#omer bartov

‘The merits of genocide are not up for discussion!’

Omer Bartov described what he termed 'the invention of memory' when he considered the effect of war literature in both France and Germany. 'Experience of loss and trauma extends beyond personal recollection,' he argued, 'and comes to encompass both individual and collective expectations of the future.'

“Paradoxically, while defeated Germany ultimately came to celebrate war as an occasion for individual and collective glory, in victorious France its perception as a site of personal and national suffering only intensified. The strand of veterans' conceptualizations of the front as an opportunity to surpass the individual and discover the community of battle and fate through common sacrifice became increasingly prevalent in Germany; whereas in France it was the veterans' insistence on their right and duty to fight against war, having seen its true face and realized its inhumanity, that won the day. Thus the aftermath of World War I produced two kinds of (imagined) communities, whose common experience was articulated very differently, and whose glorification in their respective countries lent a great deal of weight to national perceptions of destruction. The French community of suffering was unified by common pain and sorrow, bound together by horror, determined to prevent such wars from ever happening again. The German battle community was united through sacrifice and devotion to a common cause, the comradeship of warriors, and the quest to extend its newly found values to postwar civilian society. Both creatures of war, the community of suffering envisions a future without international conflict, whereas the battle community perceives the front as a model for posterity.”

Omer Bartow - The New York Times - Soy un estudioso del genocidio. Reconozco cuando veo uno

The New York Times (Nov. 10, 2023) - Omer Bartov: What I Believe as a Historian of Genocide