Genocide Perspectives VI The Process and the Personal Cost of Genocide The Process and the Personal Cost of Genocide The Process Genocide Perspectives VI CONTRIBUTORS Alex J. Bellamy and Stephen Mark Tedeschi AM QC McLoughlin The 2017 Myall Creek Massacre Fateful Choices: Political Leadership and Commemoration Speech the Paths to and from Mass Atrocities Caroline Schneider and Hans-Lukas Melanie O’Brien Kieser Freedom of Religion in the Genocidal Long Shadows—The Great War, Process and Group Destruction in Australia and the Middle East: From the the Holocaust and Armenian and Armenian to the Yazidi Genocide Cambodian Genocides Armen Gakavian Katharine Gelber “It’s Happening Again”: Genocide, Denial, Post-memory and Artefacts: The Gelber/ Exile and Trauma Altschul Collection Amanda Tink “If You’re Different Are You the Same?”: The Nazi Genocide of Disabled People and Les Murray’s Fredy Neptune Linda Shields and Susan Benedict Nursing in Nazi Germany and the “Euthanasia” Programmes Marczak & Shields Marczak Colin Tatz Genocide and Suicide Editors Jacob G. Warren Apprehending the Slow Violence of Nuclear Colonialism: Art and Maralinga UTS EPRESS PUBLISHES PEER-REVIEWED, SCHOLARLY OPEN ACCESS BOOKS AND JOURNALS Genocide Perspectives VI The Process and the Personal Cost of Genocide Edited by Nikki Marczak and Kirril Shields Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Genocide Perspectives Series UTS ePRESS University of Technology Sydney Broadway NSW 2007 AUSTRALIA epress.lib.uts.edu.au Copyright Information This book is copyright. The work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial-Non Derivatives License CC BY-NC-ND http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 First Published 2020 © 2020 in the text and images, the author/s of each article © 2020 in the book design and layout, UTS ePRESS © in the original cover artwork: © Vernon Ah Kee Title of artwork: lynching 2012 Charcoal on canvas, 150 x 90 cm Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery Artist: Vernon Ah Kee, Photo: Carl Warner, Cover design: Megan Wong Publication Details DOI citation: https://doi.org/10.5130/aaf ISBN (Paperback): 978-0-9775200-3-9 ISBN (PDF): 978-0-9775200-4-6 ISBN (EPUB): 978-0-9775200-5-3 ISBN (Mobi): 978-0-9775200-6-0 Peer Review This work was peer reviewed by disciplinary experts. Declaration of conflicting interest The editors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this book. Funding: Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies UTS ePRESS Manager: Scott Abbott Books Editor: Matthew Noble Enquiries: [email protected] For enquiries about third party copyright material reproduced in this work, please contact UTS ePRESS. OPEN ACCESS UTS ePRESS publishes peer reviewed books, journals and conference proceedings and is the leading publisher of peer reviewed open access journals in Australasia. All UTS ePRESS online content is free to access and read. Suggested citation Marczak, N. and Shields, K. (eds.) 2020. Genocide Perspectives VI: The Process and the Personal Cost of Genocide. Sydney: UTS ePRESS. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/aaf. License: CC BY-NC-ND. To read the free, open access version of this book online, visit https://doi.org/10.5130/aaf or scan this QR code with your mobile device: For Sandra and Pam, and for Karen, Simon and Paul Contents Acknowledgements ix The Process and the Personal Cost of Genocide 1 Nikki Marczak and Kirril Shields Chapter 1. Fateful Choices: Political Leadership and the Paths to and from Mass Atrocities 7 Alex J. Bellamy and Stephen McLoughlin Leadership and mass atrocities 10 The role and impact of leaders 15 Risk makers and risk breakers 15 Drivers and inhibitors 19 Prolongers and terminators 27 Conclusion 30 Chapter 2. Freedom of Religion in the Genocidal Process and Group Destruction in the Holocaust and Armenian and Cambodian Genocides 33 Melanie O’Brien Right to freedom of religion 35 Violations during the Armenian Genocide 37 Violations during the Holocaust 40 Violations during the Cambodian Genocide 43 Freedom of religion and genocide: definition and prevention 47 Chapter 3. Post-memory and Artefacts: The Gelber/ Altschul Collection 53 Katharine Gelber The obligation of second generation storytelling 54 My father and his parents 56 The Altschuls 59 The Gelbers 62 Reflections 68 Chapter 4. ‘If You’re Different Are You the Same?’: The Nazi Genocide of Disabled People and Les Murray’s Fredy Neptune 69 Amanda Tink Impairment and disability 72 Silence and silencing 73 Dehumanising language 75 Eugenic thinking and acting 79 Irreducible impairment 82 Futures of worth 83 Consequential lines 83 Conclusion 85 Chapter 5. Nursing in Nazi Germany and the ‘Euthanasia’ Programmes 87 Linda Shields and Susan Benedict A framework for killing 88 Eugenics and ‘euthanasia’ 91 The children’s ‘euthanasia’ programme 92 The adult ‘euthanasia’ programmes 95 Nurses and adult ‘euthanasia’ 99 ‘Euthanasia’ as a template for the Final Solution 102 Wild or decentralised ‘euthanasia’ 102 What happened to the nurses after the war? 105 Conclusion 106 Chapter 6. Genocide and Suicide 107 Colin Tatz Connections and disconnections 107 Defining the factors 109 For and against suicide 110 Indigenous suicides 115 Aboriginal Australia 116 Native North America 122 Lost connections 125 Chapter 7. Apprehending the Slow Violence of Nuclear Colonialism: Art and Maralinga 129 Jacob G. Warren Slow violence, cold genocide and radioactive contamination 133 Nuclear colonialism and the wasteland desert 136 Against the mirage of the desert as wasteland 140 Maralinga nullius 143 From ground zero to downwind 145 The bush yam 149 ‘The colonisation of the future’ 151 Conclusion 152 Chapter 8. The 2017 Myall Creek Massacre Commemoration Speech 155 Mark Tedeschi AM QC Chapter 9. Long Shadows—The Great War, Australia and the Middle East: From the Armenian to the Yazidi Genocide 159 Caroline Schneider and Hans-Lukas Kieser I 160 II 162 III 163 IV 167 V 171 Conclusion 173 Chapter 10. ‘It’s Happening Again’: Genocide, Denial, Exile and Trauma 177 Armen Gakavian Exile and trauma 178 Responses to the genocide and to Turkish denial 180 Repression, rationalisation, resignation and reconciliation (1918–1965) 180 Rage and revenge (1965–2001) 182 Engagement (2001–present) 185 Unresolved trauma, re-traumatisation and ‘history repeating’ 187 Conclusion 191 Biographies 193 Index 197 Acknowledgements To members of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, thank you for the opportunity to edit this collection of essays, the sixth in the Genocide Perspectives Series. We would like to thank UTS ePRESS for enabling academic works such as Genocide Perspectives to reach a wide audience, and particularly to Scott Abbott and Matthew Noble. Finally, a very heartfelt thanks to Vernon Ah Kee for allowing his artwork to appear on the cover of GPVI (and to Jacob G. Warren for facilitating that opportunity). Ah Kee’s art represents themes of genocide and atrocity, both of which are explored in the Genocide Perspectives Series, and we are honoured that such a high calibre and moving artwork accompanies this book. The Process and the Personal Cost of Genocide Nikki Marczak and Kirril Shields It is with a mixture of sadness and appreciation that we include, in this edition of Genocide Perspectives, the final published text of Professor Colin Tatz. The father of Australian genocide studies, and Founding Director of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (AIHGS), Professor Tatz passed away on 19 November 2019. In the wake of his death he has been honoured by individuals he inspired, organisations he worked with, and communities whose experiences he shed light on and for whom he advocated tirelessly throughout his life. He has been hailed as a ‘doyen of genocide studies academics’,1 celebrated on ABC and SBS radio, by Armenian and Jewish communal representatives, and the universities at which he taught.2 His dedication to challenging rac- ism has been at the forefront of tributes, and his courage and rebellious streak 1 ‘Colin Tatz Has Passed Away at 85’, J-Wire, November 19, 2019, https:// www.jwire.com.au/colin-tatz-has-passed-away-at-85/. 2 Phillip Adams, ‘Remembering Colin Tatz’, Late Night Live, ABC Radio, November 20, 2019, https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs /late nightlive/remembering-professor-colin-tatz/11722570; ‘Vale Emeritus Professor Colin Tatz’, November 22, 2019, https://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au /vale-emeritus-professor-colin-tatz. How to cite this book chapter: Marczak, N. and Shields, K. 2020. The Process and the Personal Cost of Genocide. In: Marczak, N. and Shields, K. (eds.) Genocide Perspectives VI: The Process and the Personal Cost of Genocide. Pp. 1–6. Sydney: UTS ePRESS. DOI: https://doi .org/10.5130/aaf.a. License: CC BY-NC-ND. 2 Genocide Perspectives VI admired by all those who knew him.3 To us and the other members of AIHGS, he was Colin—our mentor and friend, and we will always remember him. Colin adapted some of his 2019 book, The Sealed Box of Suicide: The Contexts of Self-Death, for an essay in this collection, and it is perhaps fitting that his last topic of writing relates to existential questions around life and death, personal choices, and the legacy of trauma, grief, and mourning. Professor Tatz was never one to shy away from unorthodox and original theses, but his views were always informed by decades of practical, collabora- tive work with Indigenous communities. In his paper ‘Genocide and Suicide’, Tatz draws connections between the two. Sometimes they are co-existent, as noted through the Holocaust and Armenian cases, but in the main he focuses on Aboriginal communities in Australia, arguing that the high rates of suicides are not the result of mental illness, nor a phenomenon that can be medicalised or treated within a ‘mental health’ framework.