The Great Fire: One American’s Mission to Rescue Victims of the 20th Century’s First Genocide

By Lou Ureneck

The harrowing story of a Methodist Minister and a principled American naval officer who helped rescue more than 250,000 refugees during the genocide of Armenian and Greek Christians-a tale of bravery, morality, and politics, published to coincide with the genocide’s centennial.

Professor Ureneck (Journalism, Boston University) conducted much of his research in writing the book in the U of M Library’s extensive Kautz Family YMCA Archives, highlighting the University’s unique ability to place historic events in context, and provide primary sources for study and scholarship. 

Recently I laid over at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, at which the Delta Airlines security agent checked my U.S. passport prior to boarding the plane to Minneapolis. Upon seeing my name and place of birth (Bosnia and Herzegovina), he asked in Serbian if I spoke “our language.” I responded with a “yes, of course,” and he completed the rest of the security procedure in ‘our language,’ revealing that he is a Serb who escaped to the Netherlands in 1991 because he did not want to have to fight the Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) or the Croats, as they are all “my people, our people.” more...

Representing Mass Violence: Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in Darfur

By Joachim Salvesberg

 How do interventions by the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court influence representations of mass violence? What images arise instead from the humanitarianism and diplomacy fields? How are these competing perspectives communicated to the public via mass media? Zooming in on the case of Darfur, Joachim J. Savelsberg analyzes more than three thousand news reports and opinion pieces and interviews leading newspaper correspondents, NGO experts, and foreign ministry officials from eight countries to show the dramatic differences in the framing of mass violence around the world and across social fields.

The book is hot off the presses and is also available in its entirety online.

Professor Joachim Savelsberg is a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, the Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair, and affiliate faculty to the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Wahutu Siguru sat down with Dr. Joachim Salvesberg from the University’s Sociology Department to discuss his new book, Representing Mass Violence: Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in Darfur for the September edition of “Eye on Africa.” 

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On the 2nd of April my home country, Kenya, suffered its bloodiest terrorist attack in recent history. The attack by Al-Shabaab was at a university in the town of Garissa, close to the Kenya-Somali border. While it would be tempting to rant and rave about the causes of the attack, the lapse in Kenya’s security forces, or even the almost non-existence of an official government response — not only to the attack but the victims’ and their families’ plight and suffering — I will not. Instead this month’s article is on the 147 students that died, the almost equal number of students considered missing, and the hundreds more that survived and will always have these scars.

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Six decades after he first coined the term genocide, Raphael Lemkin’s life has made it to the silver screen. In Watchers of the Sky director Edet Belzberg takes viewers through the efforts of Lemkin to get the crime of genocide recognized by the international community and the United Nations.

Throughout the movie, activists, scholars and experts share their reflections on the legacy of Lemkin’s tireless dedication to pursuing justice for victims of atrocities around the world. Among those interviewed is Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the UN and author of A Problem from Hell, which served as an inspiration for the documentary. more...

My name is Joshkin Sezer. I am a history major who is starting his third year at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. In the Spring Semester of 2015, I enrolled in History of the Holocaust, instructed by Adam Blackler. Near the end of the semester, we got the chance to hear a talk from a Holocaust survivor, Irene Berman. She had just published a book detailing her experience as a child in Norway during the Holocaust and how her family managed to survive.

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In July, I had the privilege of presenting at the International Association of Genocide Scholars‘ twelfth meeting in Yerevan, Armenia. The conference’s theme of comparative analysis of twentieth century genocides brought experts from around the world to Armenia’s capital city for five days of presentations, learning, and networking. More than 180 attendees, representing more than two dozen countries, shared their research and insight into many of the twentieth century’s most infamous atrocities. more...

A Good Place to Hide: How One French Village Saved Thousands of Lives During World War II

By Peter Grose

A Good Place to Hide is the story of an isolated community in south-central France, Le Chambon, that conspired to save the lives of 3,500 Jews under the noses of the Germans and the soldiers of Vichy France. It is the story of a pacifist Protestant pastor who broke laws and defied orders to protect the lives of total strangers. Powerful and richly told, the book speaks to the courage of ordinary people who offered sanctuary, kindness, solidarity and hospitality to people in desperate need, knowing full well the consequences to themselves.

On April 23-25 the Center for Holocaust and Genocide studies, along with the Human Rights Program, Institute for Global Studies and the Ohanessian Chair, marked the centennial of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 with a series of events. This included a keynote by Middle East scholar Bedross Der Matossian, an international student conference titled “One Hundred Years of Genocide: Remembrance, Education, Prevention”, a teacher workshop on World War I and the Armenian Genocide, as well as a guided tour of Bdote, a sacred Dakota site at Ft. Snelling State Park led by Professor Iyekiyapiwin Darlene St. Clair.

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