From Sarajevo: A Kurdistani and a Turk

Ragip Zarakolu, the wonderfully sweet and incredibly brave Turkish publisher, [who publishes books on the Armenian genocide] with Choman Hardi, the talented and passionate Kurdistani [who reminded me of something so important]

It happened here... If only it could happen elsewhere.

From Sarajevo: The gassing of the Kurds... a form of denial

Today I learned something very important. I learned that I had been complicit in a form of denial.

In my talk at the meeting of the International Association of Scholars of Genocide I spoke about the relationship between study of the Holocaust and other genocides. I mentioned some of the recent post-World War II genocides, among them Cambodia, Rwanda, Srebenica, and Darfur.

A very compelling woman, Choman Hardi, whom I had met the day before came to the microphone. I knew that she was from Kurdistan, had left at the time of the gassing of the Kurds by Sadaam, moved with her parents to Germany, and then to London. She has received her Ph.D. there from the University of Canterbury and has just completed a post-doc.

She asked why was it that every time we listed various other genocides we neglected to mention the gassing of the Kurds at Anfall where countless thousands were slaughtered.

This gassing, which was made possible in measure by western corporations which sold Sadaam the raw materials he needed, is one of the great atrocities of the post-WWII period.

Yet we hardly ever mention it.

Why? I don't know but I am thinking about it..... And I have resolved not to commit this omission or, shall we say, denial in the future.

From Sarajevo: On meeting an exceptionally brave man who puts his life on the line in the name of truth and memory

Ragip Zarakolu is a Turkish publisher whose company, Belge Publishing, has published books on the Armenian genocide. It was an honor to meet him and one prays for his welfare.

People with views such as his have not fared well in Turkey in recent years.

Among the books he translates and publishes are those by Peter Balakian of Colgate College, who is known for his work on the Armenian genocide. I strongly recommend his work to you.

From Sarajevo: On meeting a real hero who put his job on the line and lost or... won

One of the participants in this conference is a man named John Evans. A long time State Department employee who served in many important posts including American Ambassador to Armenia.

Apparently he was much beloved in this country and went everywhere without a guard or entourage.

Then, about six months after taking up his post, he went to a conference in Berkeley and spoke about the "genocide of the Armenians." Despite the fact that President Reagan has used the same term, Evans had contradicted current State Department policy.

He told the State Department what he did and lost his job as a result [not immediately but clearly as a result]. He is now writing a book about this.

I hope it sees the light of day in the near future.

History on Trial named "Blog of Note"

I forgot to post that this blog was named a "Blog of Note" late last month. It's a gratifying development.

From Sarajevo: Scenes from the synagogue and the Jewish cemetey

This is the only remaining functioning synagogue in Sarajevo. It's Ashkenazi but the prayers are according to the Sephardic tradition with some Ladino [Judeo-Spanish]. The design and architecture shows, as do so many synagogues world over, the influence of the architecture of those in whose midst Jews live.




The other synagogue was built in 1521. Today it is a newly refurbished museum. This picture is taken from relatively new upper level built in 1821.

The community actually had good relations with all groups. As one Bosniak [Bosnian Muslim] said to me: The Jews are more Sarajevian than most people from Sarajevo. They have been here longer.




The Jewish community is lead by a fascinating man, Jakob Finci. He is the first member of his family not to be born in Sarajevo in 350 years. [He was born in an Italian concentration camp after his family was deported from Sarajevo. He talked about the relations the Jewish community has had with Serbs, Muslims, and Croats. During the recent war the community was caught in between.

He has dreams of some sort of reconciliation effort along the lines of what happened in South Africa, though he recognizes that religious differences make it more complicated. He pointed out that Willy Brandt, who went to Warsaw and fell on his knees in an act of contrition, had spent most of the war in Norway, i.e. he did not have anything to personally apologize for.

So too, it is necessary to find those who have committed crimes and wrongs [on all sides] and for them to engage in reconciliation. I told him that I thought it was way too early to try this.... but who knows? Right now the history seems to real and too raw.


In the hills above Sarajevo is the Jewish cemetery. During the recent war it was used by snipers from both sides [Serbian and Bosniak (Muslim)] to shoot at the city below. The reason is obvious. From it you have a very clear shot right to the center of the city and to the area that became known as "Sniper's Alley. The yellow building you see is the Holiday Inn, built for the Olympics, but famous during the war because many journalists stayed there and it was virtually destroyed.



It was mined heavily and was only recently returned to the Jewish community after being 98.2% de-mined. Nothing, Jakob Finci was told, is 100%.

It contains some distinctive tombstones which are so old that their inscriptions are virtually unreadable.

From Sarajevo: One sign says it all

In front of the Gazi Husrev-Bergs mosque in the old city of Sarajevo there is a sign informing you what you cannot do inside. It's a commentary on the history of this city.

In case you cannot decipher the symbols I have printed a large shot below:


NO: loud talking, smoking, cellphoning, MACHINE GUNS, pets, bikes, short skirts [or as some observors said: sexy blond ladies], eating, or snuggling.

Machine guns....

From Srebrenica 2007: A mass funeral

Srebrenica July 11 2007: A mass funeral and a remembrance of things not so past.

[photos by Joshua Clark]


Some of the caskets waiting to be hoisted on the shoulders of family and then passed through the crowds on the way to their graves. Sometimes the caskets only contain a portion of the body because skeletal remains were reburied and, in the course of so doing, were destroyed. Over 400 of these were buried.


Moslem women standing near the memorial which lists the names of people who were the victims of this genocide.

From Srebrenica: A mass grave

This particular grave, according to what we were told by those in charge of the project, was a "secondary" grave, i.e. the bodies were reburied here in a place where the remains would be less easily discovered. Hence the bodies are not whole and often families receive remains over a number of years as they are identified.

[Pictures by Joshua D. Clark]

From Srebrenica: On attending a mass funeral and seeing a mass grave

We spent the day in Srebrenica, together with thousands of others, to mark the anniversary of the day on which Bosnian Serbs took control [actually the Dutch UN so-called peacekeeping forces gave it to them] of a large number of Bosniaks [Bosnian Muslims] and then preceded to take the men and boys and massacre them.

We began with a visit to a mass grave that is being excavated so that the bones can be DNA analyzed, returned to the family, and then properly buried. After that we went to the memorial site in Srebrenica and attended the funeral of over 450 people.

As you will see in the pictures, the coffins [covered in green cloth] are carried by family members [if there are any] and passed through the crowd. They were then buried by the family in plots which had been prepared.

On the way to the event I reread Samantha Power's chapter on this topic. It is a chilling reminder of how the world -- including the United States of America -- fiddled as this horror took place.

While there have been larger killings [in terms of numbers, e.g. Rwanda] in recent years, it is particularly mind boggling to think that this could occur in Europe adjacent to the European powers 40 years after the Holocaust.

As I have said here before: Never again has become again and again and again.

From Sarajevo: Correction

Re the Carla del Ponte post: some other Serb leaders have been charged but they have not been brought to trial because they are on the lam [and are obviously being hidden].

From Sarajevo: Off to Srebrenica

We go today to Srebrenica for the commemoration of the 1995 massacres. A number of bodies have been exhumed and will be reburied. This was the largest mass killing in Europe since World War II. More later.

From Sarajevo: Carla del Ponte

We are gathered to listen to Carla del Ponte, the Chief Prosecutor at the ICTY [International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia). She is the one who prosecuted Milosevic.

She is a bit of a controversial figure here in BBosnia and Herzegovina. There are those who are upset with her that only Milosevic was charged and not the many others who participated in the tragedies in this country, including at Srebrenica

Some people, I learned last night when I appeared on Bosnia's leading news show, are upset because they allege that she received some documents which she used in the case against Milosevic but which she did not allow to be used in a subsequent case brought by Bosnia against Serbia for the crime of genocide. [Some people believe she cut a deal with Serbia.]

A Ph.D. student at the university here just challenged her on this. She denied that she did it. She said quite clearly that the decision about the use of the documents this was made by the judges not her.

She also made another point which I do understand. She said that they received all sorts of documents "under the table." She was quite clear that, since she did not know the source or could not be sure they were genuine, they could not be used in court.

Others are upset that Milosevic was charged but those who worked closely with him, e.g. Karadzic, were not. Again, she strongly asserted that this was a decision made by the Security Council and not by her.

I can't comment on the specifics of these issues but I can say that these issues -- including whether genocide happened in Sarajevo itself and not just in Srebrenica -- are burning matters here. People’s pain is palpable.

Talk about the here and now-ness of history.

And tomorrow we go to Srebrenica for a reburial of some of the bodies which have recently been exhumed.

From Sarajevo: Listening to the President of Bosnia Herzegovina

I am sitting in a plenary session of the International Association of Genocide Scholars listening to the President of the country who has come to address us. His presence is indicative of how important it is to the country that this meeting is taking place here.

He began by noting that Serb leaders had made it clear before the killings that they were planning on killing Bosnian Muslims. It is striking that in so many cases of genocide and/or mass killings the perpetrators make their intentions clear, e.g. the Holocaust, Rwanda, and here.

Tomorrow we go to Sebrenica. It is the anniversary of the massacres there and some of the bodies which were left in ditches there have been exhumed and will be reburied.

I saw the film which will be part of the memorial at this site. There were many things about it which struck me. First and foremost, of course, the mass killings. The largest massacre in Europe since the Holocaust.

But, as someone who studies bystanders, I was absolutely floored by the behavior of the Dutch so-called peacekeepers who essentially walked away and left the Bosnian Muslims to a certain fate of death at the hands of the Serbs.

The Dutch alone were not responsible but a great measure of shame seems to fall on their shoulders.

From Sarajevo: Some comments on this blog

I will be posting some comments from Sarajevo shortly, however I wanted to let some of the people who have been sending me comments for this blog know why I have not been posting them.

I have been receiving some lengthy and detailed postings re matters in this region. They are full of information and detail with which I am not familiar. [I make no pretense of being an expert or even terribly well informed about the history of this region... though I am learning a tremendous amount.]

I do not want this blog to become a site for a debate about a topic which -- however important it is and it is importnat -- I am not an expert.

Therefore, I apologize but I won't be posting those comments.

Antisemitic cartoons in the Arab media

MEMRI has collected and published a series of horrifying cartoons in the Arab and Iranian media. Whatever one thinks about Middle East politics, it is impossible to ignore the highly antisemitic character of these drawings. Here are just two examples of many. The one on the left is from Jordan and the other is from Syria. The soldier is reading The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Off to Krakov and Sarajevo

I am leaving shortly for Krakov and Sarajevo for the meeting of the International Association of Scholars of Genocide. I will be blogging from there.

More on the murder of the Hamas Mickey Mouse look alike

I just watched the clip of the murder by an Israeli of Farfour on the MEMRI TV site. Farfour, the Hamas Mickey Mouse look alike, refused to give up his family's land for money. Seeing it is even more horrifying than reading about it.

The land that Farfour is protecting is in Tel Aviv. Farfour's grandfather tells him:

This land, which was [occupied] in 1948, is the land I inherited from my fathers and forefathers. I want you to protect it. It is a beautiful land, all covered in flowers and olive and palm trees. I want you to take care of it, Farfour.

[...]

I want you to safeguard this, Farfour. Keep this key with you. When the land is regained, use this key, Farfour.

[...]

Make sure you don't give up the land, Farfour.

[Grandfather dies]Farfour:Grandpa entrusted me with this great trust, but I don't know how to liberate this land from the filth of the criminal, plundering Jews, who killed my grandpa and everybody.

Then Farfour is interrogated and beaten by the Israeli official for refusing to give him the documents to the land even though the Israelis are willing to pay him for them:

Farfour: These are the land documents which my grandpa entrusted to me, so that I would safeguard them and use them to liberate Jerusalem. When the lands are liberated, we will go and live there. Give them to you? My grandpa didn't tell me to give them to you.

[...]

Farfour: I won't give them to criminal despicable terrorists.

The show closes with the young sweet host Saraa saying:

Yes, my dear children, we have lost our dearest friend, Farfour. Farfour was martyred while defending his land, the land of his fathers and his forefathers. He was martyred at the hand of the criminals, the murderers, the murderers of innocent children.

These are potential peace partners?? Next time I hear about a young person volunteering to be a terrorist I won't be surprised.

Should deniers' books be removed from libraries?

I received the following email today. The subject line read Irving's books:

I would very much value your opinion on whether one should formally seek to have one's regional and local libraries remove all of the above books from their shelves. On the one hand and certainly on a personal level I would like to see them purged along with Irving. On the other hand should they be available for educated readers to see for themselves how history... has been the subject of misrepresentation and fraud.

Of course there will always be those who because of ignorance will read his Dresden account and not be aware of its falsity and reliance on Nazi misinformation....Best regards, Mitchell S. Toms River, N.J.

I told him that I am, in principle, opposed to removing books from libraries. I don't believe in censorship.

Furthermore, I think that is a slippery slope that can lead to all sorts of worthy books being removed from libraries, e.g. Diary of Anne Frank. A good solution would be to place denial books such as Butz’s Hoax of the 20th Century and some of Irving’s books placed in a section called Holocaust Fallacies and Falsehoods.

The Library of Congress actually does that with a category Holocaust, Jewish 1939-1945—errors, inventions, etc. John Drobnicki, a university librarian, has written a thoughtful article on the question of whether libraries should have this material in their collections.

Bottom line is that I am against censorship. Censorship is what David Irving tried to do to me when he sued me for libel. Remember he offered to settle with me if I agreed to shred my books.

BUT HE WON'T SHAKE HANDS WITH A WOMAN??!!

More thoughts on the Neturei Karta so-called rabbis at the Iran Holocaust denial conference.....

Makes me wonder what the so-called rabbi was really doing in Tehran... Maybe Professor Dossa can enlighten us. Of course his reports on the conference have not been too trustworthy.