"It's not just other people's history. It's our own history, as well, because these people ... live right here among us," Steve High says.Photograph by : ALLEN MCINNIS THE GAZETTESunday, June 15, 2008
JEFF HEINRICH, The Gazette
Thousands of survivors of genocide live in Montreal: among them, elderly Jews who lived through the Holocaust in Europe, Africans who escaped the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and Cambodians who fled the Khmer Rouge genocide of the late 1970s.
Now, in an ambitious oral-history project, a Concordia University research team is starting to interview more than 500 of these survivors, as well as people who escaped deadly political violence in Haiti since the 1960s.
Thirty-eight researchers and community-group volunteers are recording people's experiences on digital video or audio in their own homes and archiving them for future use. Refugee youths will also be interviewed, theatre workshops will be formed based on testimonies, and genocide victims will eventually give guest lectures in high schools and CEGEP.
"It's hard to imagine a more important area of research than genocide and war and traumatic memory - these are profoundly important parts of the human experience," said Steve High, an oral historian who holds Concordia's Canada Research Chair in Public History.
"It's not just other people's history. It's our own history, as well, because these people don't just live someplace far off - they live right here among us." Backed by a $1.5-million federal grant, the project is called Life Stories of Montrealers Displaced by War, Genocide and Other Human-Rights Violations.
Today, High and other project leaders and participants will hold an annual meeting to plot the next four years of their research for this project. The interviews will be catalogued in a database, and might eventually be accessible to the public online.
"This project gives voice to those who escaped genocide, wherever it happened in the world," said Callixte Kabayiza, 57, president of the Association of Parents and Friends of Genocide Victims in Rwanda, known as PAGE-Rwanda.
"Scholars usually do research on people, not with them," said Kabayiza, who arrived in Quebec at the height of his country's genocide. "That's what makes this project different. It's giving people a chance to write their own stories, through the means of the extended interview. That's the power of oral history." Typically, interviewees will spend between two and five hours altogether recounting their stories, long enough for the the account to be deep and as full as possible, the researchers believe.
"It's a real chance for everyone to talk from the bottom of their hearts about something many have never talked about," said Savary Chhem-Kieth, 54, president of the Communauté angkorienne du Canada, a Montreal-based Cambodian association.
"A lot of people have been so busy making a living here, learning a new language, simply surviving, that they haven't had the opportunity to really talk about the past and what brought them here," said Chhem-Kieth, who escaped the Khmer atrocities by living abroad as a student.
For the project, some 150 Holocaust survivors will be interviewed, along with 200 people from Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as 150 Cambodians and 50 Haitians.
Among them, researchers expect to find not only victims, but perpetrators, too. But the aim of the project isn't to expose anyone. That's why anyone who wants to can ask for anonymity, and have their names changed in the research archives that will eventually be made available to the public.
"We're not going on a hunt for anyone," Chhem-Kieth cautioned. "That's not the point of the exercise. We're all victims, in a way, so it would be pointless." Same goes for refugees whose stories might not jibe with accounts they gave when they asked for status in Canada - they, too, won't be challenged.
"It's not about getting at the truth - it's about getting at people's own truth," High said. "Interviews aren't an objective source of information." The intercultural approach to learning about genocide is a natural one, Kabayiza said, because in Quebec, different groups have similar histories. Rwandans, for example, are very interested in how Jews have organized the memory of their tragedy, especially at the Holocaust Memorial Centre.
"The evil of genocide is universal," he said. "Each of us has lived it in own own way, of course, but we can share some of that unfortunate history in a spirit of peace and mutual understanding." For more information on Life Stories, contact Luis Van Isschot at 514-848-2424, Local 7920, or cura@alcor.concordia.ca jheinrich@ thegazette.canwest.com
JEFF HEINRICH, The Gazette
Thousands of survivors of genocide live in Montreal: among them, elderly Jews who lived through the Holocaust in Europe, Africans who escaped the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and Cambodians who fled the Khmer Rouge genocide of the late 1970s.
Now, in an ambitious oral-history project, a Concordia University research team is starting to interview more than 500 of these survivors, as well as people who escaped deadly political violence in Haiti since the 1960s.
Thirty-eight researchers and community-group volunteers are recording people's experiences on digital video or audio in their own homes and archiving them for future use. Refugee youths will also be interviewed, theatre workshops will be formed based on testimonies, and genocide victims will eventually give guest lectures in high schools and CEGEP.
"It's hard to imagine a more important area of research than genocide and war and traumatic memory - these are profoundly important parts of the human experience," said Steve High, an oral historian who holds Concordia's Canada Research Chair in Public History.
"It's not just other people's history. It's our own history, as well, because these people don't just live someplace far off - they live right here among us." Backed by a $1.5-million federal grant, the project is called Life Stories of Montrealers Displaced by War, Genocide and Other Human-Rights Violations.
Today, High and other project leaders and participants will hold an annual meeting to plot the next four years of their research for this project. The interviews will be catalogued in a database, and might eventually be accessible to the public online.
"This project gives voice to those who escaped genocide, wherever it happened in the world," said Callixte Kabayiza, 57, president of the Association of Parents and Friends of Genocide Victims in Rwanda, known as PAGE-Rwanda.
"Scholars usually do research on people, not with them," said Kabayiza, who arrived in Quebec at the height of his country's genocide. "That's what makes this project different. It's giving people a chance to write their own stories, through the means of the extended interview. That's the power of oral history." Typically, interviewees will spend between two and five hours altogether recounting their stories, long enough for the the account to be deep and as full as possible, the researchers believe.
"It's a real chance for everyone to talk from the bottom of their hearts about something many have never talked about," said Savary Chhem-Kieth, 54, president of the Communauté angkorienne du Canada, a Montreal-based Cambodian association.
"A lot of people have been so busy making a living here, learning a new language, simply surviving, that they haven't had the opportunity to really talk about the past and what brought them here," said Chhem-Kieth, who escaped the Khmer atrocities by living abroad as a student.
For the project, some 150 Holocaust survivors will be interviewed, along with 200 people from Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as 150 Cambodians and 50 Haitians.
Among them, researchers expect to find not only victims, but perpetrators, too. But the aim of the project isn't to expose anyone. That's why anyone who wants to can ask for anonymity, and have their names changed in the research archives that will eventually be made available to the public.
"We're not going on a hunt for anyone," Chhem-Kieth cautioned. "That's not the point of the exercise. We're all victims, in a way, so it would be pointless." Same goes for refugees whose stories might not jibe with accounts they gave when they asked for status in Canada - they, too, won't be challenged.
"It's not about getting at the truth - it's about getting at people's own truth," High said. "Interviews aren't an objective source of information." The intercultural approach to learning about genocide is a natural one, Kabayiza said, because in Quebec, different groups have similar histories. Rwandans, for example, are very interested in how Jews have organized the memory of their tragedy, especially at the Holocaust Memorial Centre.
"The evil of genocide is universal," he said. "Each of us has lived it in own own way, of course, but we can share some of that unfortunate history in a spirit of peace and mutual understanding." For more information on Life Stories, contact Luis Van Isschot at 514-848-2424, Local 7920, or cura@alcor.concordia.ca jheinrich@ thegazette.canwest.com
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