This conference explored the complexity of intergenerational memory in the aftermath of mass violence. Nicole Immler shared insights from three-generation-holocaust interviews during her talk: The Struggle for ‘the Right to Exist’.

‘After a war we count in generations.’ It was a timely conference: Intergenerational memories of mass violence – a truly interdisciplinary and international conference. Commemorating the 30th anniversary of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, we discussed – in a comparative setting – mechanisms and dynamics of group memories over time, local and global impacts. Intergenerational memory was broadly understood as the transmission of ideas about the past—through narratives, rituals, everyday habits, and silences; and we have witnessed impressive rituals of oral transmission of memories (Charline Muco), reflections on rituals that restage the violence to process them (Joachim Chukwuebuka Ozonze), and the role of religion (Pierre Druart). In many cases discussed we saw ‘the danger of a single (hi) story’ as Paul Kyumin Lee (University of Notre Dame, USA) has called it. Johanna Vollhardt (Clark University, USA) deconstructed in her keynote the myth of competitive victimhood; showing how victims push back to those competitive conceptions, and also against essentializing and restricting victim identities imposed on them, asking to do more justice to the multiple identities (and thus possibilities) people have. Nicole’s contribution continued on this line. She shared insights from Three-Generation-Holocaust Interviews. Utilizing the lens of the ‘dialogical self’ she showed how listening to multivoicedness allows us as researchers to complexify (generational) identities and reach beyond stigmatizing as paralyzing binaries. In this respect there was a lot of new knowledge to gain from local perspectives, such as how in Rwanda transformative justice is not just a matter of ‘vision’ but foremost of ‘practice’; how a specific place of trauma can turn into one of healing. We also witnessed how talking and listening can be healing (Assumpta Mugiraneza (IRIBA Center for Multimedia Heritage, Rwanda) Emilienne Mukansoro (EJO-HACU, Mushubati, Rwanda).

For the conference program, see here.

Whose interested in three generation Holocaust research in the Netherlands, have a look, here.