War Atrocities Research Articles

Društveni sukobi u sferi rada unutar transformacijskih procesa u Bosni i Hercegovini

Transformation processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) are characterized by continuous social conflicts between the working class and the ruling class of (ethno-)political and economic elites who have appropriated once socially owned enterprises through the nationalization processes, to be partially sold out through the privatization and bankruptcy procedures. The results of these processes, combined with the war atrocities and the break-up of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, have brought about the fragmentation, disempowerment and pauperization of the working class. Workers' strife during and after the privatization and transformation processes shows the still present combativeness of the working class. This paper covers three cases of workers' struggles, as examples of social conflicts in labour relations within transformation processes in BiH. Cases taken from different periods within the three-decades of post-socialist transformation of BiH, show the similarities and differences in mechanisms used by the workers of the taken examples of Rudi Čajavec, Dita and Elektroprivreda BiH mines, during the organizing of workers' strives for realization of workers' interests. The key difference between the first and the two latter cases is in the contribution of the social media networks for popularizing the wider public support to the workers' demands.

Bombardowania powietrzne w okresie II wojny światowej w świetle prawa międzynarodowego: problem ataku na Wieluń 1 września 1939 roku

Air bombings committed during World War II are still the subject of lively political and historical discussions. The scale of damage done by the air force in this conflict raises questions about the importance of international law in force in armed conflicts, especially its role in reducing the atrocities of war and protecting those who do not participate in hostilities. This article is an attempt to answer the question about the scope of the legal regime to which the phenomenon of air bombing was subjected.

The Spanish Civil War: New Approaches and Historiographic Perspectives

The bibliography on the Spanish Civil War is almost unattainable, but the matter continues to elicit such interest that it remains open to new historiographic trends. For example, the ‘classic’ military history of the conflict, cultivated prominently in recent years by Gabriel Cardona, Jorge Martínez Reverte and Anthony Beevor, does not renounce the microhistory or cultural perspective. These constitute the theoretical framework of the New Military History and its corollary the New Combat History, which combine philological, anthropological, psychological and historiographical perspectives to various degrees. In the specific field of the war experiences pioneered by George L. Mosse, the concepts of brutalisation, barbarisation and demodernisation of military operations, coined by Omer Bartov to describe the particularities of the Eastern campaign during the Second World War, are being used by Spanish historians dedicated to the study of the violence and atrocities of the civil war and post-war. Focusing on the field of political history, government management or diplomacy has been studied almost exhaustively, but this is not the case for the principal phenomenon of political violence in the 1930s in Europe, namely paramilitarisation. It is surprising that the latest studies on the issue at the European level (Robert Gerwarth, John Horne, Chris Millington and Kevin Passmore) do not include any essays on the enormous incidence of paramilitary violence in Spain before, during and after the civil war.

The Moving Parts in Michèle Magema's Body of Work

The Moving Parts in Michèle Magema's Body of Work

The War Beyond Ruin by Gemma Liviero: A Novel about Atrocities of War

War causes physical exertion and suffering. The soldiers and the people have to make themselves indifferent to these otherwise they would be destroyed. There is always uncertainty in war. Chance also plays an important role in war as it makes everything more uncertain. The whole course of events is interfered by it. War is a matter of determination and courage. The War Beyond Ruin is Liviero's war based fiction. It is a lyrical writing and unusual story. Though a war novel, this is not typical World-War-II-era novel. It's beautiful and gritty historical fiction combined with mystery and suspense and completely unique characters who live through hard times. The ending is life-affirming and fills with hope. It is all about the misery and complexity of life during and after WW II in Germany and Italy.

OKRUCIEŃSTWA WOJNY CZY PRZEJAW RASIZMU? PRZYPADKI ZNĘCANIA SIĘ NAD JEŃCAMI Z U.S. COLORED TROOPS (USCT) NA ZACHODNIM TEATRZE DZIAŁAŃ WOJENNYCH WOJNY SECESYJNEJ – WYBRANE PRZYKŁADY

It is not without reason that the Civil War is considered to be a turning point in US history. One was the mass participation of African Americans, who, for the first time since the War of Independence, were allowed to serve in the army (total ca.180,000). Even though many U.S. Colored Troops were not frontal units, never-theless some of them did actively participate in military operations. As a consequence an issue of black prisoners of war occurred. Obviously, in this case, they had to be captured by Southern troops first. Unfortu-nately, much oftener, there were instances of mistreatment or even brutal slaughter of POWs from U.S. Colored Troops (i.e. Fort Pillow – April 12, 1864, Poision Springs – April 18, 1864, etc.). Did such behavior of Confederate soldiers fit in in wide definition of war atrocities, understood as a will to take revenge at enemy’s troops, which plunder mother country, to avenge your family and friends, killed by the enemy, etc. Or it is a much deeper problem, having its conditioning in the culture of the South, whose ideological foundation was existence of so called Herrenvolk democracy, deeply rooted belief about superiority of white race over black (known also in the North), which was reflected not only in speeches of Southern, and later Confederate, politicians but also in the Constitution of the Confederate States of America.

Analisis Psikologi dan Sosiologi Korban Perang dalam Cerpen Sarajevo’s Wombs And The Children Of Torns Karya Aiman Tashika

The most essential thing that every human in the world has is freedom. With freedom humans can display their existence as a result of reason and character. Freedom is a source of individual freedom to develop and develop their potential. But often humans are shackled by their freedom or independence by others. Likewise a nation that changes colonialism will be deprived of its freedom. The colonizing nation would oppose imposing its authority on its colonial state. The occupation of the Serbs against the Sarajevo nation was one of the cruel forms of colonialism on earth. Serbia commits terror against the citizens of Sarajevo. One form of horrific terror is the rapes committed by the Serbian army on Muslim women in Sarajevo. Serbia considers rape terror as the most effective weapon to kill the people of Sarajevo. The women of Sarajevo war victims recovered from the trauma that had escaped. Many of the victims of rape gave birth to children of Serbian soldiers. On the contrary, those who oppose the atrocities of the Serb-Sarajevo war are not only women but also innocent children as a result of rape. The psychological and sociological influence was very much accepted by the victims at the end of colonialism. Although the war is over, these victims of rape terror support life with unforgettable dark shadows. Both the mother and the child will continue to be haunted by these bad memories. These children would be difficult to accept in the community because they thought the children of the colonizers. They will be ostracized in the association and of course will resolve social discomfort.

Ethical and Legal Manifestations of Informed Consent

Informed consent to medical or surgical treatment, or "permission granted in the knowledge of the possible consequences” is an important, and sometimes contentious and controversial component of clinical practice. From an ethical, legal and philosophical perspective; informed consent has significant implications for health care providers. The three principal elements of informed consent are 1) thorough presentation of information, 2) patient’s capacity to comprehend (competence), 3) patient’s voluntary willingness to undergo or refuse treatment. The history of informed consent is highlighted by precedent-setting legal cases, the atrocities of World War II and subsequent 1947 Nuremberg Trials and, current HIPAA regulations and guidelines. Informed consent involves shared decision-making between provider and patient. Including patients acknowledges and safeguards patient autonomy such that health care decisions are made based on respecting individual preferences, goals, values, beliefs, objectives, and desires. Providers act as advocates for patients' rights. These are fundamental premises of today’s patient-centered care.

Impact of war on women: Iyorwuese Hagher’s Lamp of Peace

Africa as a continent has been ravaged by wars that have brought untold hardship and retardation to development. Militarization and war places various demands on both males and females. This study concentrates on how females have been used as sex slaves and have now become vulnerable to rape and outright fighting in the wars. Extenuating the effects of war with its irreparable losses and psychological trauma in recent times has been the focus of governments, nongovernmental organizations and philanthropists. The devastation caused by the conflicts, the destruction to communities and the suffering of women and girls cannot be over emphasized. Recent years have seen many regions of Africa involved in wars and internal or external conflicts. From Liberia to Sierra Leone; Angola, The Democratic Republic of Congo to Rwanda; Burundi, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire to Sudan, the story is a sad and saddening one. Therefore, this article discusses the effects of armed conflicts on women and girls, using Iyorwuese Hagher’s Lamp of Peace as a textual reference. It employs the literary method to consider the response of Iyorwuese Hagher as a playwright regarding the outcry against war atrocities against women. The paper argues that glaring gaps still exist regarding the protection of women and girls during armed conflicts. As such, women and girls deserve special attention that focuses on protection as they are both victims of abuse and actors in reconstruction.
 Keywords: War, Atrocities on women, Protection and rehabilitation, Lamp of Peace, Africa

Death Styles

Malina demonstrates the paradoxical struggle that characterizes any attempt at reflecting on the uncanny relationship between the embodiment of language and the expression of pain. As Elaine Scarry (1985) notes, pain can be used to both make and unmake an identity; pain’s destructuring force can be complemented by the reconstructive potential of the imagination. Yet what happens when the identity to be reconstructed leads only to a fragmentary regeneration; what if the only whole that can be constructed remains incomplete and internally divided? This article focuses on reading Malina as an allegory of the process of writing itself: that is, a means of exploring the attempted expression of the pain and fragmentation of the embodied subject that resulted from the atrocities of World War II. Using Blanchot’s reflections on anguish and language, I argue that the novel—part love story, part horror story, part detective story—is a riddle that the reader must solve, but that in doing so the reader becomes infected with the same fragmentary force that disembodies the protagonist. As such, the heuristic consequence of the novel is to instruct the reader on the influence of language and imagining on the attempted reembodiment or, in this case, eventual disembodiment, of the body in pain.

Hannibal Lecter as Avenging War Orphan in Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Rising

Beginning with Red Dragon (1981), horror icon Hannibal Lecter thrilled audiences as the ultimate unreadable reader, consuming minds and bodies behind the polished veneer of aristocratic taste and psychological expertise. Yet by the end of the twentieth century, Lecter had shifted from monster to hero. This article argues that Thomas Harris’s prequel novel, Hannibal Rising (2006), makes Lecter more palatable by portraying his serial murders as an act of vengeance against a postwar society that allowed war criminals to rejoin the consumer milieu. Hannibal Rising uses graphic depictions of the atrocities of the Second World War—including freezing, starvation, immolation, and enslavement—to mitigate Lecter’s cannibalistic classism and restore his humanity. Lecter is rendered mute by the trauma of consuming his sister, the patrician Lecter Castle becomes a Soviet orphanage, and Lecter’s eventual victims are war criminals who have reintegrated into society across the Western world. In return, Hannibal Rising’s readers are asked to project the specter of Lecter’s trauma and these war criminals’ violence onto all of Lecter’s victims. No act of cannibalism, Hannibal Rising suggests, is more monstrous than the war crimes and subsequent Allied apathy that Hannibal fights and bites against.

Radnici u post-socijalizmu - između klasnog i nacionalnog identiteta

Social transformation and transition from socialist to liberal market economy in Bosnia and Herzegovina and other countries of former Yugoslavia, followed by war atrocities, initiated a series of economic and social challenges: deindustrialization, high unemployment, dubious privatizations, impoverishment, ethnic rivalries and structural changes. In this paper, we observe the mentioned social processes focusing on identity politics resulting in transformation of class identity into workers' national identity. The main presumption is that certain critical social moments serve as a trigger for "shift" in primacy of class compared to national identity and vice versa. To address this, we are using cases of workers' resistance/strikes/ protests during the social transformation from socialist into market economy, and after the completed privatization and reign of ethno-national policies in former Yugoslavia countries.

Crime of genocide before the International Court of Justice

When Mr. Raphael Lemkin invented the term genocide in 1944 he was trying to fill the void in the existing list of international crimes because, in his view, none of them was appropriate to address the terrible mass atrocities of World War II. The mass extermination of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and other groups should have been different from “ordinary” crimes against humanity. His fight led to the adoption of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948. Although the Convention was primarily designed to punish individual perpetrators, States parties can also be held responsible for the same crime. The reference in Article IX of the Convention to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice clearly shows in that direction. However, the first case appearing before that court was the case of Bosnia v. Serbia in 1993 and the Court made its ruling on the merits in 2007. The following ruling concerned the case of Croatia v. Serbia in 2015. Neither of the final rulings established the responsibility of the respondent state for genocide, although the crime had been established in the case of Bosnia. The article will look into the requirements for the genocide to be established and what was the missing link between the crime and the defendant state.

Mobilizacija za rat u Drugom Rajhu i "Ideje iz 1914"

The article analyzes the political and social climate in society at the time of the outbreak of the Great War and the intellectual elite's reaction to the war. All interest groups war to be declared defensive in all interest groups the Reich was besieged by the Entente forces and it had to defense against the barbaric East. The war euphoria pervaded all strata of society, based on the myths of military invincibility and cultural excellence. The whole society was convinced of the war victory. The war was interpreted as a German revolution, as a victory of the German soul and culture. The intellectual elite loyal to the monarchy and the Kaiser supported the war. The war was interpreted as a conflict of the ideals of the French Revolution (freedom, equality, brotherhood), as opposed to the Idea of 1914 (duty, order, justice) and thus justified and legitimizes. Ideas from 1914 are, in short, grounded against English merchant souls, French Gallic superficiality and despotism. The Ideas of 1914 gave birth to an Appeal to a civilized world in which intellectuals show solidarity with the army, denying that Germany provoked the war, violated the neutrality of Belgium and that its army committed crimes and cultural barbarism. Russia and Serbia are blamed for the war. Russia's goal was to increase world power on the ruins of Austria and Germany and to establish hegemony over the South Slavic people. The war brought to light the old war goals that were widely accepted by political, military and cultural elite and interest groups. These goals were threefold and were directed to the West, East and Southeast. The intellectual elite - in addition to the economic elite, trade and industrial associations and numerous clubs - supported the policy of war goals and advocated the territorial annexation and growth of Germany into a world power, the creation of a colonial empire and penetration into the East and Southeast. Enthusiasm for the war waned after facing war atrocities, protracted trench battles, loss of loved ones, shortages and material hardships, conscription for the army of 13 million inhabitants and, above all, defeats, which the Germans did not hope for, nor did they, after more than a hundred years, accepted. In the first six months of the war alone, between 35,000 and 40,000 civilians (mostly Serbs) were hanged and executed in the Balkans. After a hundred years, modern Germany apologized for the crimes committed in Belgium, but not, like Austria, for the crimes of its armies committed in the East and Southeast.

Women in refuge: Syrian women voicing health sequelae due to war traumatic experiences and displacement challenges

ObjectiveThe Syrian war created a mass exodus of people to neighboring countries. Jordan hosts approximately 1.4 million Syrians who sought refuge and protection. This research represents an effort to understand the subjective narratives of Syrian refugee women's war traumatic experiences and displacement challenges while living in Jordan and the consequences on their physical and mental health. MethodsData gathered between March and June 2014 included 24 in-depth interviews with Syrian refugee women who sought services from humanitarian organizations in Jordan. Interviews were conducted in Arabic and were audio recorded. A team of four researchers translated and transcribed the interviews. Group narrative methodology was utilized to analyze the interviews. ResultsThe study suggests that Syrian refugee women experienced diverse war atrocities including shelling, loss of property, separation from family members, and threats to their lives and their beloved ones, among a few. In Jordan, they reported on multiple displacement challenges, which are perceived as a continuous traumatic experience, as well as somatization. Narratives of women also included sequelae to their physical and mental health due to such stressors. Barriers to obtaining physical and mental health services are discussed, including inadequate medical treatment, lack of mental health services, and stigma on mental health, which might be associated to somatization of mental illnesses. ConclusionIt is crucial that humanitarian organizations and host countries like Jordan bear the responsibility to enhancing accessibility to comprehensive trauma-focused physical and mental health services for Syrian refugees in a culturally and gender sensitive manner.

Around 1948: The “Gentle Revolution” and Art History

Just like after World War I Italy experienced a transition from modernism to fascism, after World II Poland experienced a passage from modernism to quasi-communism. The symbol of the first stage of the communist revolution in Poland right after the war, the so-called “gentle revolution,” was Pablo Picasso, whose work was popularized not so much because of its artistic value, but because of his membership in the communist party. The second, repressive stage of the continued came in 1949–1955, to return after the so-called thaw to Picasso and the exemplars of the École de Paris. However, the imagery of the revolution was associated only with the socialist realism connected to the USSR even though actually it was the adaptation of the École de Paris that best expressed the revolution’s victory. In the beginning, its moderate program, strongly emphasizing the national heritage as well as financial promises, made the cultural offer of the communist regime quite attractive not only for the left. Thus, the gentle revolution proved to be a Machiavellian move, disseminating power to centralize it later more effectively. On the other hand, the return to the Paris exemplars resulted in the aestheticization of radical and undemocratic changes. The received idea that the evil regime was visualized only by the ugly socialist realism is a disguise of the Polish dream of innocence and historical purity, while it was the war which gave way to the revolution, and right after the war artists not only played games with the regime, but gladly accepted social comfort guaranteed by authoritarianism. Neither artists, nor art historians started a discussion about the totalizing stain on modernity and the exclusion of the other. Even the folk art was instrumentalized by the state which manipulated folk artists to such an extent that they often lost their original skills. Horrified by the war atrocities and their consequences, art historians limited their activities to the most urgent local tasks, such as making inventories of artworks, reorganization of institutions, and reconstruction. Mass expropriation, a consequence of the revolution, was not perceived by museum personnel as a serious problem, since thanks to it museums acquired more and more exhibits, while architects and restorers could implement their boldest plans. The academic and social neutralization of expropriation favored the birth of a new human being, which was one of the goals of the revolution. Along the ethnic homogenization of society, focusing on Polish art meant getting used to monophony. No cultural opposition to the authoritarian ideas of modernity appeared – neither the École de Paris as a paradigm of the high art, nor the folklore manipulated by the state were able to come up with the ideas of the weak subject or counter-history. Despite the social revolution, the class distinction of ethnography and high art remained unchanged.

Wokół roku 1948: „rewolucja łagodna” i historia sztuki

Just like after World War I Italy experienced a transition from modernism to fascism, after World War II Poland experienced a passage from modernism to quasi-communism. The symbol of the first stage of the communist revolution in Poland right after the war, the so-called “gentle revolution,” was Pablo Picasso, whose work was popularized not so much because of its artistic value, but because of his membership in the communist party. The second, repressive stage of the continued came in 1949–1955, to return after the so-called thaw to Picasso and the exemplars of the École de Paris. However, the imagery of the revolution was associated only with the socialist realism connected to the USSR even though actually it was the adaptation of the École de Paris that best expressed the revolution’s victory. In the beginning, its moderate program, strongly emphasizing the national heritage as well as financial promises, made the cultural offer of the communist regime quite attractive not only for the left. Thus, the gentle revolution proved to be a Machiavellian move, disseminating power to centralize it later more effectively. On the other hand, the return to the Paris exemplars resulted in the aestheticization of radical and undemocratic changes. The received idea that the evil regime was visualized only by the ugly socialist realism is a disguise of the Polish dream of innocence and historical purity, while it was the war which gave way to the revolution, and right after the war artists not only played games with the regime, but gladly accepted social comfort guaranteed by authoritarianism. Neither artists, nor art historians started a discussion about the totalizing stain on modernity and the exclusion of the other. Even the folk art was instrumentalized by the state which manipulated folk artists to such an extent that they often lost their original skills. Horrified by the war atrocities and their consequences, art historians limited their activities to the most urgent local tasks, such as making inventories of artworks, reorganization of institutions, and reconstruction. Mass expropriation, a consequence of the revolution, was not perceived by museum personnel as a serious problem, since thanks to it museums acquired more and more exhibits, while architects and restorers could implement their boldest plans. The academic and social neutralization of expropriation favored the birth of a new human being, which was one of the goals of the revolution. Along the ethnic homogenization of society, focusing on Polish art meant getting used to monophony. No cultural opposition to the authoritarian ideas of modernity appeared – neither the École de Paris as a paradigm of the high art, nor the folklore manipulated by the state were able to come up with the ideas of the weak subject or counter-history. Despite the social revolution, the class distinction of ethnography and high art remained unchanged.

Lebanon’s ‘age of apology’ for Civil War atrocities: A look at Assad Shaftari and Samir Geagea

Lebanon’s ‘age of apology’ for Civil War atrocities: A look at Assad Shaftari and Samir Geagea

Plotting the Unspeakable in Khadra’s Wolf Dreams

ABSTRACTThis paper offers a critical reading of Yasmina Khadra’s Wolf Dreams (2003) evoking important questions on the nature of terrorism in Algeria during the black decade of the 1990s. The novel describes the rise of fundamentalism and how young men are transformed into religious fanatics. This paper is interested in the literary function of terrorism; i.e. how terrorism is used as a literary tool and why this novelist chooses it as a main structuring element. This study offers a more adequate account of terrorism’s figurative aspects, it clarifies the writer’s stylistic strategies and his use of techniques such as narrative suspense, metaphors, and figurative language to respond to instances of violence in this era. The paper also examines ways in which Khadra’s Wolf Dreams can help broaden understandings of terrorism in Algeria. It emphasizes especially the responses to terrorism and considers the status of literature as a way to get knowledge about the atrocities of war. Our objective is to map how Khadra engages terrorism in his novel and uses his literary historical imagination to provide a coherent narrative.

Sex differences in mental health symptoms and substance use and their association with moral injury in veterans.

This study examines potential sex differences in 3 types of experiences (i.e., atrocities of war, cognitive and emotional changes from combat, and leadership failure or betrayal) that may result in moral injury (i.e., guilt, shame, inability to forgive one's self, inability to forgive others, and withdrawn behavior associated with these three types of experiences). In addition, we examine whether moral injury results in different associations with mental health and substance use outcomes for female versus male veterans. We expected more symptoms of depression and anxiety for women and more symptoms of hazardous alcohol use and drug abuse for men. Also, we examined sex as a moderator between moral injury and outcomes, expecting stronger relationships between moral injury and symptoms of depression and anxiety among women and stronger associations between moral injury and alcohol use and drug abuse symptoms for men. Participants (n = 256; 60.9% [n = 156] males) were a community sample of recent-era military personnel who completed a measure of morally injurious experiences (MIEs) and associated moral injury. After correcting for Type I error rate, sex was not associated with mental health or substance use. Further, no Sex × Moral Injury interactions were present; however, moral injury significantly positively predicted all negative mental health symptoms (depression, anxiety, suicidality, and posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD]) and hazardous alcohol use, but not drug abuse symptoms. Results reveal the need for improved screening and treatment of moral injury and integrated treatments that may assess moral injury and associated disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).