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The use of Holocaust literature within education starts with Anne Frank and ends with Elie Wiesel's Night; however, the need for a more comprehensive understanding of the Holocaust starts with utilizing the literature to discuss the horrific events. The theories of trauma and affect are relatively new to Holocaust literature studies, which brings a lack of sources to the overall subject. Although there is a lack of sources, understanding trauma, denial, and affect relies on analyzing the written language. This thesis's significance is to detail the importance of Holocaust literature within education and to comprehend the effects denial has on significant genocidal events portrayed in literature. My thesis, Vergissmeinnicht, will provide critical comparative analysis of reading of the novels, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (1946) by Tadeusz Borowski and Lilac Girls (2016) by Martha Hall Kelly with memoirs, Surviving the Angel of Death (2009) by Eva Kor and Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account (1960) by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli. This paper aims to explore the use of denial, trauma, and affect within each genre. The literature analyzed will focus on medical experimentation discourse and the silenced voices of their victims. Through Holocaust literature, both fiction and non-fiction, comprehending the concepts of denial, trauma, and affect will allow for a deeper connection to the Holocaust and maintain that education will never allow it to repeat.

The Rwandan Genocide occurred between April and July of 1994. Within those four months, approximately a million Tutsi were brutally murdered by the Hutu in an effort to cleanse the country of a Tutsi presence. The genocide was the culmination of decades of unrest between the two groups created from Western influence under colonialism and post-colonial relationships. The international response to the genocide was scarce. While international intervention waned, the international media kept the genocide relevant in its publications. This thesis examines print media sources from the United States, Britain, and France. This thesis argues that the reporting of the genocide exacerbated larger issues concerning the relationship between the West and Africa. The journalists perpetuated Western superiority over Africa by utilizing racism to preserve colonial ideologies and stereotypes of Africans. In turn, this inherent Western racism complicated the implementation of human rights legislation that would have helped save Tutsi lives. This thesis places the Rwandan genocide, through the reports of Western media, into the larger historiographic context of the Western African dichotomy.

Three main challenges often confront societies that have experienced mass atrocities and genocide: understanding genocide, narrating and representing genocide, and reconciling after genocide. While these challenges seem different, they are intertwined and often inseparable. This thesis takes on these questions in various degrees by focusing on the subjects of memory, representations of violence and the Anthropocene. By reading two novels and one graphic novel, I argue that a multi-representational and multi-perspectival analysis of the Rwandan genocide gives a perspective through one can think through the questions of narrative silence and erasures, gender and sexual violence, animality and the boundaries between victims and killers. Altogether, the texts represent a genocide testimony that aligns and at the same counters the official narrative of the Rwandan genocide circulated by the Rwandan government.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att utröna huruvida Förenta Nationerna (FN) och säkerhetsrådet utifrån idag rådande förhållanden kan förhindra folkmord. Uppsatsens teoretiska ramverk baseras främst på Mary Kaldors teorier om ”nya krig” och på Helen Feins teori om hur ett folkmord kan förhindras. Det Kaldor baserar sin teori på är en förändring av krigsföringen, en förändring som till stora delar sammanfaller med globaliseringens utveckling de senaste 20 åren. Feins teori säger att det finns två vägar för att förhindra ett folkmord, den primära och sekundära preventionen, vilka båda redogörs för i uppsatsen. Dessutom finns ett teoretiskt kapitel som teoretiserar begreppet folkmord med utgångspunkt i FN:s Konvention om förebyggande och bestraffning av brottet folkmord från 1948. Uppsatsens teoretiska ramverk knyter an till syftet dels genom en redogörelse för hur FN-systemet fungerar och ser ut och dels genom två fallstudier av de båda folkmorden i Rwanda och Bosnien-Hercegovina. Båda folkmorden är bekräftade av det internationella samfundet och av de båda tribunaler som upprättats i efterhand, således är de lämpliga att studera. Uppsatsens slutsats är att det idag inte finns några formella hinder för att förhindra folkmord, dock behövs det förändringar i säkerhetsrådet för att så ska ske i verkligheten. / The purpose of this essay is to examine however the United Nation and the Security Council are able to prevent genocide in the world we have today. The theoretical framework of the essay is foremost based on Mary Kaldor’s theory about “new wars” and on Helen Feins’ theory on how to prevent genocide. Kaldor bases her theory on a change of warfare, a change which is related to the development of the globalization during the resent 20 years. The theory presented by Fein says that there are two ways to prevent genocide, the primary and the secondary prevention, both described in the essay. Furthermore the essay contains a theoretical chapter which discusses the conception genocide using the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide from 1948 as a starting point. The theoretical framework is linked to the purpose of the essay by a description of the structure of the UN-system and by case studies of the genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Though both these genocides are confirmed by the international society and by the tribunals established after crimes took place they are suitable to study. The conclusion of the essay is that there are no formal obstacles to prevent genocide today, though some changes must take place in the Security Council for so to happen in practice and not just in theory.

Thesis advisor: Elizabeth Shlala / Everyone looks at the transition out of the imperial age in the 1800s as a massive leap of progress for humanity. While the end of the Age of Imperialism definitely came with many advancements, the nationalist age that followed was not as harmonious or just as it sometimes portrayed. Especially in nations that did not have full control of their rapid transitions (ie. Germany and Turkey), this evolution into an 'Age of Nationalism' was anything but peaceful. But why is it that nationalism can be so easily radicalized into violence? Why was the Wars and interwar period for Germany and Turkey so rife with instability, violence, persecution, and bigotry? Examining the patterns of homogenization, insulation, and stratification necessary to the birth of a nation out of an empire, this thesis seeks to understand just why and how radicalized nationalism can (and has) led to genocide. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2024. / Submitted to: Boston College. Morrissey School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: International Studies. / Discipline: Departmental Honors.

In 1994 genocide occurred in the tiny, crowded country of Rwanda in the Great Lakes region of Africa. What was unique to that genocide was its efficiency and use of low technology weapons: somewhere around 800,000 to one million persons were killed, mainly by machetes and bullets, and often by neighbors, former friends, or relatives that they knew by name. The killers had been well-prepared for their roles via myth-building and reinforcement of old fears against the victims. There was little to no international intervention, although Rwanda had close political ties with France and a colonial history with Germany and Belgium. Although dozens of books and articles have been written seeking to understand, in both practical and theoretical ways, the motivations of the killers, this research looks to add to that body of knowledge by considering the ideas of a theorist outside traditional political theory — René Girard — and how they may shed some light on the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Girard's conception of mimetic rivalry and his theorization of scapegoating illuminate society-based characteristics of political competition between well-established factions of Rwandan society. These characteristics, if subjected to various manipulations of social positioning and control, can serve to precipitate brutal acts of believed conciliatory violence against a perceived causal group. Without examining the origin of violence in society, an understanding of the 1994 genocide is incomplete, and policies designed to prevent such genocides from recurring may not be effective. / Master of Arts

Yes / In 2014, twenty years after the Rwandan genocide, the first trial took place in France of a Rwandan génocidaire, Pascal Simbikangwa, despite the presence on French territory of a number of genocide suspects for many years, various extradition requests by Rwanda – declined by France – and numerous arrests and investigations. This article looks at issues of jurisdiction regarding the Simbikangwa case and the reasons the French courts heard his case, and examines some issues which may be of significance in the choice of arena for the bringing to justice of Rwandans genocide suspects living in France in future.

This study aimed to contest political and cultural stereotypes depicted through the verbal and audio-visual languages used to represent the Rwandan genocide in the films, A Good Man In Hell(2002), Hotel Rwanda(2004), Sometimes In April(2005) and Keepers of Memory(2004). A Good Man in Hell criticised the racism that influenced the international community not to help Rwandans stop the genocide. In Hotel Rwanda, mostly the Tutsis died during the genocide of 1994. Sometimes in April revealed that the Hutu middle class engineered the genocide. Keepers of Memory depicted the gendered nature of the language of genocide and showed that women were silenced at various levels. The films partially succeeded in depicting the Rwandan genocide because the films did not sufficiently foreground the socio-economic factors that created the conditions for genocide to happen. The study suggested that future research on film representations could compare and contrast cases of genocide in Africa. / English Studies / Thesis ( MA (African Languages))

In 1999, aged eighteen, I read 'The Brothers Karamazov' by Dostoevsky. I read this novel in Burundi, where I witnessed the suffering of others. The country's basic problem was civil war, which is best described in this terse note: "Rwanda, the sequel. Same story, different location. Nobody cares." The well-publicised problems in Rwanda in 1994 didn't end, they went next-door. The only thing separating the problems of those two countries was the most heavily landmined stretch of road on the planet. It was on this road, which was littered with the remains of vehicles and people, that I experienced the immediacy of 'the problem of evil'.I had hoped that the book I held in my hands on those lifetime-long hours on the road would resonate with my experience. Ivan Karamazov's accusation of the God who creates a world of atrocities seemed fuelled by an unflinching look at senseless, disteleological suffering. I had hoped that Ivan, with his face turned against God, could countenance the horror I saw. Karamazov's stance has been seen as the antithesis of theodicy, which is the attempt to reconcile faith in God with the existence of evil. This antithesis seems to overcome the distance between the experience of real suffering and the account of that suffering given by academic theodicy. Ultimately, however, that distance remains. Dostoevsky's protagonist in his railing against God connects no more with the victims in this world than a writer of theodicy does with her defence of God.