From 1959-1970, the communities of Saint Louis, Missouri were tasked with a unique mission: sending in the teeth of children to a newly formed initiative called the Baby Tooth Survey. Founded by physicians Louise and Eric Reiss, this project was in collaboration with Saint Louis University and the Washington University of Dental Medicine with the primary goal of proving the traces of radioactive contamination within children’s bodies. This radiation was caused by hundreds of atmospheric nuclear tests conducted by the U.S. government in Nevada, New Mexico, and the Marshall Islands. Strontium-90, one particularly harmful radioactive isotope, was contaminating water and dairy in the United States, thereby polluting milk products being consumed by children which would be absorbed into bones and teeth. The indisputable findings of harmful radioactive levels in children documented by this initiative led President John F. Kennedy to sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which banned all nuclear tests except those detonated underground. This harrowing narrative led by housewives and mothers plays an important role in the history of anti-nuclear activism, which is captured by director Hideaki Ito in his documentary film Silent Fallout: Baby Teeth Speak (2023).
Screened to an audience of students, faculty, and community members at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and sponsored by the UMN Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, and History, Silent Fallout is split into four chapters: Omens, Ground Zero, Baby Teeth, and Silent Heroes. Each section builds upon the previous, gradually weaving together a story not just limited to the United States, but one global in its breadth. From Japan to the Marshall Islands to the United Kingdom, what Ito makes clear is that the American victims of nuclear testing are not alone in their struggles. Opening the film is activist Mary Dickson, born 1955, a downwinder from Salt Lake City, Utah. “Downwinder” refers to those who were exposed to fallout from nuclear tests, and although Salt Lake City is located miles northeast from the Nevada Test Site, there are many cases of health complications in those areas, including Mary Dickson herself, revealing the reach and dangers of nuclear fallout that spread across the United States. What she expresses in these opening scenes is her disillusionment and anger towards the U.S government as she witnessed herself and her community fall ill to radiation poisoning without adequate support nor acknowledgement from the United States. This sets the tone for the rest of the film as Ito interviews other downwinders who express similar sentiments. Although the film does capture a transnational nuclear history, it remains very much fixed within an American context. One focus of the film and a reason for its screenings across North America is to educate the American public on the violence perpetrated by the U.S. government on its own people. The anger being expressed towards the United States by white American interviewees works to destabilize an American pride and trust towards the government and question the conditions around freedom and protection.
The main protagonists of the film are the downwinders, the housewives, and the mothers who headed this movement against nuclear testing, organizing protests and anti-nuclear projects that led towards the Partial Test Ban Treaty. Louise Reiss herself received a personal phone call from President Kennedy at her home as her Baby Teeth Survey gained traction. This film inspires discussions of gendered social mobility that collapses the lines between the domestic and non-domestic realms and challenges the patriarchal legacies of nuclear science. Silent Fallout also invites us to ask: whose voices are heard? The film addresses the testing of nuclear weapons on the Marshall Islands, a chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean, home to Indigenous Marshallese communities. From 1946 to 1958, the United States government conducted 67 nuclear tests on the Marshall Islands which relied upon the active displacement of Marshallese communities, the poisoning of their bodies, and the destruction of their land, the legacies of which endure to this day. The film notes that the fallout from these tests traveled as far as the United States. Only when these tests were a threat to the American public, however, did it become a point of contention, and even then, the safety and well-being of Marshallese communities was not at the forefront of public consideration. Nuclear violence relies upon hierarchical institutional power dynamics that renders redress and visibility uneven across communities with Indigenous sovereignty at the highest risk of violence. Questions located at the intersections of gender, Indigeneity, race, and class are vital to discussions of nuclear history and its ongoing processes. Silent Fallout provides insight into these histories, allowing viewers a foundation upon which to inquire about whose voices are listened to and whose bodies are protected. It is a powerful condemnation of nuclear power, not only for American audiences, but for the world.
Nuclear fallout from nuclear testing 1951-1962
Source: Originally from Under the Cloud: The Decades of Nuclear Testing by Richard Miller, and featured in Silent Fallout
Author bio:
Sarah Humiko Lam is a PhD student in the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies department at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She specializes in the field of nuclear humanities and its intersections with gender studies and queer theory. While working closely with Japanese literature and culture she also writes about nuclear violence with a global approach that investigates solidarities across nation-state formations and overlapping systems of violence.
Two events clashed in the past few days: January 27, International Holocaust Memorial Day, in 2025 witnessed the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Concentration and Extermination Camp. Many of the few remaining survivors came to the site of their suffering, together with many heads of state, to remember. From Germany, the President, the Chancellor, and the President of the Bundestag (the lower chamber of parliament), were present. German news magazines devoted more than half of their reporting time to covering the events directly from the murder site, where one million out of six million Jewish lives had been extinguished by an industrialized murder machine, together with some 100,000 others, many of them Poles who had dared to confront the German occupiers.
January 25, 2025: Elon Musk, high tech innovator, multi-billionaire, controller of a massive social media empire, and close confidant and advisor to the new US president Donald Trump sent a supportive video to a pre-election party gathering of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), aright-wing populist party. Parts of the AfD have been categorized as radical right and anti-democratic by the German Intelligence Agencies, and a party leader was recently sentenced in criminal court for the use of Nazi language and symbols. Musk (himself with at least the appearance of a Hitler salute) expressed strong support when he told those gathered that their country placed “too much of a focus on past guilt.” Earlier, Musk had expressed praise for the AfD, and he recently engaged in a supportive conversation with its leader Alice Weidel on his platform X.
Musk’s plea to Germans resonates with his master’s appeal to Americans: “Make America Great Again,” a message that implies forgetting about the dark sides of this country’s own history. Americans should take notice: demands to forget about evil in German and American societies go hand in hand.
Such demands of course fly in the face of George Santayana’s famous words that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” They fly in the face of President Franklin D. Roosevelt hopes and Justice Robert Jackson’s words in his opening statements at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg: the trial should document the unbelievable atrocities Germany had committed with witnesses under oath and all the written documents so posterity can never doubt. Musk’s demands are an offense against the US (and other nations’) soldiers who risked and lost their lives to put an end to the Nazi terror and murder machine. They finally fly in the face of Musk’s South African compatriot (albeit on the other side of the racial divide), Nelson Mandela, who made his agreement to a transition from apartheid to democracy contingent on the institutionalization of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The history of apartheid had to be documented and never be forgotten. It included that the regime based its Apartheid laws on Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg Laws of racial discrimination.
Some will suggest we take Musk seriously, highlighting his smarts and success as an entrepreneur. They may forget that several heads of leading German business enterprises of the 1930s, world leaders in steel production and chemical industries (including the production of Zyklon B), were most appeasing to Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime (and generously accepted the slave labor offered to them). Some later faced justice at Nuremberg. Entrepreneurial success does not go hand in hand with a sense of political ethics and—in Elon Musk’s case—it certainly is accompanied by massive ignorance of German history. Such ignorance delegitimizes his words. The forgetting he preaches is best suited to undermining democracy and to laying the groundwork for future atrocities. An escape to Mars will not be an option.
Joachim Savelsberg, is a professor in the Department of Sociology and an affiliate with the Law School of the University of Minnesota.
Prof. Dr. Victor Klemperer, Der bekannte Sprachwissenschaftler an der Universität Halle (“LTI”) sprach am 6.12.49 im Kulturbundhaus in Berlin. Foto Illus Kemlein 4691-49 Leihweise Illus Berlin WS”
“Now the depression of the reactionary government.… It is a disgrace, which gets worse with every day that passes…. Everyone’s keeping their heads down, Jewry most of all and the democratic press.… What is strangest of all is how one is blind in the face of events, how no one has a clue to the real balance of power.… Will the terror be tolerated and for how long? The uncertainty of the situation affects every single thing.” So wrote Victor Klemperer in his private diary on 21 February 1933, scarcely three weeks following Adolf Hitler’s seizure of power in Germany the previous month. A literary scholar and war veteran, Klemperer watched firsthand as the pillars of free society crashed down around him.
In the two weeks that followed this entry, as his supporters celebrated Germany’s so-called “national awakening,” Hitler granted a full pardon to every Nazi stormtrooper in prison and under investigation, restricted the freedom of the press as well as the right to organize and assemble, appointed his closest associates to positions unequal to their qualifications, and laid the groundwork for the Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) to establish a concentration camp in Dachau. “What, up to the election, I called terror,” Klemperer lamented on 10 March 1933, “was a mild prelude…. It’s astounding how easily everything collapses.” The following month on 3 April 1933, he conceded that “everything I considered un-German, brutality, injustice, hypocrisy, mass suggestion to the point of intoxication, all of it flourishes here.”
Klemperer’s private writings after Hitler’s Machtergreifung provide an unvarnished portrayal of the humiliation and terror that pervaded everyday life in the Third Reich. Though a chronicler of fascist violence, Klemperer did more than just observe acts of cruelty—he also lived them as well. The son of a rabbi, he converted to Christianity when he was a young man, only later to embrace his Jewish identity as an adult. While Klemperer saw himself as a German, the Nazis regarded him as “un-German,” a prejudicial worldview that eventually cost him his academic position, citizenship, and even his beloved cat, Muschel. “One is an alien species or a Jew with 25 percent Jewish blood,” he grieved on 10 April 1933. “As in fifteenth-century Spain, but then the issue was faith. Today, it’s zoology + business.”
Most are familiar with the genocidal crimes of the Nazis. Fewer people, however, are aware of the cumulative measures they instituted before the end of 1933 that destroyed Germany’s experiment with liberal democracy. Speed and deception proved essential in this effort. In the first months of the regime, the Nazis orchestrated a series of celebrations and staged pageants that enabled Hitler to hail his executive orders as the popular will of the people. Klemperer’s reflections illuminate both the human and political consequences of these initiatives. They also reveal how even Hitler’s most innocuous pronouncements degraded democratic institutions and normalized violence against minority communities.
His diary is a remarkable testimony on life in Nazi Germany told from the perspective of someone whom the state sought to degrade, marginalize, and ultimately eradicate from the population—and it makes for chilling reading today. Klemperer commented on a variety of topics between January and May 1933, from the pretense of law and public displays of aggression to interactions with former friends who supported Hitler electorally:
On law: “On the instruction of the Chancellor of the Reich the five men sentenced in the summer by a special court in Beuthen for the killing of a Communist Polish insurgent have been released (they had been sentenced to death!). The Saxon Commissioner for Justice [meanwhile] orders that the corrosive poison of Marxist and pacifist literature is to be removed from prison libraries, [and] that the penal system must once more be punitive…. We would more likely live in a state of law under French [colonial] occupation than under this government. This is truly no empty phrase: I can no longer get rid of the feeling of disgust and shame. And no one stirs; everyone trembles, keeps out of sight.”
On executive decree: “Every new government decree, announcement, etc. is more shameful than the previous one. In Dresden an Office to Combat Bolshevism. Reward for important information. Discretion assured. In Breslau Jewish lawyers forbidden to appear in court. In Munich the clumsiest sham of an attempted assassination and linked to it the threat of the ‘biggest pogrom’ if a shot should be fired. And the newspapers snivel…. Goebbels as Minister of Advertising. Tomorrow the ‘Act of State of March 21’! Are they going to have an emperor?”
On administrative dismissal: “The new Civil Service ‘law’ leaves me, as a front-line veteran, in my post—at least for the time being. But all-around rabble-rousing, misery, fear and trembling…. Everyday new abominations. A Jewish lawyer in Chemnitz kidnapped and shot. Provision of the Civil Service Law: anyone who has one Jewish grandparent is a Jew. A worker or employee who is not nationally minded can be dismissed in any factory, [and] must be replaced by a nationally minded one. The NS plant cells must be consulted. For the moment I am still safe. But as someone on the gallows, who has the rope around his neck, is safe. At any moment a new ‘law’ can kick away the steps on which I’m standing and then I’m hanging.”
On propaganda: “Is it the influence of the tremendous propaganda—films, broadcasting, newspapers, flags, ever more celebrations? Or is it the trembling, slavish fear all around? I almost believe now that I shall not see the end of this tyranny…. They are expert at advertising. The day before yesterday we saw (and heard) on film how Hitler holds his big rallies. The mass of SA men in front of him, the half-dozen microphones in front of his lectern, which transmit his words to 600,000 SA men in the whole Third Reich—one sees his omnipotence and keeps one’s head down. And always the Horst Wessel Song. And everyone knuckles under.”
On individual support for the new government: “Unfortunately on Tuesday evening we had the Thiemes here. That was dreadful and the end of that. [Herr] Thieme—of all people—declared himself for the new regime with such fervent conviction and praise. He devoutly repeated all the phrases about unity, upwards, etc. Trude [Thieme] was harmless by comparison. Everything had gone wrong, now we had to try this. ‘Now we just have to join in this song!’ [Herr Thieme] corrected her vigorously. ‘We do not have to,’ the right thing was truly and freely voted for. I [Klemperer] shall not forgive him that…. He runs with the pack. But why to me? Caution in the shape of utterly consistent hypocrisy? Or can he simply not think clearly?
On futility: “Ever more hopeless. The [Jewish] boycott beings tomorrow. Yellow placards, men on guard. Pressure to pay Christian employees two months salary, to dismiss Jewish ones…. In Munich Jewish university teachers have already been prevented from setting foot in the university. The proclamation and injunction of the boycott committee decrees ‘Religion is immaterial,’ only race matters.”
Klemperer’s accounts during the first months of Nazi rule pulse with emotion. They scorn the authoritarian nature of the government and lament the fate of basic human rights in German society. Once previously uncontentious privileges, such as freedom of religion, the right to an education, and equality before the law, were now at the mercy of a reactionary, all-knowing, lazy man who demanded total allegiance and unwavering praise at all times. “How wretched,” Klemperer scorned. “Gratitude to Hitler—even if the racial question has not yet been clarified, even if the ‘aliens’ … have made important contributions—we thank Hitler, he is saving Germany!”
One does not need a Ph.D. in German history to make judicious comparisons between the events Klemperer imparted in his diary and present-day affairs. Like in 1933, the most vulnerable individuals today are minorities, notably members of the LGTBQ+ community, people of color, and those in search of political asylum. “The defeat in 1918 did not depress me as greatly as the present state of affairs,” Klemperer wrote on 17 March 1933. “It is shocking how day after day naked acts of violence, breaches of the law, barbaric opinions appear quite undisguised as official decree.” We would be wise to dismiss the false logic that regards state-sponsored discrimination as a unique aspect of Germany’s recent past. History does not repeat itself. But a critical evaluation of historical events can at least provide us a means to learn about the destructive capabilities of nationalism, racism, and centralized oppression. We need look no further than Victor Klemperer and his courageous effort to “bear witness” for such an appraisal.
The remarkable historian and my late advisor, Dr. Eric D. Weitz, wrote extensively about the dangerous potentials that made human rights abuses possible after the French Revolution. He was an unequivocal champion of diversity and liberal democracy, and feared any effort that sought to forge a “homogeneous” society. I have often thought of him during my current research sabbatical in Berlin. In the past weeks, however, I have mostly thought about his closing words in Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy (2007): “The threats to democracy are not always from enemies abroad. They can come from those within who espouse the language of democracy and use the liberties afforded them by democratic institutions to undermine the substance of democracy. Weimar cautions us to be wary of those people as well. What comes next can be very bad, even worse than imaginable.”
Memorial plaque outside Victor Klemperer’s former apartment building in Berlin. The text below his name reads: “In his diaries from the time of the National-Socialist dictatorship, he left behind a unique testimony about the everyday persecution of Jews in a German city.” Source: Author’s photo, 26 January 2025.
Photograph of Victor Klemperer plague provided by the author
Dr. Adam A. Blackler is an associate professor of history at the University of Wyoming. He is serving as a visiting professor of history at the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut of the Freie-Universität-Berlin for the 2024-2025 academic year. Dr. Blackler is a historian of modern Germany, whose research emphasizes the transnational dimensions of imperial occupation and settler-colonial violence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His scholarly interests also include the political and social dynamics of Germany’s Weimar Republic and the interdisciplinary fields of holocaust & genocide Studies and international human rights.
On Thursday, the International Criminal Court issued warrants for senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and leaders of Hamas for Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes. The decision came six months after the ICC announced its intent to investigate the ongoing war in Gaza and ten months after the International Court of Justice found it plausible that Israel is in violation of its obligations to prevent and punish genocide.
The Center asked Melanie O’Brien, Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western Australia, shed light on Thursday’s news and what it means for the ongoing investigations into war crimes committed in Gaza. In addition to her role at the University of Western Australia, Melanie is a Visiting Scholar at the Human Rights Center at the University of Minnesota’s Law School and was a Visiting Professor at CHGS last year.
The International Criminal Court has issued warrants for several Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, as well as leaders of Hamas. This is in addition to ongoing investigation by the ICJ that was announced in January. Is there an overlap between these investigations?
The ICC is a court that investigates and prosecutes individuals for criminal responsibility, while the ICJ is a court that adjudicates disputes between states (countries), so it is about state responsibility. However, obviously, the ICC investigation into the Palestine Situation, and the ICJ case that South Africa has brought against Israel are related to the same atrocities. The difference is that the ICJ case is focused solely on genocide, as it is brought under the Genocide Convention. The ICC investigation can look at war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The arrest warrants issued only include allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but that does not mean that the Prosecutor cannot request additional charges of genocide at various stages of the process. It is also important to note that the ICJ does not conduct investigations, but rather only adjudicates on the facts and legal arguments put before it by states.
The ICC warrant included findings of crimes against humanity and war crimes, but not genocide. Do you have a sense of why genocide was included in the ICJ investigation but not the ICC warrant?
Genocide is notoriously difficult to prove, and prosecutors tend to be hesitant to charge for genocide, instead preferring crimes against humanity, which have a lower threshold than genocide in terms of what needs to be proven. Genocide requires the ‘special intent’ (dolus specialis in legal latin terminology) on the part of the perpetrators, which is the intent of the perpetrators to destroy a group in whole or in part, and that is what is difficult to prove. The ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan requested these warrants six months ago, and he may have thought that he did not yet have enough evidence collated to request a warrant for genocide crimes. However, this does not mean he cannot add charges for genocide now or at a later stage of proceedings once he is satisfied that he has evidence that can prove these charges beyond reasonable doubt in court.
The ICJ case is about genocide because South Africa brought their case under the Genocide Convention. There is no crimes against humanity treaty under which South Africa could bring a case (negotiations for such a treaty are underway). And there are very technical legal reasons why South Africa did not bring any dispute under international humanitarian law (the laws of war).
Israel and the United States are not state parties to the Rome Statutes, so given that, what’s the likelihood of anyone listed in the warrant being detained?
One of the biggest challenges for the ICC is that it does not have its own police force, and it relies on states to arrest and surrender persons who have an arrest warrant issued against them. The 124 state parties to the Rome Statute are obligated to arrest these persons and surrender them to the Court. Non-state parties have no such obligation. However, we have seen two instances of state parties ignoring their obligations with regards to heads of state visiting their countries. In 2015, then-President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir visited South Africa (an ICC state party) and was not arrested, and South Africa was not sanctioned by the ICC. In 2024, Mongolia (an ICC state party) invited Vladimir Putin to visit, and during this visit, did not arrest Putin. This time, the ICC has chosen to refer Mongolia’s conduct to the Assembly of State Parties for sanction, and it remains to be seen what the ASP will do. However, it is important to remember that these heads of state who are under an arrest warrant are not travelling much, which demonstrates that the arrest warrants are having the effect of restricting their movement. A number of states party to the Rome Statute have already stated that they will arrest Netanyahu and Gallant as required under the Rome Statute, but of course it is unlikely they will travel to these countries and risk arrest. Of course, as non-state parties, Israel and the US are not obligated to arrest and surrender, nor are they likely to (and both have already expressed their disapproval at the arrest warrants). Overall, the likelihood of arrest is unfortunately low, but not impossible.
Yet it is important to acknowledge that this is a significant moment for international criminal justice. The ICC now has arrest warrants out for two sitting heads of state, and one for a former head of state (who was a sitting head of state when the warrant was issued), which represents a shift in the direction of international law, which has long preferred immunity for heads of state.
Do you have an update on the ICJ process for South Africa v. Israel?
In October 2024, South Africa submitted its written memorial, which is its written submission to the court, to make its argument that Israel has violated the Genocide Convention. This has not been made public. The ICJ has issued three provisional measures orders (interim orders) requiring Israel to undertake a range of actions including allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza and allowing UN access to Gaza. These orders remain in force, but for the most part are not being complied with by Israel.
Charles Fodor is a Minnesota Holocaust survivor, one of the survivors whose arrival to the Twin Cities came over a decade after the end of the war. While many of the Holocaust survivors that immigrated to Minnesota did so in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, it was not uncommon for survivors to attempt to return to their prewar homes or, in the case of Charles Fodor, remain in their homes after they were liberated.
Born Fodor Karoly Sandor in 1936, Charles was interned with his family in the Budapest ghetto during the German occupation of Hungary which began in 1944. Like other survivors whose stories are told through the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives (UMJA) collections, Charles’ time under direct Nazi occupation was relatively short, ending in January 1945 when Soviet forces liberated Budapest. Despite this, Charles’ mother was abducted while the family was in the ghetto: she was taken away by the Nazis to perform labor, but never returned. Charles and his father were able to survive.
After liberation, Hungary was annexed by the Soviet Union, becoming an early member of the Eastern Bloc. Charles said many times that the Russians “stayed too long.” Despite this, Charles continued living in Hungary after the war. Eventually, Charles was drafted into the Hungarian Army, being ordered to appear for duty on October 30th, 1956. One week before this date arrived, however, Hungarian students and anti-Soviet activists organized to topple the Russian occupation. This would become known as the Hungarian Revolt of 1956.
As Russian tanks moved into Budapest to quell the uprising, Charles took the opportunity to escape the ensuing revolt. Along with two friends, they began to make their way westward. After nearly three weeks of traveling on foot to avoid Russian forces, the three reached Austria. From there they were able to make their way to the United States, where Charles arrived on December 24th, 1956. He lived in the United States for the rest of his life, primarily living in Minnesota.
The shirt that UMJA has in their collections belonged to Charles, and is the one that he wore while escaping Hungary after the Revolt, wearing it all the way to the United States. This shirt was one of the only possessions Charles had with him while he was making his escape, and he kept it with him all the way up until his passing in 2018, when his wife Victoria donated it to the UMJA archives for further stewardship and care.
This shirt is not only fascinating because of the story it tells, but because it is housed in UMJA’s archives at all. The vast majority of UMJA’s archival materials are written records, pamphlets, correspondence, and other forms of paper materials, because Elmer L. Andersen Library’s onsite storage facilities are climate controlled to best support paper-based objects. This is why they make up a majority of the collections; three-dimensional artifacts like textiles require more complex storage requirements and are less likely found in UMJA’s collections.
Charles Fodor’s shirt, then, offers a unique departure for UMJA from their usual collection mediums. The conditions needed to maintain textiles, fabrics, and other objects can often take different forms than conditions needed to maintain papers and books. Despite these possible challenges, UMJA accepted Charles Fodor’s shirt into the archives. The story behind the artifact justified any extra care that would need to be taken in order to preserve this piece of history, which accompanies the oral history testimony from Charles also at UMJA. This, along with Charles’ incredible story of survival, makes this collection one of the most unique housed within UMJA.
Ryken Farr is a junior undergraduate at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, majoring in History and Jewish Studies. He is currently the undergraduate student worker with the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and spent time in August 2024 as a student assistant with the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives.
Numerous projects in the recent past have recounted the lives of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Minnesota after World War II, with many of which telling the stories of dozens of survivors and their postwar lives in the Twin Cities. Not all survivor projects are as sweeping as these, however they are just as important.
I was able to work on one such project this summer with the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives (UMJA) in the Libraries: Jeanette Frank, born Eugenia Lewin, is a survivor of the Holocaust whose materials reside in the archives. Jeanette’s records contain extensive materials related to her time as a displaced person in the Landsberg am Lech Displaced Persons (DP) camp after the war. The collection includes vaccination records, records of employment, and, most interestingly, a scrapbook of the Yiddish theater troupe “Hazomir,” that Jeanette, (then Eugenia) was a member of during her time in the camp. Included in the records as well are later documents, including Jeanette’s United States passport and naturalization certificate.
Scrapbook page with image of the entire “Hazomir” theater troupe posing in front of a sign for their production of “Der Wilder Mencz” (The Unusual Person), with accompanying newspaper article about the production in Yiddish at right. Eugenia Lewin/Jeanette Frank pictured middle-row center. Source: Jeanette and Kenneth Frank Papers, Upper Midwest Jewish Archives.
Eugenia Lewin/Jeanette Frank with future husband Kaufmann Frankowski, later Kenneth Frank, while performing in the “Hazomir” troupe. Source: Jeanette and Kenneth Frank Papers, Upper Midwest Jewish Archives.
What all these documents point to is that Eugenia Lewin survived the Second World War and the Holocaust. After spending time living and working in the Landsberg DP camp, she was able to immigrate to the United States, settle in St. Paul, MN, and live over 75 years as an American citizen before passing away in 2003. While an incredible story of survival and resilience, this story may seem similar to many others told within UMJA’s archives. So what makes Jeanette Frank’s story so impactful? The fact that within certain historical records, Eugenia Lewin is not believed to have survived at all.
The Yad Vashem database of survivors’ names lists a Eugenia Lewin, born on December 21st 1916, in Lodz, Poland as missing, presumed murdered after being interned in the Lodz ghetto under the Nazi occupation. Yad Vashem cites as a source a list published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) that includes names of Holocaust victims who perished in the Lodz ghetto. The records found in UMJA’s archives, however, do not presume murder but in fact show her surviving.
According to the UMJA records, Eugenia Lewin was born on December 21st, 1920, in Lodz, Poland. While it is of course possible that two individuals named Eugenia Lewin were interned in the Lodz ghetto, with one perishing and one surviving, UMJA’s research gives reason to believe that a coincidence like this is not the case.
Letter of Recommendation written for Eugenia Lewin by Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik (WMF) in July 1949. The letter reads: “Ms. Eugenia Lewin, born 21st December, 1920 (Prisoner number 38 834) was employed by us from 5th January 1945-8th April 1945 as a concentration camp prisoner.” Source: Jeanette and Kenneth Frank Papers, Upper Midwest Jewish Archives.
Within Jeanette Frank’s collection are various recommendation letters given to her after the war to show that she has skills, making her a good candidate for postwar employment. One of these letters came from Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik (WMF), a German manufacturing company which utilized slave labor under the Nazis. The letter states that Eugenia Lewin worked for WMF from January to April 1945, being labeled prisoner 38834, in the Geislingen an der Steige concentration camp. Upon further research, a Eugenia Lewin was listed on a memorial to slave laborers erected at the site of the Geislingen an der Steige camp, and a USHMM record confirms that a Eugenia Lewin was interned as prisoner 38834 in the complex.
A screenshot of the ‘Namenstafel’ (Name Plaque) erected in memoriam of the female forced laborers interned in Geislingen an der Steige Concentration camp, who were forced to work for WMF between 1944 and 1945. The museum which now stands on the site of the former concentration camp erected this memorial to honor the various women who were sent to Geislingen to work: the circled name above right is Eugenia Lewin, confirming that she was a prisoner at Geislingen after her time in the Lodz Ghetto. Source: www.kz-geislingen.de
All of this led me and UMJA Archivist Kate Dietrick, my supervisor for this project, to believe that UMJA’s Eugenia Lewin had survived her time in the Lodz ghetto and was sent to labor in the Geislingen concentration camp. We were left with one more piece of her journey to uncover: how did Eugenia Lewin end up in Landsberg am Lech displaced persons camp, which was located on the other side of Germany?
As I dug further into the fates of forced laborers at Geislingen, I learned that ahead of the Allied forces coming through France, the Nazis sent many slave laborers east from Geislingen to Dachau concentration camp, and to the town of Allach, Germany. Both of these destinations are located just outside of Munich, in southeastern Germany, and are a stone’s throw from the former site of Landsberg am Lech displaced persons camp.
After compiling all of the above evidence, Kate and I sent a letter to Yad Vashem, the world’s Holocaust memory authority located in Israel, supported by scans of documents from Jeanette Frank’s records, to make our case. As of November 2024, Kate heard back from Yad Vashem. In the letter Kate received, Yad Vashem stated that the evidence we provided on Jeanette Frank’s behalf was enough to show her surviving the Holocaust and immigrating to Minnesota. While the revision process can take time, Eugenia Lewin will be removed from Yad Vashem’s Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, reflecting the fact that she survived the Holocaust. We were extremely excited to hear the news.
This experience became one that spoke to me both personally and academically. I have been lucky enough to have spent time working both with CHGS and UMJA, two organizations that engage in crucial community-facing work. During my time with them I have seen what it means to do historical research that really affects the present.
Being able to work with Jeanette Frank’s Holocaust journey this summer, with the goal of giving her, effectively, her life back in the eyes of Holocaust remembrance, has shown me that the work that I do as a historian has a very real impact on people today, because history is a study of people and their lives. This hit me hardest when, after mailing the letter earlier in the day, Kate met me at Temple of Aaron Cemetery in St. Paul, where Jeanette Frank and her husband Kenneth, formerly Kaufmann Frankowski, are buried. We laid rocks on the headstone in honor of their memory, and decided to read aloud to them the letter we mailed to Yad Vashem in memoriam.
This experience was a very personal one for me; while we were standing and paying our respects, I could feel the importance of completing this project. It was yet another experience that proved to me that it is this historical work that I want to spend my career doing, and that its effects are great. I am so fortunate to have been able to spend time working with UMJA over this past summer, learning how archival documents are not simply pieces of paper, but pieces of people’s lives. I cannot wait to embark on more projects like this, which educate about the Holocaust, and work to keep the stories of its survivors and victims alive.
Ryken Farr is a junior undergraduate at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, majoring in History and Jewish Studies. He is currently the undergraduate student worker with the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and spent time in August 2024 as a student assistant with the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives.
Over the course of the last year, I have had the privilege of working with the CHGS to design and implement a new study abroad course. In May 2024, I taught Genocide, Justice, and Memory, in which I led a group of 8 undergraduate students to Rwanda. While at the University of Minnesota, students first explored the case of Rwanda within a broader theoretical context. They discovered the analytical and definitional challenges of classifying an episode of mass violence as genocide; explored the conditions under which the genocide occurred; examined how and why civilians were mobilized into killing militias; and finally, considered how the genocide shaped justice, reconciliation, and memory construction processes in Rwanda.
Students meeting with staff at the Aegis Trust in the Kigali Genocide Memorial Museum
Students meeting with a Gacaca judge
This first week enabled students to develop a theoretical and empirical understanding of the causes, course, and consequences of the genocide in Rwanda. This prepared students for two weeks in Rwanda, during which they visited sites of memory and discovered how Rwandans tell their own difficult history. Thus, throughout the course, students were encouraged to compare Western and local forms of knowledge. After visiting numerous memorial sites, students began to examine the judicial responses to genocide. They sipped African tea with a gacaca judge who explained the history of gacaca and the structural and personal challenges she encountered in her work. Next, students visited a reconciliation village, where they met with genocide survivors and individuals who participated in the genocide. They heard from the community, learned about their experiences, and asked about reconciliation efforts. Students also met with numerous experts (government and NGOs) whose work aims to preserve the memory of the 1994 genocide and prevent future genocides. This experiential learning fostered fruitful discussions regarding effective strategies for pursuing justice and reconciliation after genocide and the construction of collective memory.
Following a meeting with Never Again Rwanda
Importantly, as students processed the nation’s tragic history, they also engaged in cultural activities, which offered them a more complete and richer understanding of Rwanda. Unfortunately, most people’s knowledge of Rwanda begins and ends with the horrific events of 1994. Yet, Rwanda is so much more than its history of genocide. Thus, students participated in a range of activities not directly related the genocide. They explored various art museums, took a master class in Rwandan coffee, and visited the first women-owned brewery in Rwanda, where they met other study abroad students from the Ohio State University. And of course, no trip to Rwanda would be complete without a visit to Akagera National Park to see the Big Five.
Please join us for a one-day academic workshop convening scholars and practitioners from around the world on the topic of Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh. The workshop is not public, but we are extending an invitation to any University of Minnesota faculty and graduate students who would like to join us and listen to any sessions. Please see the full workshop program, speaker bios, and abstracts below, and register here for any sessions you would like to attend. In addition, please join us for the public keynote lecture at 6pm on Thursday evening, delivered by Scout Tufankjian, an Armenian-American photographer who has multiple photo essays on Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh. Click here to learn more and register for the public keynote event.
Please contact Nikoleta Sremac with any questions, at srema004@umn.edu.
Organized by the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Presented with the Human Rights Center, Human Rights Program, History Department, Department of Political Science, Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair, and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).
Mr. Joe Eggers Interim Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota, USA
Professor Melanie O’Brien Visiting Professor, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota; President, International Association of Genocide Scholars
9:00-10:30 a.m.
Workshop Session 1 Dr. Suren Manukyan Head of Department of Comparative Genocide Studies, Armenian Genocide Museum and Institute, Armenia “Preparing for Genocide: Anti-Armenian Narratives in Azerbaijani Education”
Professor Arman Tatoyan Professor and Chair of the Human Rights and Social Justice Program, American University of Armenia, Armenia “Human Rights Protection of People Forcibly Displaced from Nagorno Karabakh”
10:30-11:00 a.m.
Coffee Break
11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Workshop Session 2
Professor Armen T. Marsoobian Professor of Philosophy, Affiliated Faculty in Human Rights, Southern Connecticut State University/University of Connecticut, USA “The Azerbaijani-Turkic Erasure of the Indigenous Armenians of the Caucasus: Historical Origins and Denialist Consequences”
Dr. Artyom Tonoyan Visiting Professor, Hamline University, USA “Dispatches from a Burning Paradise: The Soviet and Russian Media on the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict”
Professor Henry Theriault Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, Worcester State University, USA; Founding Co-Editor Genocide Studies International “Group Structures and Self-Determination in the Face of Elimination”
Ms. Sheila Paylan Senior Legal Advisor, Center for Truth and Justice, Armenia “Recognizing the End of Nagorno-Karabakh Legitimizes Azerbaijan’s Criminal Means of Achieving It”
3.00-3.30 p.m.
Coffee Break
3:30-5:00 p.m.
Workshop Session 4
Dr. Elisenda Calvet Martinez Associate Professor of International Law, University of Barcelona, Spain “Transitional Justice in the Context of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict”
Professor Melanie O’Brien Visiting Professor, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota, USA; President, International Association of Genocide Scholars “International Criminal Accountability for crimes in Nagorno-Karabakh”
Scout Tufankjian Photographer, USA “Artsakh: Once There Was and Was Not”
Participants
Conference Committee
Melanie O’Brien
Visiting Professor, Center of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota, (MN, USA)
Nikoleta Sremac
PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota (MN, USA)
Joe Eggers
Interim Director of the Center of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota, (MN, USA)
Keynote Abstract
Scout Tufankjian, “Artsakh: Once There Was and Was Not”
Scout Tufankjian will speak about Artsakh and her people – before, during, and after the ethnic cleansing by the Azerbaijani government, and what is being done (and what still needs to be done) to support them, preserve their culture, and continue to fight for their rights.
Scout Tufankjian is an Armenian-American photographer based in New York City, best known for her work documenting both of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns – including her 2008 NYT and LA Times bestselling book Yes We Can: Barack Obama’s History-Making Presidential Campaign. Her second book, There is Only the Earth, was the culmination of six years documenting Armenian communities in over 20 different countries. More recently, she has served as a temporary acting director of Committee to Protect Journalists’ Emergency Response Team and the Senior Afghanistan Consultant for Too Young to Wed. She has taught photography in Yerevan and Stepanakert, and continues to work as a freelance photographer and as a consultant for both RISC Training. She is currently working as the documentary photographer for One Nation/One Project, and on a new project with composer Mary Kouyoumdjian at the New York Philharmonic about the crisis in Artsakh. More of her work can be seen at www.scouttufankjian.com.
Abstracts and Biographies(in order of participation)
Suren Manukyan, “Preparing for Genocide: Anti-Armenian Narratives in Azerbaijani Education”
School education serves as a key component of state propaganda in Azerbaijan, shaping a unified narrative since the 1990s. Azerbaijani educational systems have systematically propagated distorted narratives demonizing Armenians, fostering hostility and ethnic animosity. Through textbooks, curricula, and state-sponsored propaganda, Armenian culture, history, and identity are marginalized, perpetuating stereotypes and prejudice. Armenians are dehumanized and depicted as perpetual enemies, fostering a climate of fear and aggression. This indoctrination has fueled the conflict in Artsakh, culminating in genocide of the Armenian population. This presentation will analyze Azerbaijani textbooks and educational activities, examining the propaganda disseminated among students and creation of genocidal society in Azerbaijan.
Dr. Suren Manukyan is the Head of the Vahakn Dadrian Department of Comparative Genocide Studies at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute and holds the UNESCO Chair on Prevention of Genocide and Other Atrocity Crimes at Yerevan State University. He also teaches at the American University of Armenia. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University of New Jersey (2012-2013) and Kazan Visiting Fellow at California State University, Fresno (2021-22). Dr. Manukyan has extensive experience with the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS). His research deals with genocidal violence and perpetrators, focusing mainly on micro-level dynamics and the historiography of genocide. Dr Manukyan’s most recent publication is ‘The Historiography of the Armenian Genocide’, in The Handbook of Genocide Studies (Edward Elgar, 2023).
Arman Tatoyan,“Human Rights Protection of People Forcibly Displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh”
Human rights protection in (post) conflict zones is a widely recognized and challenging mission. Individuals in these areas face significant obstacles in the protection of their rights and often endure suffering due to political, economic, and other factors. The Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, numbering over 150,000 people, has faced particularly severe challenges living amidst the hostility and discriminatory policies of Azerbaijani authorities, leading to isolation, mental anguish, torture, and other forms of mistreatment. This animosity persists and serves as a source of political leverage for Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani government has waged multiple violent conflicts against Nagorno-Karabakh with the ultimate goal of displacing (exterminating) the Armenian population. They imposed a 10-month blockade on Nagorno-Karabakh and eventually resorted to aggressive military attacks to compel people to flee their homeland. The central issue now is how to safeguard the human rights of these individuals (right to return, etc.) and ensure that universal human rights values are upheld in such dire circumstances.
Dr. Arman Tatoyan is a Professor and Chair of the Master of Arts in Human Rights and Social Justice Program at the American University of Armenia College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Dr. Tatoyan was the Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) of Armenia and a member of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT); and has served as a Deputy Minister of Justice of Armenia and a Deputy Representative (Deputy Agent) of Armenia before the European Court of Human Rights. He was a member of the International review team under the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). Dr. Tatoyan is a licensed advocate and international expert of the Council of Europe in Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) countries. Dr. Tatoyan has extensive professional experience in the Constitutional Court and the Cassation Court of Armenia, as well as in civil society and international organizations (UN, OSCE, USAID, etc.).
Armen Marsoobian, “The Azerbaijani-Turkic Erasure of the Indigenous Armenians of the Caucasus: Historical Origins and Denialist Consequences”
The origins of the continuing destruction of the Armenian presence in the South Caucasus finds its historical origins in the beginning of the twentieth century and cannot be divorced from the nationalist ideology of Pan-Turkism. This ideological project reached its most violent apogee in the 1915-1923 Armenian Genocide but did not end there. The century long campaign of genocide denial by successive Turkish governments has fueled the revisionist historical narrative that pervades the Azerbaijani genocidal project of the Aliyev regime. This has culminated in the erasure of the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh, a region of immense historical importance for Armenian civilization.
Armen T. Marsoobian is Professor of Philosophy, Southern Connecticut State University, affiliated faculty, Human Rights Institute, University of Connecticut, Senior Research Scholar, Department of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies, Columbia University, and Editor-in-Chief, Metaphilosophy. He served as First Vice President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars and publishes on topics in genocide studies, human rights, moral philosophy. He co-edited and authored eleven books, including Genocide’s Aftermath: Responsibility and Repair, Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Genocide and Memory, and Fragments of a Lost Homeland: Remembering Armenia. He organized exhibitions of his family’s photography archive in Turkey, Armenia, Great Britain, United States, and Greece.
Artyom Tonoyan, “Dispatches from a Burning Paradise: The Soviet and Russian Media on the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict”
In his much celebrated book, The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself, that traces the development of the European news market in the Early Modern period, British historian Andrew Pettegree makes the observation that “[by] the time of the French and American revolutions at the end of the eighteenth century, news publications were not only providing a day by day account of unfolding events, they could be seen to play an influential role in shaping them”. This “events-shaping-news-shaping-events” palindromic paradigm has continued ever since, albeit the width and the depth of this dialectical interplay is in many ways dependent on the dominating political system within which events grow to become both news and newsworthy. Taking Petegree’s observation as a point of departure, the presentation seeks to unpack the coverage of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the Soviet and Russian press while underscoring the powerful role of the media in shaping the perceptions and the dynamics of the conflict, while being shaped by them.
A native of Gyumri, Armenia, Dr. Artyom Tonoyan is a sociologist and Visiting Professor of Global Studies at Hamline University, in St. Paul, Minnesota. His research interests include sociology of religion, religion and politics in the South Caucasus, and religion and nationalism in post-Soviet Russia. His articles have appeared in Demokratizatsiva: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, Society, and Modern Greek Studies Yearbook, among others. He has been a frequent guest on the BBC, Deutsche Welle, France 24, and other outlets. He is the editor of the recently published volume Black Garden Aflame: The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict in the Soviet and Russian Press.
Henry Theriault, “Group Structures and Self-Determination in the Face of Elimination”
A central issue raised by the destruction of the Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the violent dispersion of its population over the 1988-2023 period is the right of political self-determination for groups not already in possession of a state. Much attention has been given to legal analyses of whether Artsakh Armenians had and/or have that right. While an important avenue of investigation, it leaves open the question of whether relevant law is itself just, that is, whether Armenians should have that right and law should reflect this ethical imperative. An ethics-based approach to political self-determination that includes territorial statehood turns on three key issues. First, what if members of other groups also live in the territory that is claimed? Second, is a “rights”-based framework actually appropriate to this issue? Finally, under what conditions can a non-state group without a recognized government be considered to have a unified political will that can legitimately express a claim of political self-determination on behalf of the group? This presentation will address each of these issues through an oppression-focused framework, which holds that threats to the continuity of a group – including existential threats – must be taken into account in assessing the validity of self-determination claims by that group.
Henry Theriault is Associate VP for Academic Affairs at Worcester State University, after teaching in its Philosophy Department 1998-2017. Specializing in Continental as well as Political Philosophy, Theriault researches denial, prevention, victim-perpetrator relations, reparations, and mass violence against women and girls. He has lectured around the world and published numerous journal articles and chapters. He is lead author of the Armenian Genocide Reparations Study Group’s 2015 Resolution with Justice and, with Samuel Totten, co-author of The United Nations Genocide Convention: An Introduction. Theriault served two terms as IAGS President, 2017-21. He is founding co-editor of Genocide Studies International.
Sheila Paylan, “Recognizing the End of Nagorno-Karabakh Legitimizes Azerbaijan’s Criminal Means of Achieving It”
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict which started on 20 February 1988 is now said to have “ended” on 1 January 2024, on which day the de facto Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh is considered to have ceased to exist. There are serious problems with accepting such a conclusion, particularly given the illegitimate means that Azerbaijan used, especially over the last three years, to achieve that purported “end”. This presentation will shed light on the dissonance which arises from accepting the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as “ended” or “over” without further ado. It will explain the danger in accepting that the conflict has been resolved in the way that it has and that the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic no longer exists.
Sheila Paylan is an international criminal lawyer, war crimes investigator, human rights and gender expert. She spent more than 15 years advising judges and senior officials of various UN-backed international criminal tribunals, including for Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. From 2019 to 2021, she was appointed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to a Team of International Experts to help investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Based in Yerevan, she regularly consults for a variety of international organizations, NGOs, think tanks, and governments. She is currently Senior Legal Advisor to the Center for Truth and Justice, where she provides expert advice on strategies to seek justice and accountability for such violations, particularly before the International Criminal Court.
Elisenda Calvet Martinez, “Transitional Justice in the Context of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict”
After Azerbaijan’s takeover of Karabakh in September 2023, around 100,000 Karabakh Armenians have fled their homes and sought refuge in Armenia. Azerbaijan has said that it will treat the remaining Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh just like any other minority population, but fears of ethnic cleansing of ethnic Armenians in the region remains. As the tension in the region seems far from over, it is important to keep documenting the human rights violations not only for accountability purposes, but also to know the truth of what happened and help determine the type and form of reparations. The inclusion of transitional justice issues in the context of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is important as it represents the commitment of the parties to the armed conflict to promptly address the atrocities that have occurred and places the victims and survivors at the centre. The establishment of mechanisms of truth, including the search of missing persons and fact-finding processes, justice, accountability, return of prisoners of war and displaced persons from the conflict, and reparation of victims are essential and need to be done with the support of the international community.
Dr. Elisenda Calvet Martínez is Associate Professor of International Law, co-director of the Legal Clinic for the Fight against Impunity and deputy Vice Dean of Research and International Relations of the Faculty of Law at the University of Barcelona (Spain). She has worked for the Spanish Red Cross, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. Her main lines of research are transitional justice, enforced disappearances and genocide. She is a member of the Executive Board of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS).
Melanie O’Brien, “International Criminal Accountability for crimes in Nagorno-Karabakh”
Conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region has resulted in allegations of a range of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide crimes. This paper discusses some of the alleged international crimes committed in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, focusing on the arguments for the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh qualifying as the genocide crime of ‘inflicting conditions of life designed to bring out physical destruction’ of the Armenian people; and the September 2023 ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh as the crime against humanity of deportation. It explores options for accountability for such crimes, noting that the international community has had little interest in ensuring accountability for crimes committed during this conflict, despite ‘justice’ being one of the main concepts of transitional justice. The paper will address the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction in this particular situation, and offer critique as to potential jurisdictional fora and legal solutions, with some suggestions for specific options for accountability and justice for any international crimes committed during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Dr Melanie O’Brien is Visiting Professor at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota, and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS). Her work has been cited by the International Criminal Court; she has appeared before the ICC as an amica curia and been an expert consultant for several UN bodies. Recent achievements include a 10-year service medal from the Australian Red Cross & a Research Fellowship at the Sydney Jewish Museum. Dr O’Brien’s usual role is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western Australia; her most recent book is From Discrimination to Death: Genocide Process through a Human Rights Lens.
On January 31st, 2024, Professor John Packer delivered the Center’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Day Lecture, titled “Remembering, Learning, and Applying ‘Never Again’ as the Essential Lesson of the Holocaust.” In this interview, Professor Packer discusses the UN’s human rights and genocide prevention approach, the role of NGOs in peace mediation, and preliminary measures in the context of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s South Africa v. Israel case.
John Packer is the Neuberger-Jesin Professor of International Conflict Resolution, Faculty of Law, and Director of the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa. Before taking up his position at the University of Ottawa in 2014, John was the Constitutions and Process Design Expert for the UN’s Standby Team of Mediation Experts, advising in numerous peace processes and political transitions around the world, focusing on conflict prevention and resolution, diversity management, constitutional and legal reform, and the protection of human rights including minorities. In a 30-year career, John has contributed to peace processes in over fifty countries and has advised numerous inter-governmental organizations, governments, communities, and other actors.
In your talk yesterday, you spoke about how when you started working at the UN, there was a lack of a mechanism or institution for dealing with human rights issues. Why did it take so long for the UN to adopt a more formal human rights approach?
My impression is that the line of globalization has intensified in a sharp curve up and specifically in my lifetime. Historically, we were hindered by natural frontiers. There aren’t many natural frontiers anymore. We can now communicate across oceans in real-time. Social organizations are bumping up against this integration and these organizations are less and less suitable for it. This is heavily influenced by the preoccupation of those within each state with their own competitive position. Rather than cooperative, the competitive element is predominant. That explains the opposition of states to the deep cooperative operation that is imperative for things like climate change. It is inescapable.
The same for human rights. Human rights are not as simple as trade, which is transactional. Trade is conceptually easier and much more compelling. We can do a quick calculation and determine if it is a win-win scenario. Human rights involve much more complicated aspects of the human condition: social belonging, cultural attributes, and sentiments. Human rights are not easily tradable. There are certain things I cannot negotiate on with you. If I am a believer in Islam and I will not trade that with you, where do we go from there? Finding a way forward together becomes more complex and has implications for other elements we are trying to protect, like our economic well-being and so forth. It is not surprising that politicians and diplomats will try to stop more integration as a risk reduction and aversion policy.
I’d like to ask specifically about the institutions that work to stop genocide. You mentioned in your talk that the position of Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide is finally in existence, but that you are disappointed by the current Advisor. Could you elaborate? What is being done wrong?
The good thing is that they exist so they can therefore be activated. We have had more than a hundred years with an institution that can adjudicate international disputes. And the Genocide Convention has a special provision. States have agreed that if they do have a dispute, it will go to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This means that the chances of implementing a non-violent dispute resolution, and potentially in time [to prevent genocide] is not just an imagined idea but concretely a possibility. That is a different thing than using it, however.
Unfortunately, until about five years ago, there had only really been three references to the Genocide Convention in the ICJ. It had hardly been used, and that was not because there were no genocides. States were hesitant to contest things with other states and had fears of reciprocal problematic aspects. So it is fascinating that there are now a handful of cases, because we actually have many more cases than are being investigated. Tigray we could talk about, and many other cases. With the way the law works in general, we need the mechanisms to exist and be accepted. But a real key point is the habituation of it. Why do you stop at a stop sign when you drive a car? It’s not because you are worried about getting a penalty. You really stop because you are just used to doing it and you have a major self-interest in doing it. We are creating a global system. The law of international cooperation is evolving.
It is very important to develop confidence in these institutions so that those who do use them do so in a very able and effective way. I helped establish the Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. The idea was to have some mechanism that could help states be proactive and early in addressing situations with the prospect of genocide. This requires that they use these mechanisms. I find it shocking that the current Special Adviser on Prevention has said little about China and has been silent so far on what is going on in Israel-Palestine. How is it that the dedicated mechanism is silent? If you create a mechanism which is supposed to build confidence, and that mechanism is AWOL at the time of need, that does the opposite of inspiring confidence. These institutions are still pretty fragile. There is an extra weight of responsibility on people in those positions and institutions, and they really must carry that responsibility proactively.
You mention proactivity and timeliness. The ICJ has just released preliminary measures and Israel is accused of genocide and a final ruling will take years. Are strategies to avoid human rights violations effective and timely enough?
The provisional measure makes more impact than an ultimate decision. An ultimate decision is by definition ex post facto. So we will have a historical record and point the finger of blame. And what will be very important at that point if there is a finding of a breach of the Genocide Convention is there would be a turn to the question of reparations. But what does it mean to repair? We are talking about things that are by definition irreparable. In this kind of atrocity, you don’t want to get to the commission stage; you want to stop them from happening. The premium was on prevention or at least stopping worse from continuing to happen. We know that the immediate people will be destroyed. Those who are sympathetic will be emboldened to work on their own and will say that international institutions aren’t worth a penny and will find their own means. That is a recipe for war and long war and nasty war.
I am still favorable towards all of this. The provisional measures have been ordered and rely on the parties to fulfill them. To oversee this brings us to implementation mechanisms and ultimately enforcement. In international law, the Court doesn’t have a sergeant of arms or a police force, so it goes to the [UN] Security Council. That will probably not be effective either, and then it will come back to states. What will be very interesting is what states will do and will be permitted to do in fulfilling the judgment of the Court. And that is a potential Pandora’s box. Because if we have states that are divided willy-nilly in taking steps, the problem could be exacerbated, not reduced.
I know that you are on the board of numerous NGOs, including Human Rights Watch. Could you briefly explain the importance of the role of NGOs in the peace process and in addressing human rights violations? How do they fit in with the UN and other state-based organizations in the peace process?
The role of NGOs has grown. There is something called the mediation support network of nongovernmental organizations that specialize in this work. There is a lot of work done in what we call Track 2 and Track 3— so not official mediative processes, but non-official people with influence in society at a local level. For sustainable peace, we need these things to link up. Not only official structures, good law, leadership, and so forth, but you need the people on a local level to live together. NGOs have more latitude, flexibility, often more ingenuity, and more appetite for risk. There are problems for NGOs, however. Problems with funding, recognition, and other things. My basic sense is that the world is facing so many problems that, why should we be against anyone who wants to help? I think it is good to have and I want us to have a more robust NGO system. It is irrepressible. People want solutions and are organizing. I am privileged and honored to sit on some of their boards.
Abby Zumbrunnen is a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota, majoring in Political Science and Biology, Society, and Environment.
Ryken Farr is a second-year Honors undergraduate at the University of Minnesota. He’s pursuing a History B.A. with a concentration in Holocaust history and is the recipient of the Leo and Lillian Gross Scholarship in Jewish Studies. In addition, Ryken is a student worker with the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Ryken chose to focus his academics around Holocaust history because it was a topic that he had a prior interest in but was not being taught about extensively in the classroom. Having been at the University for almost two years, he says it’s been enriching to learn more about the history of the Holocaust in the classroom, through his own research, and work like the CHGS’s.
Ryken’s research project focuses on nuanced consequences of the propaganda and advertising distributed by Zionist organizations and US-based fundraising groups targeting Jewish displaced persons after the Second World War. In his research, he explores how Jewish displaced persons, often Holocaust survivors, were treated in these campaigns meant to help them and what other consequences may have arisen from choices these organizations made. Last summer, Ryken traveled to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City, NY, for on-site archival research with support from the Office for Undergraduate Research and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Moving forward, he hopes to use this initial research as a starting point for other research projects with the OUR, research abroad in Germany, and work for his Honors Thesis, to be completed during his senior year.
Working with CHGS has been very beneficial for Ryken: He’s been able to work on various projects related to the history of genocide and mass violence, which in turn have been great companions to my classroom study of the Holocaust. He’s appreciated the opportunity to learn more about other examples of genocide in history, as well. Working with CHGS has given Ryken the ability to connect with other scholars in the field, the Center’s faculty, and graduate students, which are great relationships to have as he continues to pursue a career in this field.
About Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies
The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities promotes academic research, education and public awareness on the Holocaust, other genocides and current forms of mass violence. It was established in 1997 by Dr. Stephen Feinstein as an interdisciplinary research center. Read more…
