Encountering Genocide: Personal Accounts from Victims, Perpetrators, and Witnesses

Cutting-edge in its scope and approach, this unique volume offers first-person accounts of modern genocides to enable readers to more fully examine genocidal experiences and better understand the horror of such events.

From the atrocities of the Holocaust to the ongoing horrors in Darfur, genocide has been a gruesome and all-too-prominent fixture of modern history. There is no better way to examine and understand these events than through the accounts of those involved. This unique collection of primary sources features 50 documents, some of which have never before been made public. These firsthand accounts—diary entries, memoirs, oral testimony, original interviews, and more—illuminate 10 genocides of the 20th and 21st centuries as they were experienced by victims, perpetrators, and bystanders.

The book begins with the Herero Genocide (1904–1907) and ends with a consideration of the atrocities in Darfur. Each of the 50 documents features a brief introduction that provides basic and essential information such as who created it as well as when, where, and why. The work concludes with an analysis comprised of scholarly commentary, additional contextual information, and a list of questions that will serve as a springboard for student discussion of history and of the nature of survival in the face of evil.

• Examines 10 modern genocides that occurred between 1904 and 2004
• Conveys the story of each genocide through primary source documents that detail historical and contemporary contexts
• Addresses not only the reality of modern genocides but also the consequences and impact on individuals
• Challenges the readers to look more carefully into the historic details of the genocide under discussion, fostering critical thinking and research
• Enables students and other readers to empathize more directly with the reality of massive human rights violations