This piece was originally published in the Community Voices section of the MinnPost.

The dangers are real. Timothy Snyder spelled them out in his short book, “About Tyranny.”

Germany at the dawn of Nazism, the USA today. Similarities? Differences? Many today ask such questions, for valid reasons.

The German Führer then sought to delegitimize core democratic institutions. The American president today does the same when institutions do not serve his political goals: the courts, the electoral process, democratic opposition, even branches of the administration that do not fall in line. He calls the mainstream news media, decried as “Lügenpresse” (press of lies) in 1930s Germany, “fake news.” He scapegoats minorities and stirs up of hostile emotions against adversaries, another parallel. Further, while Hitler affiliated SA- and SS-militias with his Nazi Party, President Trump encourages self-recruiting militias (“stand by!”). Hostilities toward democratic countries supplement these parallels.

Followers and enablers

Another similarity between Germany of the inter-war years and the United States today is about those who enable leaders with authoritarian leanings. Hitler attracted followers from among those who felt national humiliation after the defeat in World War I. Many had not gotten firm ground under their feet after returning from the trench warfare. After the Great Depression, he attracted scores with his protectionist economic policies. Many saw economic benefits, conveniently overlooking the dark side of the Nazis’ program.

In today’s America, millions are on the losing side of an increasingly globalized economy and IT revolution, deprived of lines of work that had been a source of pride since the industrial revolution. They too feel humiliated and insecure, let down by political (and ridiculed by cultural) elites. Others see 401(k) benefits in a stock market that roars in delight at Trump’s deregulation program, no matter the long-term cost. Yet others do not dare to speak up against the new leader because they depend on his political base.

Many differences — yet dangers are real

There are differences between Germany in the 1930s and the USA today, of course. Trump has not declared as his goal the extermination of an entire people. His ideology is not as clear-cut as Hitler’s, and he does not have the same discipline to stick to a set of core principles. Further, German democracy of the 1920s was young and fragile, in contrast to America’s firmly settled democratic institutions today.

Yet the dangers are real. Timothy Snyder, Yale historian of European totalitarianism spelled them out in his short book “About Tyranny.” Closer to home, almost a century ago, Sinclair Lewis anticipated the risks of fascism in his ironically entitled “It Can’t Happen Here.”

I was born in Germany in 1951, barely six years after the horrors of Nazism, World War II and the Holocaust. I saw the scars of that history. I immigrated to the United States and moved to Minnesota thirty-one years ago. My American wife and I raised our daughters in St. Paul. I learned to appreciate America’s diversity, the academic institutions in which I work, and the thousands of students I taught at the University of Minnesota. Today, I am concerned.

Joachim J. Savelsberg is a professor of sociology and law and the Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair at the University of Minnesota. His recent books address issues of genocide and collective memory.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been a huge fan of both America and Americans since watching the Apollo space program as a kid on a black and white TV in my parent’s house in Germany. But it’s not the ’60s anymore; it feels more like the 1600s. And no, I am not talking about the year 1620 or its woke neighbor 1619. The high-speed time machine that the entire US sits in right now has its dial pointing to 1618 Europe — Prague to be exact.

That is when and where the largest massacre in Europe started over whose faith is the right faith. Catholics and Protestants had come to the conclusion that after a century of fruitless debate, battling it out was the best option — with each side convinced that the Lord had their backs. The Lord, alas, decided to stay out of it and the ferocious war that followed ended in a tie after raging for 30 years. 

The war left half of central Europe’s population dead and the other half scratching their heads over the benefits of organized religion and clerical propaganda. So, it was no accident that the age of reason and realpolitik came next, at least on the east side of the Atlantic. Arguing over science and fact-based knowledge turned out to be more productive than questioning the validity of each other’s faith. The early Americans missed out on the sobering experience of the Thirty Years’ War. Boarding the Mayflower in 1620 was perfect timing if you wanted to bring with you an untainted love for bizarre theological certainties and the Bible as a literally true and unfailing guide to the future, even in politics.

By the 1980s, the Pilgrims’ Puritanism felt much more relaxed. That’s when I first moved to the US. To me America appeared refreshingly secular and pragmatic even if Ronald Reagan had an annoying habit of invoking the Almighty in his speeches against the godless communists and their evil empire. Democrats and Republicans got along much better than political parties in Germany, and if there was any dogma, it was “living louder” in the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) than in the GOP.

Today the mood in America has reverted back to the pre-Enlightenment era. Everyone in the US who speaks into a microphone — be it your representative in DC or your neighbor in the local news — is a person “of faith” and offers prayers for the occasion. Which makes me shudder, particularly since faith is absolute, and biblical teachings don’t exactly promote the value of compromise. As diverse as the current 116^th Congress is otherwise, based on recent surveys not a single member identifies as atheist (or dares to do so anymore). No wonder that in such a spiritually charged climate, issues that have long been settled legally and without much public noise in more secular countries, have turned into matters of faith, morality and divine rights in the US: abortion, guns, healthcare, and supreme court justices.

It is hard to imagine that a candidate for a constitutional court in a Western European country (that has a memory of the Thirty Years’ War) would be advertised as a “judge grounded in faith and family,” presenting herself as a proud and prolific Catholic like Amy Coney Barrett does. It smacks too much of Gegenreformation. Counter-Reformation was the Catholic Habsburgs’ campaign to roll back progressive Protestantism in the Holy Roman Empire, which finally, in 1618, led to a clash of belief systems that at the beginning was actually more slapstick than jihad: Imperial officials who tried to reign in the “liberal” Bohemian Protestants were not shown the door but a window of Prague Castle and out they went from the third floor. 

To everyone’s surprise, there were no serious injuries. This, however, didn’t prevent the Catholic Empire from striking back at the Protestants with full force. The rest is bloody history. I wonder if America’s Religious Right will mount a similar response when their chosen one experiences his defenestration on November 3rd. There are probably enough guns in this country to re-enact all battles of the Thirty Years’ War, but my hope is that somehow, miraculously, the age of reason will stage a strong comeback in the US before it’s too late.  

Henning Schroeder is a former vice provost and dean of graduate education at the University of Minnesota. His email address is schro601@umn.edu and his Twitter handle is @HenningSchroed1.

Last month, the results of the “First-Ever 50-State Survey on Holocaust Knowledge of American Millennials and Gen Z” were released. These results were shocking, as they found that 48% of respondents couldn’t name one concentration camp or ghetto that existed during World War II. Furthermore, respondents were unable to identify that 6 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. 

Interestingly, this study depicted Minnesota’s relative success in the area of Holocaust education. It found that 64% of Minnesotans surveyed could name a concentration camp or ghetto, and 75% could identify Auschwitz. Yet, Stephen Smith, UNESCO Chair of Genocide Education, took great issue with this survey, arguing that genocide education is more than being able to identify specific historical facts. While he argues these facts are important, he highlights the findings of another recent survey.

In this survey, Echoes & Reflection surveyed 1,500 students at four-year American colleges. They found that students who received Holocaust education not only knew more about the Holocaust, but they were also more tolerant of people of different races and sexual orientations than those who did not receive such education. Furthermore, students who had received Holocaust education were 50% more likely to offer help when presented with a bullying scenario.

Smith demonstates that Holocaust education is not solely based on the reguritiation of historical facts, but attitudinal changes regarding tolerance, diversity, and bystander intervention. If this one of key outcomes of Holocaust education, Echoes & Reflections’ recent survey may in fact demonstrate its effectiveness of Holocaust. Although historical facts about the Holocaust are not be easily recalled by American college students, the lessons regarding the danger of hatred and importance of tolerance seem to resonate with students.

So while children may learn about historical dates, the causes and consequences of WWII, and the definition of genocide; being able to recount the historical narrative of the Holocaust may not be the primary goal of Holocaust education — despite its importance. These findings give us many things to consider moving forward. Perhaps the greatest question is: what is the purpose of Holocaust education? 

In my studies of post-violence history education, I find that there are many purposes of history education. But perhaps the most oft cited reason is to prevent future violence. Today, 75 years after WWII, Holocaust education focuses on eradicating anti-semitism, humanizing the victims of genocidal violence, and fostering the understanding that violence is preventable.

Over the years, education has proven to be a key agent of socialization, having the ability to promote peace and/or violence. More specifically, schools can be sites of physical violence. For example, schools were a common site of genocidal violence during the Rwandan Genocide and Canadian residential schools were a key instrument of what Canada has now labeled cultural genocide. Aside from being a site of physical violence, schools can also foster structural violence (or inequality). In the years leading up to the Holocaust, Jews were banned from schools, and education was systematically withheld from Jews and other marginalized populations. Furthermore, education can also be used to spread hateful and divisive rhetoric, such was the anti-semitic indoctrination that occurred in German schools. 

Therefore, given education’s key role in promoting genocidal ideology, we must seriously consider how schools can be used to promote peace and tolerance and continue to be mindful of the many ways schools have the potential to prime citizens for future violence.

In both my research and teacher trainings on Holocaust education, I’ve noticed a common desire to humanize victims of genocide. As we know, victims and survivors of genocide, are often dehumanized by their perpetrators in efforts to justify the violence committed against them. Thus, genocide education often prioritizes humanizing these individuals — an incredibly important task. 

Yet, as teachers and educational programs seek to humanize victims and survivors, they often dehumanize perpetrators. Perpetrators are seen as inhuman and evil, and their violent acts are the only qualities discussed. I ask you to consider, however, that if the purpose of genocide education is prevention, mustn’t we humanize perpetrators as well? 

Holocaust education programs often fail to convey how and why “ordinary” men and women participated. If students believe those who participate in genocide are simply motivated by pure evil, will they ever be able to see the unconscious biases (or stereotypes and attitudes that we hold but may be unaware of) that work alongside violent ideologies?

For example, during a 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, a protestor drove his vehicle through a crowd killing a counter-protestor, and more recently, President Trump has refused to denounce the violent actions and ideologies of the Proud Boys. The individuals who participate in these organizations and violent actions are Americans. They are our neighbors; they are our current or former students. They may sit beside us on public transit or stand behind us in grocery stores. They are “ordinary” people.

If students only see humanity in victims and survivors, can we expect them to acknowledge when their beliefs persecute others? We need to seriously ask ourselves these questions, if we hope to stop Americans from participating in future acts of violence.

Jillian LaBranche is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology and a Research Assistant at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests broadly include violence, knowledge, collective memory, and comparative methods. Her research seeks to understand how societies that recently experienced large-scale political violence teach about this violence to the next generation.

Collectively, Americans have a particular idea of what constitutes genocide. Notions of the Holocaust, Cambodia, or Rwanda are generally what come to mind. Almost universally they have two things in common; they are tied to events that happen abroad, and they involve killing on a massive scale. This clear notion of what constitutes genocide can be traced back to the legal definition of genocide, found in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

This legal framework for genocide itself can be traced back to 1944, in the midst of World War II, when the horrors of the Holocaust were being increasingly brought to the forefront. Jurist Raphael Lemkin published a series of guidelines that would allow for the prosecution of the heinous Nazi crimes.

In Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws Of Occupation, Analysis Of Government, Proposals For Redress Lemkin culminated his years of work defining and redefining what he considered the crime of crimes. The legal language found in the Genocide Convention, however, differs greatly from that in Axis Rule. Fortunately, many scholars have carried the torch of Lemkin forward, continuing to examine how we define genocide.

From this scholarly work, we can find a more nuanced and expanded approach to genocide that has allowed us to examine the events of the past with a more critical lens. Events like the treatment of Native youth in America’s boarding school system  throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries have become widely accepted instances of genocide. Moreover, the policies and attitudes towards Native people have dramatically shifted over the years to the point that in 2012 the city councils of both Minneapolis and St. Paul condemned the treatment of the Dakota following the 1862 war as genocide.

These public declarations fall well short of a legal threshold, though. When the time came in 1948 to establish the crime of genocide as codified law much of the basis for defining genocide that Lemkin established in Axis Rule was diluted. Instead of a legal framework that recognized crimes like political, social, or cultural genocide, the newly established United Nations limited the scope of genocide almost entirely to physical genocide, the targeted killing and elimination of a group. 

The Soviet Union is usually charged with watering down the language found in the UN Genocide Convention, but in his book Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes scholar, William Schabas, points out that many of the Soviet’s concerns were equally shared by the American delegation. There was a desire to avoid future prosecution of acts committed by the American government that would clearly meet the threshold under Lemkin’s expanded definition of genocide, especially as it related to policies towards Native and Black groups in the United States. 

As the United Nations was coming into its own in 1945, the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was mobilizing itself and its constituents to bring forth injustices against the Black community. Policies like poll taxes, literacy exams (to that end, Jim Crow laws as a whole that disenfranchised Black America while establishing and preserving segregation), along with systemic violence and economic policies meant to dehumanize Black Americans were laid out in a petition to the UN that made the case for genocide. The movement was called We Charge Genocide.

The movement culminated in a petition delivered to the UN General Assembly in 1951. It reads as though it could have come from today’s headlines :

On Killing Members of a Group:

Our evidence concerns the thousands of Negroes who over the years have been beaten to death on chain gangs and in the back rooms of sheriff’s offices, in the cells of county jails, in precinct police stations  and on city streets, who have been framed and murdered by sham legal forms and by a legal bureaucracy.

In regards to Economic Genocide:

We shall prove that the object of this genocide, as of all genocide, is the perpetuation of economic and political power by the few through the destruction of political protest by the many.  Its method is to demoralize and divide an entire nation; its end is to increase the profits and unchallenged control by a reactionary clique.

Particularly harrowing is a passage discussing the evidence the CRC intended to bring forward, which feels especially pertinent to today’s climate:

Once the classic method of lynching was the rope. Now it is the policeman’s bullet.  To many an American the police are the government, certainly its most visible representative.  We submit that the evidence suggests that the killing of Negroes has become police policy in the United States and that police policy is the most practical expression of government policy.

The petition goes on to call on the UN to examine the case — to complete the investigation of genocide, but it never came. Almost immediately, We Charge Genocide was disregarded by the American delegation. Eleanor Roosevelt, former First Lady of the United States and the first US delegate to the UN Commission on Human Rights wrote of the petition “It will do great harm at home because the answers to untruths and half-truths are always less dramatic than the assertions,” identifying the authors as communist instigators rather than the victims of systemic violence and racism. 

Ultimately, and not surprisingly, the petition went nowhere. The United States, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council with its veto power, clearly had enough influence to ensure the petition would never receive an acknowledgement from the UN.

We Charge Genocide has served as a catalyst for further recognition of Black genocide. The banner has now been taken up by other groups who have used the spirit of the 1951 petition to call attention to contemporary issues impacting Black communities: policies of forced sterilization throughout the 20th century, challenges to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the disproportionate rates of incarceration amongst people of color.

We Charge Genocide has re-emerged through the work of a non-profit group in Chicago. Advocating for marginalized communities impacted by policy violence, We Charge Genocide connects the current calls for law enforcement accountability in America’s third-largest city, naming the very injustices laid out in 1951.

The question of genocide has largely been ignored in the nearly seven decades since We Charge Genocide began. The movement itself received little coverage in the media, and it has been largely forgotten. This raises challenging questions: Why are Americans open to acknowledging one genocide but ignore another? As our understanding and willingness to comprehend episodes of our painful past continue to expand, will there come a point in which the conditions listed in the We Charge Genocide’s petition are accepted for what they are — genocide?

Recent polls have indicated eroding support for Black Lives Matters and similar campaigns calling for racial justice protests, so the potential for Americans reckoning with another aspect from our genocidal past seems unlikely, for now. 

Joe Eggers is the research and outreach coordinator for the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota.

In an interview with Channel 4 news, Angela Davis, leading civil rights and political activist since the 1960s, underscored: “This moment holds possibilities for change we have never before experienced.” There has been a lot of debate about what makes this moment different and if George Floyd’s death will be the one that changes the world as we know it. While no one can be sure what the future holds, we can point to ways in which this moment is indeed unique.

In the two weeks following the death of George Floyd, support for Black Lives Matter in the US increased by nearly as much as it had over the previous two years (Cohn and Quealy 2020). According to Pew Research Center, as of June 2020, the majority of Americans (67%) support the Black Lives Matter movement. And more Americans than ever are vocally showing their support on social media, through mutual aid and community care, and especially on the ground at protests.

We have seen bikers block off roads to stop traffic for marches, medics protecting and serving their community, protestors helping each other to safety amidst police firing bullets and teargas into crowds. In Minneapolis, we have seen “community” at its best –as more than just a feeling, but an action. We have seen people standing, sitting, kneeling, and marching in unity, demanding justice because without justice, we will never have peace.

In Minneapolis, currently ground zero for the movement, people continue to show up in extraordinary numbers. People across the nation have been using their unique talents and skills to show up in countless ways for BLM. People of all races, religions, gender identities, and ages have united on their streets to stand together as one to demand justice for the Black community. The sheer magnitude combined with the diversity of the current movement makes this moment unique.

Beyond Minneapolis, in Hawaii for example, local surfers have held paddle out ceremonies for BLM. In Aurora, Colorado, locals have been holding violin vigils for Elijah McClain, and in Philadelphia, skaters have organized skateboard marches for BLM.

Black Lives Matter may be the largest movement in U.S. history. Across the globe, people are standing in solidarity with BLM in the U.S. and demanding that their own nations also confront racism and white supremacy. The rebellion was televised but the revolution will not be. The very things that will change people, will not be caught on film but caught on the ground, in our communities.

We must continue to demand justice for people, regardless of where one comes from. This is only the beginning, so if you are skating, skate for the justice for Black lives. If you are shooting hoops, shoot hoops for the justice for Black lives. If you are dancing, dance for the justice for Black lives.

Come as you are. Come in your own way. Come out for Layleen Polanco and Tony McDade. Come out for Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. Come out for Philando Castille and George Floyd. Wherever you are and whatever you do, just make sure you keep coming.

We are Sociology graduate students based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and live about two miles from 38th and Chicago where George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis Police. 

Below, we showcase some of the ways in which the Minneapolis community has shown up for Black Lives Matter:

June/July 2020 What can you say…it’s Family: From infants to elders, toddlers to teens, protests in Minneapolis have been filled with families marching together. The youngest generations are already participating in the fight for racial justice. Their elders are showing these young justice warriors the way and they are wasting no time. This is their future.

July 2020 Roll for Justice: On July 4th, rather than taking part in traditional 4th of July festivities, locals rolled through the streets of Minneapolis from City Hall to Bde Maka Ska in a unique protest organized by MIRAC dedicated to Black Lives Matter. For roughly five miles, community members and friends grabbed the nearest wheels they could find and rolled for change.

July 2020 Traditions and Solidarity: Kalpulli Yaocenoxtli, a traditional Mexica-Nahua (Aztec) cultural group, has spent much of the summer marching alongside thousands of protesters offering danzas and songs. During the National Mother’s March in St. Paul, families who have lost loved ones to police violence across the nation came together. Kalpulli Yaocenoxtli expressed solidarity, tradition, safe space, and unifying demands for justice.

May 2020 Leave the Porch Light On: In On the Front Porch, Black Life in Full View, Audra D. S. Burch said it best: “a stage straddling the home and the street, a structural backdrop of meaningful life moments.” In Minneapolis, community elders frequently stand in solidarity cheering protesters on from their balconies, front doors, and backyards. In fact, during the height of the protests, community members called on their neighbors to leave their porch lights on to help protesters feel safe getting home throughout the night. Whether it was a lone voice showing support from their balcony, families with young children waving, playing music, and providing water to protestors, or simply leaving the porch light on to show that someone was home and that they cared, community members expressed solidarity in their own way.

July 2020 Community Taking Care of Community: The Minnesota Freedom Fighters, an independent “elite security unit dedicated to protecting the citizens and businesses of the Twin Cities urban areas” has spent much of the summer working to ensure the safety of all protestors and their communities. Their objective “is not to be the police, but the bridge to link the police and the community together.”

May 2020: A Toast to the Graduates: Here’s to those in the Class of 2020 who spent their graduation days on the streets fighting for a better future. Congratulations, keep on fighting!

June 2020: Scenes from Floyd Town: On weekends, 38th and Chicago, now locally known as Floyd Town: The Free State of George Floyd, is regularly filled with community gatherings, artists, live performances, barbeques, donation drives, and pick-up basketball games. Floyd Town has become a sacred place for the Black community in Minneapolis. It has become a place of tragedy and resilience, a place of mourning and celebration, a place of reflection and organizing. May Floyd Town continue to bring power, joy, peace, resilience, and fight for those who continue to come as they are.

Anna DalCortivo is a PhD student in the Sociology Department at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her scholarly interests include crime, law, and punishment, social movements, and race. She is currently working on projects involving juvenile decarceration, the prison abolition movement, and All Square (a Minneapolis nonprofit social enterprise that invests in people with criminal records).

Mi’Chael N. Wright is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her primary research focuses on sociology of media, sociology of mental health, collective memory and trauma, and identity. She is specifically interested in how digital communities, which can be simultaneously encouraging and hostile, constitute the identity development of Black and Brown adolescent girls.

All Photos Taken by Anna DalCortivo

The recent protests in response to the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd in our own Minneapolis, coupled with the spread of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests across the globe, have sparked a much-needed conversation within the field of Genocide Studies. The BLM movement calls for the end of anti-Black racism in the United States (and around the globe), and the movement has shined a light on an American legacy of systemic racism — or racism that is ingrained within our social, cultural, and political institutions.

As genocide scholars we know systemic racism. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s Declaration of the Prevention of Genocide has emphasized genocide’s connection with systemic racism, calling for the prevention of “persistent patterns of racial discrimination and other systemic violations of human rights that could lead to violent conflict and genocide.” We know that one of the critical early warning signs of genocide is a legacy of discrimination and persecution.

As genocide scholars, we have explored the origins and consequences of violence. We have looked at the historical, or rather modern, roots of racism (Weitz 2003), and how ordinary citizens and law enforcement officers are mobilized into extreme forms of violence (Browning 1992). We have learned how governments and individuals legitimize violence, often using fear to justify their actions (Straus 2006). We have learned about the banality of evil (Arendt 1964) and how seemingly neutral organizations can participate in mass violence (Kühl 2016). We have learned that just because a violent act is legal, doesn’t mean it is moral.

Classic social theorist, Max Weber (1946), defined the state by its monopolization on the legitimate use of violence. He argued that the state can protect its citizens from violence and commit violence against them or the citizens of other states. Yet in the era following WWII, the right of the state to perpetuate violence against its own people (particularly unarmed civilians) was questioned by the international community. As genocide scholars have discussed, Hitler’s murderous campaign against the Jews was not illegal, and while norms were certainly changing during this time, genocide was not an established crime (Savelsberg 2010). 

It is only more recently, with the development and globalization of human rights and humanitarian law, that state sovereignty has begun to diminish. As a result, episodes of mass violence committed by states against their own populations are increasingly becoming understood and tried as crimes. We have seen this with the creation of the International Criminal Tribunals for both Rwanda (1994-2015) and the Former Yugoslavia (1993-2017). More recently, we have seen this with the International Criminal Court’s involvement with Darfur (2005)  and the International Court of Justice with Myanmar (2019). 

Yet, due to the extreme nature of genocide, scholars are often hesitant to explore and comment on other forms of violence that do not amount to genocide. But in doing so, we risk turning a blind eye to the various forms of ongoing violence being committed in countries such as the US. As those who understand violence to its most heart-wrenching detail, it is our responsibility to share our knowledge and speak out against the injustices happening in our own communities.

While it is never easy to study genocide, it is much easier to study violence when you are removed from it. As a result, scholars like myself often study episodes of mass violence that are either historically or geographically removed from our own lives. However, the knowledge from this field can and must be used to explore and critically analyze American history and White violence against Black Americans. CHGS will contribute to this conversation through a series of articles that discuss contemporary and historical forms of violence in the US in our series entitled: Anti-Black Violence in the US.

In this series we at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies will explore the connection between social movements and genocide, share photo essays from Black Lives Matter Protests around the country, and interrogate the violence being perpetrated against Black Americans. It is with this series that our blog will turn inwards, exploring our own backyard and the violence being committed here. It is our hope that this series will begin to explore both what our field can learn from the Black Lives Matter movement and the horrific death of Minneapolis resident, George Floyd and what we may contribute.

Jillian LaBranche is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology and a Research Assistant at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests broadly include violence, knowledge, collective memory, and comparative methods. Her research seeks to understand how societies that recently experienced large-scale political violence teach about this violence to the next generation.

Meyer Weinshel is a PhD candidate from the Department of German, Nordic, Slavic & Dutch. He received his BA from Macalester College and MA from the University of Minnesota. His research and teaching interests include German Jewish literature and culture, modern Yiddish literature and culture, and translation studies. He is completing his dissertation, “Dos eygne Daytshland: Anthologizing Jewish Multilingualism in and beyond the Habsburg Empire.” The project traces the ways German-language poetry in Yiddish translation shaped modern Jewish cultural developments in/beyond Central Europe. He studied Yiddish at YIVO’s Uriel Weinreich Summer Program (2015, 2017) and at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute (2016). In 2018-19, He has also completed research in Jerusalem at the National Library of Israel and began study modern Hebrew. 

Besides teaching German studies coursework at the university, he also teaches Yiddish classes in the Twin Cities. He designed beginner Yiddish curricula for Jewish Community Action, a Minneapolis non-profit organization focused on racial and economic justice issues across Minnesota. Each 10-session course introduced students (who ranged in age from high school to retirement age) to Yiddish language and culture in an accessible format. Creating these educational resources also coincided with his work piloting In eynem, the forthcoming Yiddish textbook published by the Yiddish Book Center (Amherst, MA), and one of the few Yiddish language textbooks to be published in North America since the Second World War. He worked as the TA for elementary Yiddish at the Yiddish Book Center’s Steiner Yiddish Summer Program in 2020. 

As a prior volunteer with the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, he has met with high school theater students at the Sabes Jewish Community Center, and spoke about the linguistic and cultural diversity of Jewish life before the Second World War. He also conducted interviews with guest speakers at the Center that later appeared on the Center website. He led a discussion at the 2019 Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival following the screening of “Black Honey,” a documentary about Yiddish poet and Vilna Ghetto survivor, Avrom Sutzkever. He has also appeared with Yiddish and Ojibwe language speakers about the role of language revival efforts (and the challenges these efforts face) following genocide and displacement. 

In his work as an educator (whether teaching German, Yiddish, or TA-ing for the Center’s affiliated faculty), Meyer foregrounds the diversity of pre-war Jewish life when teaching students about the genocide of European Jewry and its aftermath within broader trends. When George Floyd was murdered, and protests erupted around the world, he was working remotely with the Yiddish Book Center due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Distance learning due to the pandemic, and while living in the city at the center of a global protest movement, he wanted to convey to beginner students of Yiddish Yiddish writers’ own (and very complicated) attitudes toward the racialized hierarchies they encountered upon immigration to the United States in the first half of the 20th century. Some Yiddish-speaking immigrants tried and failed to effectively grapple with anti-Black racism. Others (including many who remained in Europe and were later killed by Hitler or Stalin) organized around their political affiliations and protested with Black writers and activists in the United States. Teaching about moments like these further cemented his obligations—toward students and society at large—to place the study of, and resistance against, mass violence within a global context.

“Students don’t live in dormitories and the university exerts no control over a student’s private life.”
Hermann Weyl (German mathematician and philosopher, 1885-1955)

Hermann Weyl left Germany in 1933 to join his friend and colleague Albert Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. During his time at Princeton he not only taught theoretical physics; he also lectured on European history and civilization. Here is what else he had to say about student life in Germany before the Nazis took over:

Once matriculated in the university, students choose their own teachers as well as the lectures, exercises, and seminars which they want to attend. If they don’t feel disposed to attend on a particular day they can stay away, nobody bothers. They may take advice from their professors or neglect it at their own peril.

This used to be the Continental European approach to higher education and, despite many reforms, its basic tenets are still alive. Students are viewed as (more or less) autonomous adults and universities focus on research and teaching. Life outside the classroom is not in some vice provost’s portfolio or regulated by preachy codes of conduct telling you to lead a good life and report anyone who doesn’t. Bias response teams that monitor “offensive and discomforting language” on American campuses, often based on anonymous alerts, would ring all sorts of alarm bells in Germany and bring back dark memories of privacy wrecking regimes, both fascist and communist. In 1949 the framers of West Germany’s Basic Law, many of them exiled or imprisoned under the Nazis, had fresh memories of Gestapo officers knocking at their doors after being tipped off by some evil-minded neighbor or party loyalist. In the Stalinist German Democratic Republic, the Staatssicherheit or Stasi (which, oddly, translates into homeland security) took over from the Gestapo after WWII and recruited half of East Germany’s population to spy on the other half. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that after two golden ages for snitchers, protection of privacy — not freedom of religion or the right to bear arms — ranks at the top of Germany’s Bill of Rights.

That’s why I am often baffled at how deep American universities dive into students’ private lives. It’s not just the bias response teams, it’s also the group exercises developed and overseen by college administrators. Take, for example, the so-called privilege walk, often facilitated by a well-meaning facilitator from the diversity office. It physically separates a room full of students, usually at the beginning of their program, into haves and have-nots by asking them questions about their upbringing and socioeconomic background and making them step forward or backward depending on whether their answer labels them as privileged or marginalized. “Powerful” experience? Yes, and divisive too. You would think that at a research university, students can grasp the effect of money and family background on people’s lives through analysis and abstract thinking. Do they, in order to get it, really need to see their fellow students being moved across the room like chess pieces disclosing highly personal information? Good thing you can’t do the privilege walk on Zoom — if we are lucky COVID-19 will put a lasting end to this nonsense.

Recently, I received an email from the university administration proudly informing me about the new “affinity groups” that they had created for students, staff and faculty. Affinity groups? Why did the university feel compelled to organize my private time? Had we changed from college to “Kollektiv”? Before the Berlin Wall came down, East Germans were organized in “Kollektivs”— groups of people at the same workplace who after work had to attend cultural events together and then submit enthusiastic reports about their growing socialist comradery to the local “Parteisekretär” (party secretary). My first tenured appointment in the ’90s was at the University of Halle-Wittenberg in freshly re-unified (East) Germany and people were still reeling from the totalitarian harmony that the communist government had imposed on them.

The affinity groups, however, that our administration (and, as a quick Google search revealed, many other universities in the US) had come up with had nothing to do with theater visits or book clubs, not even Marxist-Leninist discussion groups. They were strictly based on, and segregated by, skin color, ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status. Never mind that this siloed approach to diversity and inclusion has long been tried, found to not work and abandoned by corporate organizations. What troubles me more is that it undermines the concept of the university as a classless community of discoverers where ideas count and not who you are or think you are. Knowledge is universal and doesn’t care about the skin color, genetic makeup or identity of the person who generated it. Germans back in the day thought it did and ended up distinguishing between Aryan and Jewish science. For the record, I find nothing wrong with groups of people wanting to hang out among themselves. But it is my firm belief that if university leaders feel the urge to meddle with academics’ private lives, the only affinity group they should openly and actively push for is the one for homo sapiens. And they should make clear that Neanderthals and all other hominids are welcome too!

Henning Schroeder is a former vice provost and dean of graduate education at the University of Minnesota. His email address is schro601@umn.edu and his Twitter handle is @HenningSchroed1.

In August 1862, Minnesota erupted in unprecedented violence. The Dakota, a people that had been confined to two strips of land along the Minnesota River Valley through a series of treaties, began attacking white settlements in the region. Within days, New Ulm had been almost completely burned down and an American Army outpost had been besieged. Just as quickly as the fighting began, it was over; Lincoln, in the midst of leading the Union through the American Civil War, sent Federal troops into Minnesota to put down the uprising. Retaliation was swift and brutal: women, children, and elderly Dakota were sent to an internment camp below Fort Snelling while almost 400  men were tried by a hasty military tribunal for crimes committed during the war. Ultimately 38 were hanged before the end of 1862 in Mankato. All Dakota would be removed from the state in 1863. 

For much of the last century and a half since the 6-week U.S.-Dakota War that has largely been the narrative put forth in the newspapers that covered the event and its aftermath. This myopic approach to covering the U.S.-Dakota War almost entirely ignored the manipulative treaties, the withheld annuity payments, and other causes that led to the fighting. Subsequent articles from anniversaries ignored the legacies of the war; choosing to focus largely on the plight of settlers at the expense of highlighting the continued disenfranchisement of the Dakota people. 

For the last several years, the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies has been engaged in a research project, analyzing newspaper accounts of the U.S.-Dakota War and later anniversaries in an effort to better understand how the state’s memory of and attitudes toward the war have shifted over the last 150 years. Last year, the Center released a curriculum geared towards Minnesota sixth grade students that incorporates this research. 

Now as Minnesota approaches the 158th anniversary of the war that changed the trajectory of the state and sealed the fate of its original inhabitants, the Center will be sharing the headlines from the war, providing critical insight into what’s been long considered Minnesota’s forgotten war. The newspapers come from Mankato, near the epicenter of the fighting along the Minnesota River, and St. Paul, the seat of the state government where decisions impacting the course of the war and its aftermath were made. Some of these headlines will be painful, like the calls for the complete annihilation of the Dakota. Some will be surprising, like drawing attention to broken treaty agreements as early as in 1912. Along the way, we’ll showcase that the U.S.-Dakota War has never been black and white. 

Follow the project on Twitter, @USDakotaWarinP1

For questions about the project, contact Joe Eggers, CHGS Outreach Coordinator at egger207@umn.edu. 

As a PhD candidate in the Sociology department, I have spent several years studying post-genocide reconstruction. I am constantly working to better understand how countries with legacies of large-scale political violence reconcile and rebuild. But when I am not in the library or my office grappling with these concepts, I am on the mats of Minnesota Top Team (MTT) grappling with my teammates. For the last two years, I have spent my free time learning the martial art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ). 

BJJ is widely considered the “gentle art.” It is a grappling-based martial art whose entire ethos is centered on using concepts such as leverage and timing to submit stronger and more aggressive opponents. As a woman, BJJ is not only a competitive sport, but it is also teaching me proper self-defense techniques that can be carried out in a way that avoids physical harm. As a new member of the BJJ community, I have been impressed by the diversity of its members: from gender to ethnicity to profession, but despite a multitude of differences, I have been surprised by how welcoming and tight-knit this community of individuals is.

During my time at MTT, I have had the privilege to train with many black belts, including 3rd degree Black Belt and owner of M-Theory Martial Arts, Ishmael Bentley. Both Ishmael and his wife, Sue Bentley, are active board members of the International Jiu-Jitsu Education Foundation (IJEF). IJEF is a non-profit that started in Brazil with the intention of providing children in impoverished communities with a BJJ education. The program provides stipends for instructors, mats, and gis (the traditional uniform). It promotes not only the new knowledge of the sport but it supports community-driven change as well.

As Vice President and the Executive Director of IJEF, Ishmael and Sue respectively, have helped bring IJEF’s mission to six additional countries. The first country they were directly involved with was Cambodia. Sue, a native and survivor of the Cambodian genocide, remarked how IJEF’s presence in Cambodia is particularly special. In fact, IJEF’s presence in Cambodia has helped facilitate a government-sponsored initiative, recognizing BJJ as a national sport for the country. As a result, Cambodia recently competed at the Southeast Asia Games with Singapore, which has elevated the sport’s legitimacy in Cambodia.

What’s the connection between BJJ and genocide studies? As a budding sociologist who studies post-genocide reconstruction, I could not help but notice that each of the locations in which IJEF operates has a history of extreme political violence, if not genocide: Brazil, Cambodia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, India, and the Philippines. Beyond the geographic locations of IJEF, the more I have trained BJJ, I have begun to consider the possible connections between post-conflict societies, violence, and the martial art. 

It’s not just IJEF. With the help of the We Defy Foundation, American veterans have been introduced to the gentle art of BJJ, and as a result, there have been recent studies exploring the relationship between BJJ and PTSD and other trauma disorders. In fact, a recent study found that BJJ is good for veterans coping with trauma. And while these studies are in their infancy and psychological in nature, they suggest that BJJ helps with the mood regulation and decreased aggression. 

As a testimony from We Defy states:

“There’s many challenges to overcome once you leave the theatre of combat. From our formative years in the Marine Corps, we are taught “violence of action”; Kill or be killed. In combat, this is a necessity. Here back home, it’s not applicable to most professions or lifestyles. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is the perfect outlet for the displaced warrior. It teaches discipline, endurance, and humility….”

While IJEF doesn’t work specifically with survivors of genocide or other forms of violence, the Bentleys know that they are often working with the children of survivors. When asked why BJJ is important for children in these impoverished (and post-violent areas), the Bentleys mentioned several reasons: First, it gives children access to a growing and popular sport, which is a luxury in many of these countries. It also promotes character building (patience, humility, etc.), and in addition to character building, it also gives children who may be dealing with trauma an outlet and safe space. More broadly speaking, in Cambodia, there has been a recent women’s rights movement, and this has resulted in an acceptance of BJJ as a form of self-defense and empowerment for young girls and women alike. Lastly, and perhaps most poignant, BJJ creates a sense of community; it has the ability to break down barriers across all different types of people. Which I imagine in a post-conflict society has the ability to promote hope, resilience, and healing.

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As one BJJ practitioner writes:

“ It teaches you to be humble and kind to other people and be more aware of how your actions are affecting someone else. It gets you to interact with way more groups of people that you’d otherwise see. It also helps you form deeper bonds with people than any other activity I’ve ever done.”

Reflecting on my own experiences with BJJ, my research on post-genocide reconstruction, and my interview with the Bentleys, I am struck by the possibility for potential areas of social science research:

• What is the impact of BJJ socially? Beyond the psychological studies exploring BJJ’s relationship with mental health, can BJJ create social change? Can it build a sense of community in countries with legacies of identity-based violence?
• Scholars have shown that war can be a force of rapid social change that has the ability to reconfigure gendered power relations in the wake of cultural, demographic, and economic shifts precipitated by mass atrocity (Berry 2018). And as the Bentleys mentioned, the women’s rights movement in Cambodia has allowed for a space in which women can participate in BJJ. Scholars have demonstrated that gender-based violence often increases after episodes of mass violence. Thus research that explores the relationship between gender and BJJ in post-violent societies could add to the existing literature on gendered power relations.
• When people discuss post-violent/post-conflict countries, this often creates a binary between violence and peace, creating an assumption that post-conflict societies are passive. How could scholars use BJJ to explore the complexities of the relationship between violence and peace?
• There appears to be an ongoing conversation about the value of BJJ, particularly in the wake of violence. To those unfamiliar to BJJ, this may seem counterproductive; but those who train BJJ, often argue it is not a violent practice. Rather, it is an activity that allows individuals to “perform violence” without an intent to harm in a safe and respectful environment. At a more empirical and tangible level, it may prove fruitful for researchers to explore whether sports like BJJ could be an integral part of national reconstruction efforts.

If you'd like to contribute to the efforts of IJEF, they are 
currently accepting donations.

** The views expressed in this blog post are my own and are not 
representative of CHGS, IJEF, M-Theory, or Minnesota Top Team**

Jillian LaBranche is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology and a Research Assistant at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests broadly include violence, knowledge, collective memory, and comparative methods. Her research seeks to understand how societies that recently experienced large-scale political violence teach about this violence to the next generation.