Human remains and identification: Mass violence, genocide and the 'forensic turn'

264 Pages·2015·4.932 MB·English

by  Élisabeth Anstett, Jean-Marc Dreyfus

Blank page
Human remains and

identification
HUMAN REMAINS AND VIOLENCE
Human remains and violence aims to question the social legacy of
mass violence by studying how different societies have coped with
the dead bodies resulting from war, genocide and state sponsored
brutality. However, rather paradoxically, given the large volume of
work devoted to the body on the one hand, and to mass violence on
the other, the question of the body in the context of mass violence
remains a largely unexplored area and even an academic blind spot.
Interdisciplinary in nature, Human remains and violence intends to
show how various social and cultural treatments of the dead body
simultaneously challenge common representations, legal prac-
tices and morality. This series aims to provide proper intellectual
and theoretical tools for a better understanding of mass violence’s
aftermaths.
Series editors
Jean-Marc Dreyfus and Élisabeth Anstett
ALSO AVAILABLE IN THIS SERIES
Destruction and human remains: disposal and concealment in
genocide and mass violence
Edited by Élisabeth Anstett and Jean-Marc Dreyfus
Human remains and mass violence: methodological approaches
Edited by Jean-Marc Dreyfus and Élisabeth Anstett
Governing the dead: sovereignty and the politics of dead bodies
Edited by Finn Stepputat
Human remains and

identification
Mass violence, genocide, and the ‘forensic turn’
Edited by
Élisabeth Anstett and Jean-Marc Dreyfus
Manchester University Press
Copyright © Manchester University Press 2015
While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University
Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no
chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in
writing of both author and publisher.
Published by Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978 07190 97560 hardback
First published 2015
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for
any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does
not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or
appropriate.
Typeset by Out of House Publishing
TJ International Ltd, Padstow
Contents

List of illustrations page vii
List of contributors x
Acknowledgements xvi
Introduction: why exhume? Why identify? 1
Élisabeth Anstett and Jean-Marc Dreyfus
1 Bitter legacies: a war of extermination, grave looting,
and culture wars in the American West 14
Tony Platt
2 Final chapter: portraying the exhumation and reburial
of Polish Jewish Holocaust victims in the pages of
yizkor books 34
Gabriel N. Finder
3 Bykivnia: how grave robbers, activists, and foreigners
ended official silence about Stalin’s mass graves near Kiev 59
Karel C. Berkhoff
4 The concealment of bodies during the military
dictatorship in Uruguay (1973–84) 83
José López Mazz
vi Contents
5 State secrets and concealed bodies: exhumations of
Soviet-era victims in contemporary Russia 98
Viacheslav Bitiutckii
6 A mere technical exercise? Challenges and
technological solutions to the identification of
individuals in mass grave scenarios in the modern
context 117
Gillian Fowler and Tim Thompson
7 Disassembling the pieces, reassembling the social: the
forensic and political lives of secondary mass graves in
Bosnia and Herzegovina 142
Admir Jugo and Sari Wastell
8 Identification, politics, disciplines: missing persons
and colonial skeletons in South Africa 175
Nicky Rousseau
9 Bury or display? The politics of exhumation in
post-genocide Rwanda 203
Rémi Korman
10 Remembering the Japanese occupation massacres:
mass graves in post-war Malaysia 221
Frances Tay
Index 239
Illustrations

2.1 Shmuel Laksman overseeing the reburial of the
Popowski and the Zadok families from Żelechów and
three unidentified women in the Jewish cemetery in
Żelechów, May 1947. From A. W. Jasny (ed.), Yizker-
bukh fun der zhelikhover yidisher kehile; Sefer yizkor
li-kehilat zhelihov (Chicago: Tsentrale zhelikhover
landsmanshaft in Shikago, 1953), p. 322. page 39
2.2 Survivors from Skierniewice surround the collective
grave of the town’s Jewish victims and the monument
erected in their memory during its unveiling in
August 1947. From I. Perlow (ed.), Seyfer skernyevits:
Lezeykher der fartilikter kehile kdushe (Tel Aviv:
Irgun yoytsey skernyevits beyisroel mit der hilf fun
skernyevitser landsmanshaft in nju-york, 1955), p. 664. 42
2.3 Speech by Simcha Mincberg to mark the reburial
of victims from Wierzbnik and unveiling of the
monument dedicated to their memory, 1945. From
M. Schutzman (ed.), Sefer virzbnik-starakhovitz (Tel
Aviv: Mif’al ha-va’ad ha-tzibori shel yotz’ey virzbnik-
starakhovitz ba-’aretz uve-tefutzot, 1974), p. 346. 43
2.4 Mordechai Braf of Otwock kneels beside the coffin of
his sister Freydl-Masha in 1945 after he had exhumed
her body from the mass grave in which nineteen
members of his family had been buried
viii List of illustrations
helter-skelter after the Germans shot them.
Mordechai Braf’s own caption reads: ‘After
prolonged digging a frightful picture revealed itself
before our eyes. For what seemed like an eternity
we stood in shock. The corpses of my sister Freydl-
Masha (Frania), the wife of Shimon Friedman,
who was present at the site, and their six children
were completely intact – three years after they were
murdered! It was as if they hadn’t yet made peace
with their fate.’ From S. Kanc (ed.) Sefer zikaron
’otwotzk kartshev; Yizker-bukh tsu fareybikn dem
ondenk fun di kheyruv-gevorene yidishe kehilos
otvotsk karschev (Tel Aviv: ‘’Irgun yotz’ey ’otvotzk
be-yisra’el’ bay der mithilf fun di otvotsker un
kartshever landsmanshaftn in frankraykh, amerike
un kanade, 1968), col. 973. 46
2.5 Ephraim Weichselfish (centre) and Y. Fasserstein
(left) bear the coffin holding the ashes taken from
Chełmno during the ceremony, presided over by
Rabbi David Kahane (above right), to rebury them
in Kutno, 1945. From D. Shtokfish (ed.), Sefer
kutnah ve-hasevivah (Tel Aviv: ’Irgun yotz’ey kutnah
ve-hasevivah be-yisra’el uve-hutz la-’aretz, 1968), p. 404. 47
2.6 Survivors from Kutno surround the monument
unveiled in 1945, during the reburial of ashes from
Chełmno, in memory of the town’s Jewish victims;
Ephraim Weichselfish is visible in uniform to
the far left. From D. Shtokfish (ed.), Sefer kutnah
ve-hasevivah (Tel Aviv: ’Irgun yotz’ey kutnah
ve-hasevivah be-yisra’el uve-hutz la-’aretz, 1968), p. 403. 48
3.1 KGB officers look on as a forensic expert examines
human bones extracted from the Bykivnia mass
graves. April 1971. Source: Tymon Kretschmer,
with permission to publish from Mieczysław Góra,
deputy chair of Polish government investigations at
Bykivnia. The original is in an unpublished picture
album dated April 1971 and called ‘Fotodokumenty
mesta massovogo unichtozheniia liudei v period
nemetsko-fashistskoi okkupatsii g. Kieva (19-i
kvartal Dneprovskogo lisnichestva upravleniia
zelenoi zony)’. 66