International Conference ”Perpetrator Research in a Global Context”
January 27th – 29th (2009), Berlin
With an international conference organised in tandem with the Holocaust Research Centre at the Royal Holloway, University of London and the Essen Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, the German Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb) is seeking to shed more light on the most recent conclusions and perceptions surrounding “Perpetrator Research in a Global Context”.
Until only a few years ago, the organisers of the Holocaust were portrayed as belonging to one of two categories. On the one hand were the ‘desk killers’, those distanced from the actual process of mass murder. On the other were those who actually carried out the killings, and who were often seen - except for a small minority of sadists - as merely following orders, with no personal interests or motives.
Newer research, however, has made it increasingly clear that the search for one or more homogeneous perpetrator ‘types’ is a flawed approach. Holocaust perpetrators came from a variety of age groups, social milieus, and educational backgrounds. Those who were motivated by ideology killed alongside those who didn’t hold particularly radical racist beliefs, and who murdered other human beings dispassionately. New conclusions from fields like social psychology, sociology, psychology and anthropology are now casting more light on the quest for explanations.
From both an academic and a civic education perspective, it is imperative that we develop a framework for understanding what Germaine Tillion described as the ‘tragic ease’ with which people become murderers or mass murderers.
Based on results garnered from the field of Holocaust perpetrator research, the conference will also look at examples of perpetrator profiles from other attempts at genocide, including those that occurred in the former Yugoslavia and Cambodia.
The different aspects of perpetrator research will be illuminated in five different thematic panels. These workshops will seek to demonstrate ways to implement the knowledge gained from academic results in civic education, and support their mediation in curricular and extra-curricular education and activities, as well as in work at memorials, in intercultural education, and in the arts.
A Europe-wide competition is also taking place within the context of the conference. We are looking for innovative projects in civic education that have grappled with the perpetrator concept.
The conference will be held in English. German interpreters will be on hand and available in all five panels.
We have applied to have the conference officially recognised as a continuing education course for teachers. To receive more information, please contact the lab concepts agency: holocaust-konferenz09@lab-concepts.de.
LabforCulture is a partner initiative of the European Cultural Foundation. LabforCulture is grateful for the support provided by its funders.