Situating the Herero Genocide and the Holocaust among European Colonial Genocides

• Authors: Kirsten Dyck
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article situates the German colonial genocides of the 20th century - the Herero genocide and the Holocaust - in a longer history of European colonial genocides, arguing the importance of this wider historical context in genocide scholarship. It explores how the 1948 United Nations genocide convention and the definition of the term “genocide” can affect how one studies various kinds of mass killing, drawing on Christopher Powell’s “relational” concept of genocide to argue that genocide scholars should study both physical and cultural methods of genocide as they work to understand colonial violence. After a brief overview of the Herero genocide, this article then demonstrates several important philosophical and practical links not only between the Herero genocide and the Holocaust, but also between these and earlier colonial genocides by other European nations. The concluding section explores why a historically-situated understanding of the interrelationships among European colonial genocides is crucial to a nuanced understanding of genocide overall.

Keywords

EN

genocide; Herero; Holocaust

• Publisher: Instytut Zachodni. Instytut Naukowo-Badawczy im. Zygmunta Wojciechowskiego w Poznaniu
• Journal: Przegląd Zachodni
• Year: 2014
• Issue: 1(350)
• Pages: 153-172

Contributors

author

Kirsten Dyck

• Instytut Zachodni, Instytut Naukowo-Badawczy, 61-854 Poznań, ul. Mostowa 27