Response to "Unreliable Websites"

This statement is in response to articles published in the Pioneer Press on 11-19-2010 and in the Minnesota Daily on 11-23-10 regarding the removal of "unreliable websites" from the website of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS) at the University of Minnesota.

I assumed directorship of CHGS in July 2010. Since then, I have focused on promoting the Center's mission of research, education and outreach. I have been speaking with the community and with colleagues on campus to communicate the new initiatives and intellectual orientation of the Center.

My staff and I have invested much effort in trying to update the Center's website. Part of this updating process bears on the educational section, and its listing of websites that CHGS perceives as unreliable sources of information for students and researchers. I decided to remove the section providing links to "unreliable websites." My rationale was quite simple: never promote, even negatively, sources of illegitimate information.

During almost twenty years working in higher education, I have never put a dubious source on a syllabus for my students, not even for the purpose of delegitimizing the source. The decision to remove the links to "unreliable websites" was made before the Turkish Coalition of America began its efforts to intimidate CHGS into removing the links. The links were replaced with legitimate information devoted to the history, ideology and psychology of Holocaust and genocide denial.

On behalf of the CHGS, I want to reiterate that in accordance with the vast majority of serious and rigorous historians, the CHGS considers the massacre of the Armenians during World War I as a case of genocide. To insinuate, as the articles published in the newspapers mentioned above, that the mission of CHGS is somehow influenced and biased by donors' money is incorrect.

Genocide and Holocaust denial is an important issue for CHGS. When I took over the direction of the Center, I put together a lecture series on this very question. This series will begin in 2011 and will continue in the academic year of 2011-12. I invite all persons interested in the issue of genocide and Holocaust denial to attend the lectures and participate in our discussions.

Bruno Chaouat
Director

Holocaust and Genocide News Monday, November 22, 2010

Here are some articles of interest from this past weekend and today.

Lost Boys of Sudan Fill in the Blanks of Their Past

Former Khmer Rouge fighter haunted by his past

Holocaust-denying bishop hires neo-Nazi lawyer ahead of Germany trial

Pope Benedict: Nazi-era pope saved more Jews than anyone else

Free Screening of Ahead of Time: The Story of Ruth Gruber at St. Anthony Main Theater

Minnesota Film Arts and the Sabes Foundation Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival proudly present the premiere of the documentary, Ahead of Time, the directorial debut from award-winning cinematographer Bob Richman (An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for Superman) highlighting the exceptional life of Ruth Gruber.



Ms. Gruber is a reporter, photographer, civil servant, memoirist and humanitarian. Gruber, who was in Germany during Hitler's rise to power, became concerned early on about the fate of the European Jews. In 1944 Gruber escorted Holocaust refugees to America and wrote about the experience in the book Haven: The Dramatic Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees and How They Came to America.
As a thank you for your support, Minnesota Film Arts and the Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival invites you to a special FREE screening of the film on Thursday, Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. at the St. Anthony Main Theater, located at:
115 SE Main St
Minneapolis, MN 55414
The screening will be followed by a talk with producer/photographer Zeva Oelbaum.
Seats are limited. Please RSVP for this screening by Wednesday, Nov. 17th at 12:00 p.m. Tickets will given on a first-come-first served basis.
To reserve your seats please email: info@stanthonymaintheatre.com or call: 612-331-7563.
If you are unable to attend the free screening, the film will run from Nov. 19th through Sunday Nov. 21st.
Please visit the Minnesota Film Arts website for exact times.
For more information about Ahead of Time visit Ruthgruberthemovie.com.
Click here for the New York Times review.

Following the Story

Does Academic Freedom Protect Holocaust Deniers?

Replies from Cary Nelson and Naomi Schaefer Riley
The Chronicle of Higher Education

Please see the full article at The Chronicle for Higher Education for the complete article and other comments.

Cary Nelson Replies

It is not actually tenure that may shield Kaukab Siddique from sanctions for his public statements about the Holocaust; it is academic freedom, a value that survives only if it protects remarks we despise as well as those we endorse. If Siddique were to be punished, he would no doubt immediately claim that his academic freedom had been violated. That would trigger due process and a hearing before a committee of his peers, whether he was a tenured faculty member, a first-year assistant professor, or an adjunct faculty member teaching a single course.


Siddique is certainly trying to "game the system," but his fanaticism may nonetheless lead him where he should not go. The issue in a hearing would be professional fitness, which is a matter to be determined by a faculty review or hearing committee. That involves academic judgments about professional competence and professional boundaries. The American Association of University Professors distinguishes between speech that can be held to standards of professional competence and speech that has no bearing on professional competence. A biologist who asserts that the theory of evolution is a hoax would be in danger of demonstrating himself or herself unfit.
Holocaust denial may have comparable status for someone teaching world literature.
Disagreeing about the meaning of the Holocaust is entirely permissible and, indeed, inevitable. The meaning of a historical event is always open to debate. It cannot be permanently settled. Nor can one assume one has all the facts now. New documents may be discovered indefinitely. But the fundamental truth that the Nazis successfully carried out an organized, even industrialized, program that killed millions of Jews is not in dispute.
Some have claimed further that comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is a factual error comparable to Holocaust denial, but I cannot agree. Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is a hyperbolic political analogy, an interpretation one may support or dispute, but it does not rise to the level of Holocaust denial. My reactions to Siddique's remarks are a mix of anger and sadness. He has absurdly asserted that there is "not one" document proving the Holocaust occurred. He has looked into the hollow gaze of concentration-camp victims and declared they were starving only because Allied bombing disrupted German food distribution. That suggests Siddique's humanity is distorted and degraded, but it is only his professional fitness that is at issue in reviewing his academic status.
♦
Naomi Schaefer Riley Replies
Lincoln University claims to be the oldest historically black college in the country. Its graduates include Langston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall. Today Lincoln is employing a professor who has called the Holocaust a myth. Kaukab Siddique's "humanity is distorted and degraded," in the words of Cary Nelson. And yet, unless Siddique is teaching something directly related to the Holocaust, Nelson believes he has a legitimate claim to keeping his position. The school's most prominent graduates and its namesake are probably rolling over in their graves, but in the name of academic freedom, Siddique must stay.
In the process of standing up for the "remarks we despise as well as those we endorse," Nelson has lost sight of the noble principles that undergird this country and its educational institutions. Defending hateful statements is not the only good here. Professors should be not only passers-on of information; they should be models of intellectual and moral integrity. The idea that we should overlook Siddique's "distorted and degraded humanity" and consider only his "professional fitness" is plainly offensive.
I would add that Cary Nelson's attempt to divorce tenure from academic freedom is nothing short of baffling. For decades we have heard that tenure is vital to protecting academic freedom, but now it turns out that the AAUP thinks professors without tenure would be protected just the same. In fact, the way tenure has evolved, it is virtually impossible to get rid of faculty members who have it, even if they are, amazingly, Holocaust deniers.
It is hard to imagine that Lincoln would keep on Siddique or that Northwestern would have continued to put up with Arthur Butz were it not for their tenured status. Maybe there are adjunct or assistant professors with similarly offensive views out there, but I haven't heard about them. Some may think that's a sign that universities are failing to defend remarks they despise, but I think a university free of Holocaust deniers is something to be proud of. Which goes to show how low we have set the bar.

Holocaust and Genocide News

Here are articles of interest from this weekend and today, Monday, November 15, 2010.

The Plot to Cheat Germany's Holocaust Survivors' Fund

French rail co. apologizes for collaborating with Nazis

Nazis Were Given 'Safe Haven' in U.S., Report Says

Bosnian police arrests suspect of genocide in Srebrenica

Hayk Demoyan calls Genocide negation pathology

Does Academic Freedom Protect Holocaust Deniers?

This continues the coverage over the debate of Holocaust Denial in an academic setting in the case of Kaukab Siddique, who teaches literature and mass communications at Lincoln University, in Pennsylvania.

Reprinted from the The Chronicle of Higher Education

November 7, 2010
Does Academic Freedom Protect Holocaust Deniers?
Two views on the question

Michael Morgenstern for The Chronicle
Response by Cary Nelson
Response by Naomi Schaefer Riley

It Depends on the Context
By Cary Nelson

Imagine the following classroom conversations:

Student in a world-literature class: "I'd like to write my final paper on Holocaust poetry. I'm trying to decide whether Yevgeny Yevtushenko's 'Babi Yar,' Paul Celan's 'Todesfuge,' or Jorie Graham's 'Annunciation With a Bullet in It' is the best poem."

Faculty member's answer: "You cannot take up that question unless you recognize that the poems are all flawed fantasies. None are based on fact. The Holocaust never happened."

Student in a political-science or philosophy class: "Which man-made disaster is worse: Bhopal or the Holocaust?"

Faculty member's answer: "There's no excuse for Bhopal. It didn't have to happen. But the Holocaust didn't actually happen at all. Give me a better comparison."

I could generate numerous similar scenarios. A student in a medieval-history course, for example, might contrast a natural catastrophe, the Black Death, with the Holocaust. A student in an art-history class might write about Holocaust painting or sculpture; a student in a music-history course study the role of music in the concentration camps; a student in an ethics class consider the burden the Holocaust has placed on future generations. Nothing in those syllabi might suggest beforehand that the Holocaust will arise, but it can--and does.


In some fields, the shadow of the Holocaust looms large, Modern European history being the most obvious. Basic knowledge about the Holocaust is a reasonable expectation for a 20th-century historian or literary critic. A faculty member who is a Holocaust denier might face a competence hearing before his or her peers--under certain circumstances. But one needs to know what he or she said, and in what context. The details matter.
Whether a faculty member recognizes that the Holocaust looms large in a field like postwar American or European literature depends in part on whether he or she is inclined to look. But academic freedom certainly means that a person can teach courses in those areas without ever mentioning the subject. It also means that faculty members teaching in those fields should not be required to be knowledgeable about Holocaust literature.
Although it is part of the critical field of reference for contemporary literary history, so, too, are many other subjects, which individual scholars may never master.
Certain subjects, like the Arab-Israeli conflict, are likely to provoke discussion of the Holocaust whether or not a faculty member plans for it. And any course covering genocide--whether it be the near-extermination of American Indians, the Armenian genocide in World War I, or the mass murders in Rwanda in 1994--is almost certain to evoke Holocaust comparisons.
The probability of the Holocaust's arising in class discussion is impossible to calculate for many disciplines, but it is certainly possible throughout the arts and humanities. Holocaust denial can be pedagogically disabling.
That takes us to Kaukab Siddique, who teaches literature and mass communications at Lincoln University, in Pennsylvania. He has used public forums outside the classroom to declare the Holocaust a "hoax." He cites writers like David Irving and the white supremacist Mark Weber. Siddique maintains that, in promoting Holocaust denial, he is simply speaking for the "other side" of the issue. But there is no credible "other side." No respectable historian advocates Holocaust denial.
To be sure, in some disciplines--engineering, veterinary medicine, accounting, chemistry, home economics--the Holocaust is largely irrelevant. If a student brought up the subject in those classes, the instructor could well declare it outside the boundaries of the course and move on to other matters. And professors can say what they want about the Holocaust in public settings. Writers on academic freedom like to cite the example of Northwestern University's notorious Holocaust-denying engineer Arthur R. Butz, who keeps his views out of the classroom.
But Siddique is walking a finer line. He is broaching Holocaust denial off campus, while teaching in a discipline in which the Holocaust has definite relevance. His university has appropriately said he cannot be fired simply for his extramural statements. He could even repeat those statements in a public forum on campus and be protected. It is less clear, however, that he could declare the Holocaust a fiction in class. A key question is whether, in a field like Siddique's, Holocaust denial merits a hearing before a committee of his peers. Is his professional fitness at issue?
Of course, we need to protect a very wide range of extramural freedom of expression. Unqualified efforts to suppress even so loathsome an endeavor as Holocaust denial carry their own dangers. The most obvious corrective on campus to Siddique's extramural Holocaust disinformation is other people's demonstrating that he is a deluded ideologue. Still, his extramural speech may at least merit a university warning that he has put himself at risk.
If a version of one of the hypothetical conversations I offered at the outset were to take place between him and a student, a hearing and penalties might result. Even then, a faculty member's entire record as a teacher and scholar should be considered before the ultimate penalty of dismissal could be applied. I have no evidence that Siddique has tried to impose his views in class, but the controversy over his extracurricular remarks reminds us there is a bright line that must not be crossed.
We must also recognize that some efforts to establish that line are not compatible with academic freedom. It would be a violation for colleges to enforce the "Working Definition of Antisemitism," issued by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. While the text provides good suggestions for evaluating potentially anti-Semitic statements on campus, imposing sanctions on those who violate any of its protocols would trespass on academic freedom. Students have advocated enforcing it, but that would be a misuse of the document. It was never intended to police campus speech.
The definition includes drawing "comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis"--though that is essentially what the sociologist William I. Robinson, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, did in a 2009 e-mail to students that compared Israel's Gaza incursion to the Holocaust. I defended his right to do so, and the university cleared him after an unnecessary and potentially chilling investigation.
People are free to criticize Robinson, but the university had no cause to consider penalizing him. I also maintained that the arguments of Neve Gordon, a faculty member at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in favor of an escalating boycott of his own country were protected by academic freedom. On the other hand, both the American Association of University Professors and I have consistently opposed boycotts of Israeli faculty members and universities by other countries.
Faculty members could also take issue with the term "Holocaust" itself, preferring another designation. Or they might analyze the ideological deployment of the Holocaust and offer a critique of the cultural and political privilege it is granted, or ask why some forms of historical denial make news and others (like denial of the Armenian massacre) often do not. But faculty members cannot stand before a class and announce that the Nazis did not kill six million Jews, along with numerous homosexuals, Gypsies, disabled citizens, and political opponents. I would not knowingly hire a Holocaust denier or grant one tenure in a discipline to which the Holocaust is relevant. A college does not benefit from institutionalizing ignorance and hatred.
Siddique's public comments have increased the likelihood that his students will ask him about the Holocaust in class. If he refuses to discuss his views, he may lose his students' respect, although that price is one he is apparently willing to pay by making his comments in the first place. Student reaction is not the university's immediate concern, despite the impact it might have on student evaluations. But if he argues for his views in class, he could face a hearing. Determining whether his ability to function as a faculty member has been fatally undermined may await further events. I have seen no evidence that Siddique should be fired, but academic freedom does not protect all of the actions that can flow from Holocaust denial.
Since historical accuracy is the determining issue, Holocaust denial is not inherently an example of speech that is politically controversial, although it certainly has been deployed for political purposes. Academe has no business enforcing conformity to political or religious beliefs or to matters about which there is substantive academic debate. But to describe Holocaust denial as fundamentally, rather than strategically, political is to fall short of the intellectual courage and professional responsibility necessary to describe it accurately. Holocaust denial is speech promoting falsity as truth. Unlike myriad lesser errors that academics might make, errors for which their competence should not be reviewed, Holocaust denial counters fundamental and well-established knowledge. It is also effectively hate speech, whatever the intent of the speaker. It denies people their history and obliterates the fate of their relatives on the basis of their religion and ethnicity.
The larger problem for faculty members who engage in Holocaust denial lies elsewhere. It is grounded in the question of disciplinary competence, but it also exceeds that question. Holocaust denial calls into serious question a faculty member's overall professional competence--the capacity to weigh evidence, to undertake rational analysis, to perform academic responsibilities reliably. I do not pretend that either this or the other questions I have raised are subject to easy answers. Nor do I pretend that my answers are definitive. But there is reason to discuss them.
Cary Nelson is a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and president of the American Association of University Professors. His most recent book is No University Is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom (New York University Press, 2010).
♦
Apparently, if You're in the Right Discipline
By Naomi Schaefer Riley
It isn't easy being Cary Nelson. The president of the American Association of University Professors sometimes has to decide which Holocaust deniers in the academy he will defend and which ones he will not. Nelson recently said there were grounds to question the competency of Kaukab Siddique, associate professor of English and journalism at Lincoln University, in Pennsylvania, who has been publicly declaiming against the legitimacy of the state of Israel and suggesting that the Holocaust was a "hoax." On other occasions, though, the AAUP has rushed to the defense of professors who don't believe six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis. The AAUP's reasoning in those cases requires the kind of intellectual backflipping that no amateur should attempt. And those gymnastics reveal just how bizarre our understanding of academic freedom has become.
Let's start with Siddique. In a pro-Palestinian rally in Washington in September, he proclaimed: "I say to the Muslims, 'Dear brothers and sisters, unite and rise up against this Hydra-headed monster which calls itself Zionism. ... Each one of us is their target, and we must stand united to defeat, to destroy, to dismantle Israel--if possible, by peaceful means." (But if not, well ... he'll leave that to your imagination.) In an online newsletter called New Trend Magazine, he has called the Holocaust a "myth" and a "story."
Nelson says that criticizing the legitimacy of the state of Israel is well within the bounds of academic discourse. No surprise there, as anyone who has followed the trends of Middle East studies can tell you. But Nelson also says that a faculty member's criticism of Israel could cross the line into anti-Semitism, depending on what was said and in what context. According to Nelson, what academic freedom does not cover, on or off campus, are statements that call into question the ability of a scholar to teach his or her discipline.
As for Siddique, apparently Nelson thinks it is a problem for any humanities faculty member to engage in Holocaust denial, and that's why he believes Lincoln University would have grounds at least to investigate Siddique's professional competence. Really? It matters only if your Holocaust denier is teaching literature, say, or history? This is a distinction that will leave a lot of nonacademics scratching their heads.
But that's the distinction that has allowed Arthur Butz, a professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern University, to remain in his position for more than three decades, despite his own public record of Holocaust denial. In 1976, Butz's book The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry was published in the United States. He doesn't seem to have rethought his position much since then. Several years ago, in an interview with the Iranian press, Butz was asked about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's views on the Holocaust. His reply: "I congratulate him on becoming the first head of state to speak out clearly on these issues and regret only that it was not a Western head of state."
So how does Arthur Butz get a free pass while Kaukab Siddique could merit a competency hearing in accord with the AAUP's position? Nelson has said that, for Butz, the issue is irrelevant because the Holocaust has nothing to do with his teaching or research. In fact, Butz's presence at Northwestern is a constant reminder not--as its mission statement suggests--that the university is committed to the "personal and intellectual growth of its students in a diverse academic community," but rather that Northwestern is reaffirming its commitment to not running afoul of the ivory-tower authorities.
What would be funny about all this--if Holocaust denial were a laughing matter--is that Siddique himself has clearly figured out how to game the system. He told Inside Higher Ed recently that he is entitled to the protections of academic freedom precisely because this isn't his area of study. "I'm not an expert on the Holocaust," he said. "If I deny or support it, it doesn't mean anything."
You see, Siddique seems to be claiming, he's just like Arthur Butz. As long he doesn't engage in the study of the Holocaust in his job, his speech falls under the protections of academic freedom. Indeed, Siddique is a man who has the American academy completely figured out. "We can't just sit back in judgment and say those guys were bad and we were the good guys," he said. "I always try to look at both sides. ... That's part of being a professor." And if that language of moral equivalency weren't enough to ingratiate himself with his fellow academics, he also expressed concern about the interference of nonacademics into the affairs of universities. (Numerous politicians and pundits have called for an investigation into his activities.)
Even if they may have landed on opposite sides of the AAUP's academic-freedom line, what Siddique and Butz do have in common is that they are both tenured, which means it would be almost impossible to get rid of either one, should either of their institutions attempt it. Earlier this month, Lincoln University announced that it "cannot take action at this time" regarding Siddique's statements. But just think about the possible scenario if Lincoln decides in the future to take action because, as the AAUP would have it, the Holocaust falls within Siddique's academic purview. Imagine the scene in which Kaukab Siddique testifies that he can't be punished because he is not an expert on whether the Holocaust occurred and Cary Nelson claims that, yes, in fact, he is.
It's enough to make you wonder if maybe we need to rethink what we mean by academic freedom.
Naomi Schaefer Riley is author of God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America (St. Martin's Press, 2005). Her book on tenure will be published by Rowman & Littlefield in the spring.

Holocaust-era mass grave discovered

Find out how this is possible- Come to the final screening of Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades. Sunday, November 7, 6:30 p.m. St. Anthony Main Theater. For ticket info Minnesota Film Arts.

(UKPA) - 6 hours ago
A Holocaust-era mass grave containing the bodies of an estimated 100 Jews killed by Romanian troops has been discovered in a forest, researchers have said, offering further evidence of the country's involvement in wartime crimes.

The discovery, in a forest near the Romanian town of Popricani, contained the bodies of men, women and children who were shot dead in 1941, the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania said in a statement on Friday.

The find offered evidence of pogroms against Jews in the region, scholars said, campaigns that were long minimised in a country whose official history taught that Germans were the sole perpetrators of the Holocaust.
Sketchy reports about the possibility of a mass grave in the forest began to appear in 2002 and local authorities began an investigation, but it was later suspended after nothing was found.
Experts resumed the investigation at the site and began interviewing witnesses again in 2009, according to Romanian historian Adrian Cioflanca.
Some 280,000 Jews and 11,000 Roma, or Gypsies, were killed during the pro-fascist regime of dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu, who was prime minister from 1940 to 1944 and executed by the communists in 1946. Romania today has only 6,000 Jews.
Historians have documented several pogroms in Romania during the Second World War, including one in June 1941 in the north-eastern city of Iasi where up to 12,000 people are believed to have died as Romanian and German soldiers swept from house to house killing Jews.
Those who did not die were systematically beaten, put in cattle wagons in stifling heat and taken to a small town, where what happened to them would be concealed. Of the 120 people on the train, just 24 survived.
Romania's role in the Holocaust remains a sensitive and highly charged topic. During communist times, the country largely ignored the involvement of Romania's leaders in wartime crimes.
The country's role in the Holocaust and the deportation of Jews were minimised by subsequent governments after communism collapsed in 1989. In 2004 after a dispute with Israel over comments about the Holocaust, then-President Ion Iliescu assembled an international panel led by Nobel-prize winner Elie Wiesel to investigate the Holocaust in Romania.
Copyright © 2010 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

Film Premiere Event: Enemies of the People

On Thursday, November 11, at 7:00p.m., Enemies of the People, an award winning documentary, will premiere at St. Anthony Main Theater, 115 SE Main Street, Minneapolis, MN 55414. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Director/Producer Rob Lemkin.

Enemies of the People turns the camera onto Nuon Chea aka Brother Number Two, the highest ranking Khmer Rouge leader still alive today. The Khmer Rouge was one of the twentieth century's most brutal regimes. While in power, the Khmer Rouge was responsible for the deaths of approximately 1.7 million people by execution, starvation and forced labor in camps that were later described as the Killing Fields.
In the film, one of Cambodia's best investigative journalists, Thet Sambath, persuades Nuon Chea to admit, for the first time, how he and Pol Pot (the two supreme powers in the Khmer Rouge state) decided to kill party members whom they considered 'Enemies of the People'. The mystery of the Killing Fields is unveiled as the men and women who perpetrated the massacres break a 30-year silence to give testimony never before seen or heard.
Enemies of the People is being screened as part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Asian Film Festival sponsored by the Minnesota Film Arts Event sponsored by the Human Rights Program at the University of Minnesota and the Program in Human Rights and Humanitarianism at Macalester College.
General Admission is $10.00 and $8.00 for students and seniors.
For more information please contact Nora Radtke at hrminor@umn.edu.
Cambodia events (1).pdf

Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades to be shown in its Entirety

Sunday, November 7- Michael Prazan's documentary, Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades will be shown in its entirety with a brief intermission. After the screening please join us for a question and answer session with the filmmaker and gain further insights into the making of this important film.

St. Anthony Main Theater
115 Main St SE
Minneapolis
Tickets: $6.00 students /senior $8.50 general admission

To purchase advanced tickets please visit the Minnesota Film Arts site.

What Turns "Ordinary" Citizens into Mass Murderers?

This question is often asked when studying the Holocaust and other genocides. This week French filmmaker Michael Prazan will touch on this question with his groundbreaking documentary Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades, being shown exclusively in the Twin Cities on Thursday, November 4 and Sunday November 7 at the St. Anthony Main Theater. Prazan and the film are being sponsored by the University of Minnesota's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS) with Minnesota Film Arts.


"Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades is an essential film for those eager to understand the mechanics of evil and prevent its recurrence," said, Bruno Chaouat, director for CHGS.

"I think we all have a concept of what we individually believe evil to look like, but as we have found it isn't quite as clear cut as it would seem. Hannah Arendt in her controversial report Eichmann in Jerusalem identified the men who perpetrated the crimes representing what she called the banality of evil. Christopher Browning, in his landmark work Ordinary Men took Arendt's argument one step further focusing on the many so called "normal" Germans who turned into mass murders. Prazan's film, blending Claude Lanzmann's (the director of the acclaimed Holocaust documentary Shoah) method of interviewing witnesses, survivors and perpetrators with archive footage, adds his own, original voice to this descent into the night of human soul."


When asked why he wanted to make the film Prazan replied, "I thought there was an important part of Holocaust history that had been overlooked by the West. They seemed mostly concerned with the extermination of Western Jews and obsessed with Auschwitz. I felt it important that the actions of the Einsatzgruppen were explored more in depth."
The catalyst for the film was based on Prazan's experience while making his film Nanjing Massacre. "What I discovered in making that film was the willingness of the soldiers to tell me their stories-and I thought why not the Germans? I knew I would have to act quickly as time was not on our side."
In addition to the testimonies of witnesses, perpetrators and scholars, Prazan uses previously unseen archival footage, some in color, shot by the Germans. Prazan's mosaic of hatred has a startling immediacy that moves well beyond a historical document.
"Seeing this film is to stand in the eye of the storm." Said Bruno Chaouat, "and should not be missed."
Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades will be screened Thursday, November 4 at 7:00 p.m. and Sunday, November 7 at 6:30 p.m. followed by a question and answer session with filmmaker Michael Prazan. St. Anthony Main Theater, 115 Main Street SE, Mpls. Tickets: $6.00 for students, $8.50 for adults. Tickets can be purchased on line at Minnesota Film Arts. For more information contact CHGS at 612-624-0256, or email chgs@umn.edu.

Clinton says K.Rouge court vital for peace in Cambodia

Yahoo News
by Lachlan CarmichaelMon Nov 1, 8:39 am ET

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday hailed the work of a Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal as "painful but necessary", despite Cambodian opposition to pursuing more regime leaders.

Clinton praised the nation for confronting its dark past after an emotional visit to Phnom Penh's genocide museum, where she saw photos of gaunt-faced prisoners, dozens of skulls of victims and paintings of people being tortured.

The court "is bringing some of the people who caused so much suffering to justice... The work of the tribunal is painful but it is necessary to ensure a lasting peace," Clinton told young Cambodians at a town hall-style meeting.


In a landmark verdict in July, former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, was sentenced to 30 years in jail for overseeing the deaths of 15,000 men, women and children in the late 1970s.
Last month the court indicted four top regime leaders for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in connection with the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, overwork and execution between 1975 and 1979.
But Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen told visiting United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon last week that a third case was "not allowed" because it could plunge the country back into civil war.
Hun Sen was himself once a mid-level Khmer Rouge member before turning against the movement.
The tribunal is currently investigating whether to open further cases against lower level cadres.
Clinton, on a two-week tour of Asia, stopped short of expressing support for new trials, saying there was a need for the international community to "consult closely" with the Cambodian government about its concerns.
She said her "highest priority" was to ensure the cash-strapped court had enough funds to proceed with the second trial, due to begin in early 2011.
After a tour of the genocide museum, the main Khmer Rouge torture centre run by Duch in the late 1970s, Clinton appeared to suggest a harder line towards future prosecutions.
"In memory of the tragic suffering of the people of Cambodia and in hope that there will be a future of peace, prosperity and greater awareness of all that needs to be done to move the country forward, including trials, accountability and reconciliation," she wrote in the museum guest book.
She later described the tour of the prison as a "very disturbing experience".
"Countries that are held prisoner to their past never break those chains and build the kind of future your children deserve," she told the town hall-style meeting.
"I was very proud to see firsthand the willingness of your country to face that past bravely and honestly."
Thousands of inmates were taken from the jail for execution in a nearby orchard that served as a "killing field".
Led by "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge was responsible for one of the worst horrors of the 20th century, wiping out nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population.
Clinton, on the first visit to Cambodia by a US secretary of state since 2003, also used her trip to urge Cambodians not to rely too heavily on China.
"You look for balance. You don't want to get too dependent on any one country," Clinton told young Cambodians when asked about China's growing influence in the impoverished southeast Asian nation.
China -- a former patron of the Khmer Rouge regime -- is the country's top donor, with billions of dollars of investment.
Clinton also met with Hun Sen and some of his political opponents, with the notable exception of fugitive opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who faces 12 years in prison if he returns to Cambodia after being convicted in absentia of uprooting border markings and publishing a false border map.

Rwanda: Former Businessman Sentenced to 30 Years By UN Genocide Tribunal

A former businessman accused of supervising the massacre of some 2,000 Rwandan Tutsi civilians taking shelter in a church was today convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison by the United Nations tribunal set up to deal with the 1994 genocide.

Gaspard Kanyarukiga, who was arrested in South Africa in July 2004, was found guilty of genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity, according to a press release by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).


Handing down the sentence, the court's Trial Chamber II announced it was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Mr. Kanyarukiga was criminally responsible for planning thAt least 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were murdered in the 1994 violencee killing of the Tutsis who took refuge in the Nyange Church.
According to the indictment presented to the Arusha-based court, which in 2008 decided not to turn over Mr. Kanyarukiga's case to Rwanda, in 1994 he transported police and members of the notorious Interahamwe militia to the church, in western Rwanda.
The police and militia poured fuel through the church's roof, set it on fire and then used guns and grenades to kill those seeking shelter inside. The defendant was accused of having supervised these events and then ordered the corpses to be removed and the church destroyed.
The indictment further alleged that the businessman held several meetings with local political and religious leaders where they discussed how to kill Tutsis.
Having found Mr. Kanyarukiga guilty of genocide, the Chamber dismissed the alternative charge of complicity in genocide.
At least 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were murdered in the 1994 violence in the tiny east African country.
allafrica.com

A genocide survivor's last wish

The Armenian Reporterby Tom Vartabedian
Published: Tuesday November 02, 2010

Haverhill, Mass. - Like many Armenian Genocide survivors, my mother would stand erect at April 24th commemorations with a red carnation in hand, recite her prayers and sing her songs with conviction.

The fact she was into her mid-90s paid little consequence.

As the years rolled by, she watched her coterie dwindle from 70 to a precious few. In her home town of Haverhill, she remained the sole survivor. Her Armenian name was Ojen --- an unusual one at that --- and her very last observance in 2008 had fate written all over it.


Only one other survivor from Merrimack Valley showed up that year and her name was Ojen. They could have rehashed the tragedy that befell their people during the genocidal years of 1915-1923 when 1.5 million Armenians perished at the hands of the Ottoman Turk.
But how many times must you hear the same diatribe, shed the same tears, before growing weary? Instead, they spoke of being the last of a vanishing breed. One Ojen said to the other, "You'll outlive me. I'm in a nursing home. You're living independently."
The other replied, "Yes, but you seem to be stronger than an ox. You'll go on living forever."
My mother passed away Oct. 19 in a blaze of glory with her family by her side. Even the nurses at Hannah Duston Nursing Home marveled at how she was able to defy death so persistently, unaware that she was able to evade the Turkish gendarmes as a child by hiding in a well for days.
The last sensible thing she said to me occurred about four days prior to her demise. She grabbed my attention out of the clear blue and this is what she offered in a voice that crackled with sentiment.
"Continue being true to your faith and your heritage. But that is not enough. Make sure your children and grandchildren practice their culture and worship God. If we don't have our church and our heritage, we have nothing. The responsibility is in your hands now."
Although it may have been premature, I do believe it was a sense of closue on her part, knowing that her wishes were revealed and how the ethnic baton was being passed from one generation to another.
This past Sunday, I gathered my Armenian School students together and told them her wish. Those who knew expressed their condolences. We used her life as an example of resiliency.
For what it was worth amidst a class of adolescences, I told them, "We owe it to these remaining survivors and those who died for their cause to lobby for recognition and get a genocide bill passed in Congress. We need an admission of guilt from Turkey and the restoration of our land and churches."
Jennie was laid to rest with a funeral fit for a queen. She may have been humbled by all the attention and probably never realized the true legacy she had left behind. Inside the casket with rosary beads in hand was a miniature Tricolor flag that rested on her heart.
A hand-carved wooden cross stood erect, prepared by a Russian immigrant who arrived here in the 1940s as a 21-year cousin she and her sister sponsored. On the day of her burial, a dear friend who had just returned from a pilgrimage to Syria handed me a plastic bag containing some sand. It was from the desert of Der Zor where thousands perished during a death march.
The sand was sprinkled in the form of a cross during the burial service, sending Jennie back to her roots.
I look back upon it all with no remorse. You tend to dwell upon the good times, even while being institutionalized the last four years. You see the smile, not the tears. You remember happy thoughts, not the tragic moments. Every new day was a gift.
She used to grin at the thought of how she ever wound up inside a nursing home. It was just for a visit, I told her. She had broken a hip and needed rehabilitation.
"Four years. Oh my! This was the longest visit I ever had anywhere," she often reminded me.
The woman was feisty. At the ripe age of 90, I took her car keys away after some erratic driving. She balked at such insolence. How would she transport herself to the gym anymore?
A few days later, I got a call from a neighbor. "Come quickly," she urged. "Jennie's in the garage and she's got the hood up in her car with wires in her hands." I sped the whole way and there she was, trying to jump start the vehicle.
But that was Jennie -- always in the driver's seat!
(c) 2010 Armenian Reporter

A genocide survivor's last wish

The Armenian Reporter
by Tom Vartabedian
Published: Tuesday November 02, 2010

Haverhill, Mass. - Like many Armenian Genocide survivors, my mother would stand erect at April 24th commemorations with a red carnation in hand, recite her prayers and sing her songs with conviction.

The fact she was into her mid-90s paid little consequence.

As the years rolled by, she watched her coterie dwindle from 70 to a precious few. In her home town of Haverhill, she remained the sole survivor. Her Armenian name was Ojen --- an unusual one at that --- and her very last observance in 2008 had fate written all over it.


Only one other survivor from Merrimack Valley showed up that year and her name was Ojen. They could have rehashed the tragedy that befell their people during the genocidal years of 1915-1923 when 1.5 million Armenians perished at the hands of the Ottoman Turk.
But how many times must you hear the same diatribe, shed the same tears, before growing weary? Instead, they spoke of being the last of a vanishing breed. One Ojen said to the other, "You'll outlive me. I'm in a nursing home. You're living independently."
The other replied, "Yes, but you seem to be stronger than an ox. You'll go on living forever."
My mother passed away Oct. 19 in a blaze of glory with her family by her side. Even the nurses at Hannah Duston Nursing Home marveled at how she was able to defy death so persistently, unaware that she was able to evade the Turkish gendarmes as a child by hiding in a well for days.
The last sensible thing she said to me occurred about four days prior to her demise. She grabbed my attention out of the clear blue and this is what she offered in a voice that crackled with sentiment.
"Continue being true to your faith and your heritage. But that is not enough. Make sure your children and grandchildren practice their culture and worship God. If we don't have our church and our heritage, we have nothing. The responsibility is in your hands now."
Although it may have been premature, I do believe it was a sense of closue on her part, knowing that her wishes were revealed and how the ethnic baton was being passed from one generation to another.
This past Sunday, I gathered my Armenian School students together and told them her wish. Those who knew expressed their condolences. We used her life as an example of resiliency.
For what it was worth amidst a class of adolescences, I told them, "We owe it to these remaining survivors and those who died for their cause to lobby for recognition and get a genocide bill passed in Congress. We need an admission of guilt from Turkey and the restoration of our land and churches."
Jennie was laid to rest with a funeral fit for a queen. She may have been humbled by all the attention and probably never realized the true legacy she had left behind. Inside the casket with rosary beads in hand was a miniature Tricolor flag that rested on her heart.
A hand-carved wooden cross stood erect, prepared by a Russian immigrant who arrived here in the 1940s as a 21-year cousin she and her sister sponsored. On the day of her burial, a dear friend who had just returned from a pilgrimage to Syria handed me a plastic bag containing some sand. It was from the desert of Der Zor where thousands perished during a death march.
The sand was sprinkled in the form of a cross during the burial service, sending Jennie back to her roots.
I look back upon it all with no remorse. You tend to dwell upon the good times, even while being institutionalized the last four years. You see the smile, not the tears. You remember happy thoughts, not the tragic moments. Every new day was a gift.
She used to grin at the thought of how she ever wound up inside a nursing home. It was just for a visit, I told her. She had broken a hip and needed rehabilitation.
"Four years. Oh my! This was the longest visit I ever had anywhere," she often reminded me.
The woman was feisty. At the ripe age of 90, I took her car keys away after some erratic driving. She balked at such insolence. How would she transport herself to the gym anymore?
A few days later, I got a call from a neighbor. "Come quickly," she urged. "Jennie's in the garage and she's got the hood up in her car with wires in her hands." I sped the whole way and there she was, trying to jump start the vehicle.
But that was Jennie -- always in the driver's seat!
(c) 2010 Armenian Reporter