journal of International Peacekeeping (2018)
• The Debris of Ham: Ethnicity, Regionalism, and the 1994 Rwandan Genocide by Aimable Twagilimana (2003)
• Stepp’d in Blood: Akazu and the Architects of the Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi by Andrew Wallis (2019)
• The International Response to Conflict and Genocide: Lessons from the Rwandan Experience Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda (1996)

Primary Sources

In addition to numerous secondary sources, the Library houses a unique collection of testimonies collected as part of the “Keeping Memories” project in partnership with the West Midlands Rwandan Community Association.

Over several months, trained student volunteers conducted life story interviews with 10 Rwandan people living in the UK. In telling their stories, participants aimed to promote a better understanding of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and preserve the memories of the Rwandan diaspora. The interviews also explored themes of childhood, legacies of colonialism, prejudice, ignorance, forgiveness and reconciliation, encouraging audiences to think deeply about the past as it relates to the present.

The testimonies are available to view at the reader terminals in the Wolfson Reading Room as full transcripts and video format. View the full collection record in our Online Catalogue.

For more information, please visit the rYico website.

External Resources

Rwandan Stories: The website provides detailed information about the genocide and its origins, as well as the aftermath and recovery. This includes videos, interviews, testimonies from survivors and perpetrators and downloadable curriculum resources.

Voices of Rwanda: The project aims to share the stories of survivors and witnesses by making testimonies available for research. The website features testimonies and background information about the project and the recordings. Follow @voicesofrwanda

Genocide Archive Rwanda: Physically located at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, the archive provides testimonies and interactive maps alongside a digital collection of items on their website, including documents, photographs, videos and audio recordings about the genocide, pre-genocide history and post-genocide reconstruction processes. The website’s blog informs readers about the process of archiving the collections. Follow @GenArchiveRw

Ishami Foundation: The foundation focuses on communicating lessons of the past through sport and storytelling. Survivor testimonies, events and resources are available.  Follow @FoundIshami

The Darfur Genocide refers to the ongoing mass massacre of non-Arab Darfuri people in Western Sudan,  perpetrated by deposed President Omar al Bashir’s Sudanese government forces and the Janjaweed militia against since 2003. Unrest and violence persist today.

• Genocide in Darfur by Janey Levy (2009)
• Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide by Gerard Prunier (2010)
• A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide by Eric Reeves (2007)
• Genocide in Darfur: Investigating the Atrocities in the Sudan by Samuel Totten and Eric Markusen (2006)
• The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur by Brian Steidle and Gretchen Steidle Wallace (c.2007)

In addition to numerous secondary sources, the Library houses a unique collection of over 500 drawings donated to us by Waging Peace, a human rights organisation that campaigns against genocide and abuses in Sudan. The drawings provide important evidence about the nature of the atrocities committed in Darfur, produced by some of the youngest victims. Visit the Library’s Collection Highlights to learn more.

External Resources

Waging Peace: A non-governmental organisation that campaigns against genocide and human rights abuses and lists Sudan as its current priority. The website features some of the 500 Darfuri Children’s Drawings that are currently archived at The Wiener Library as well as testimonies, news, reports and ideas for opportunities to take action. Follow @WagingPeaceUK

Sudan Research, Analysis, and Advocacy by Eric Reeves: The website organises the work of Eric Reeves, who has been writing about greater Sudan for the past sixteen years. It includes links to a number of his publications, the texts of his Congressional testimony and a complete list of publications, testimony, and academic presentations.

During the Guatemalan Civil War, government forces carried out massacres and civilian executions of an estimated 200,000 Guatemalans, as well as at least 40,000 forced disappearances. By the time a cease-fire was declared in 1996, the Maya population constituted 83 percent of the fully identified victims, while 17 percent were Ladino. This event is also known as the Maya Genocide.

• Darfur Genocide, East Timor Genocide, Guatemalan Genocide, and Herero Genocide edited by
  Paul R. Bartrop and Steven L. Jacobs (c.2015)
• Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts edited by Samuel Totten and William S. Parsons (2009)
• Human Rights and Wrongs: Slavery, Terror, Genocide by Helen Fein (2007)
• Transitional Justice: Global Mechanisms and Local Realities after Genocide and Mass Violence by Alexander Laban Hinton (2010)
• Encountering Genocide: Personal Accounts from Victims, Perpetrators, and Witnesses by Paul R.  Bartrop (c.2014)

External Resources

The Genocide Studies Program at Yale University’s MacMillan Center conducts research on genocides, including the Guatemalan Genocide. For more information on readings, databases and maps and satellite images pertaining to the genocide in Guatemala please access the link here.

The Herero and Namaqua (or Nama) Genocide was the murder and persecution by the German Empire of the indigenous people (Herero and Nama) of Namibia, then known as German South-West Africa. Between 65,000 and 100,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama were killed in conflicts as well as in concentration camps due to malnutrition, forced labor, and medical experiments. The purpose of these killings was to gain access to the Herero and Nama land.

• Words Cannot Be Found: German Colonial Rule in Namibia: An Annotated Reprint of the 1918 Blue Book by Jeremy Silvester and Jan-Bart Gewald (2003)
• The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide by David Olusoga and Casper W. Erichsen (2010)
• Germany’s Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, his general, his settlers, his soldiers by Jeremy  Sarkin (c.2011)
• Vernichtung der Herero: Diskurse der Gewalt in der deutschen Kolonialliteratur by Medardus Brehl (c.2007)
• Darfur Genocide, East Timor Genocide, Guatemalan Genocide, and Herero Genocide edited by
  Paul R. Bartrop and Steven L. Jacobs (c.2015)

External Resources

World Without Genocide works to protect innocent people around the world, prevent genocide by combating racism and prejudice, and advocate for the prosecution of perpetrators. For books, legal cases, news and reports and more on the Herero and Namaqua genocide please access the link here.

The Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Nanking Massacre or Rape of Nanjing, took place in the Chinese city of Nanjing, between December 1937 and January 1938, after the city was seized by the Japanese Imperial Army. The Japanese Imperial troops carried out mass killings and mass rapes of  Chinese citizens and surrendered soldiers. In just two months, an estimated 100,000 to over 300,000 Chinese were killed in the massacre.

• Synopsis for the Nanking Massacre: Fact Versus Fiction: A Historian’s Quest for the Truth by Shudo Higashinakano (2006)
• The Good German of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe by John Rabe (1998)
• The Nanking Massacre: Fact Versus Fiction: A Historian’s Quest for the Truth by Shudo Higashinakano (2006)
• The Nanking Atrocity, 1937 – 38: Complicating the Picture by Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi (2007)

External Resources

The Nanking Massacre Project, run by the Yale University Divinity School Library’s Special Collections, it’s a Digital Archive of Documents & Photographs from American missionaries who witnessed the Rape of Nanking.

USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive (VHA)

The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive (VHA) is a newly introduced external resource available to all our members, users and visitors exclusively when in the Library’s premises provides free online access to 52,000 video testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Armenian Genocide that coincided with World War I, the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in China, the Cambodian Genocide of 1975-1979, the Guatemalan Genocide of 1978-1983, the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and the ongoing conflicts in the Central African Republic and South Sudan, and anti-Rohingya mass violence. It also includes testimonies about contemporary acts of violence against Jews. Follow @USCShoahFdn

International Court of Justice

The ICJ website has a list of cases brought to the court including evidence submitted.