Beitrag Grundlosigkeit Genozid. Genozide und die Frage nach dem „Warum?“ Komparatistiche Überlegungen zum Konzept der „extremen Grundlosigkeit“ in autobiographischen Zeugnissen von Überlebenden der Shoah und des Tutsizids

Abstract

Based on autobiographical testimonies written by survivors of the Shoah and the Tutsicide in Rwanda, the article deals with the question of “why?” which accompanied the execution of the respective genocide as much as its “after.” When he dared to ask the “why” of the violence in Auschwitz, Primo Levi received the decisive answer: “There is no why here.” How the victims in Europe as well as in Rwanda, dealt with the arbitrariness and absoluteness of genocidal power instances is traced in three chronological steps: The first phase concerned the question of identifying the group to be killed and the redundancy of definitional access to the apparently “other” body. The second phase showed the disappearance of the question of the reasons for the massacres. The third phase corresponds to the period after the liberation of the victims. Here, the absurdity of the crimes became so glaring that many victims momentarily began to doubt the reality of their suffering. I hypothesise that the study of the extreme groundlessness of genocides does not contradict but complements the historical study of the origins and functioning of mass violence.