The Project on Genocide, Psychiatry and Witnessing
Author's Comments

When History is a Nightmare: Lives and Memories of Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Author: Stevan Weine, M.D.; Rutgers University Press, 1999

Author's Comments:

Q: What is the worst thing you heard?

A: I ask myself, is it the physical and material acts of brutal torture, murder or destruction, or the psychological dimension of betrayal, terror and fear? In the book I argue that it is precisely this distinction that makes ethnic cleansing unique as genocide. The Holocaust was mass murder, whereas ethnic cleansing was sufficient physical and material destruction to annihilate the desire to live together. You didn’t have to kill them all, just kill enough to make the others want to leave their homes and never come back.

Q: What gives you hope?

A: Whenever survivors find the courage and strength to gather themselves and tell their stories. Their suffering in these historical nightmares is immense and horrific, but in each and every story I also find traces of a dream of something good in their lives and history. I hear them say, ethnic cleansing made them feel like nothing, but when they tell the story, they feel human again. No matter how many times it happens, it is very inspiring and a really a tremendous privilege to be a part of that.