Every genocide in history has been notable for the minority of brave individuals and groups who put their own lives at risk to rescue its would be victims. Based on three case studies--the genocides of the Armenians, the Jews and the Rwandese Tutsi--this book is the first international comparative and multidisciplinary attempt to make rescue an object of research, while breaking free of the notion of "The Righteous Among the Nations." The result is an exceptionally rich and disturbing volume. While it is impossible to distill or describe what makes an individual into a rescuer, acts of rescue reveal a historical fact: the existence of an informal, underground network of rescuers-- however fragile--as soon as genocides get underway, and in every geographical and social context.
Jacques Semelin is Professor of Political Science and Modern history and Senior Researcher at CERI Sciences Po-CNRS, Paris. He holds a PhD in contemporary history from the Sorbonne (1986) and a post-graduate degree in psychopathology from Universite Paris V. A former post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University, Center for International Affairs (1986-1988), he is the founder and scientific director of the international Online Encyclopaedia of Mass Violence. Semelin is member of the editorial boards of the
European Review of History, the
Journal of Genocide Research and Vingtieme siecle. Member of the International Genocide Scholars Association (IGSA) and of the International Network of Genocide Scholars (INOGS). His publications include
Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide (Columbia University Press, 2007); "Taking Mann seriously?",
Political Studies Review,4, (3), September 2006; "What is genocide?" in
European Review of History, 12(1), March 2005.
Claire Andrieu is professor of contemporary history at Sciences Po, Paris. She co-edited the
Dictionnaire De Gaulle with Philippe Braud and Guillaume Piketty (Robert Laffont, 2006) and contributed to the
Dictionnaire historique de la Resistance edited by Francois Marcot (Robert Laffont, 2006). Her books about the French Resistance deal with its political project (
Le programme commun de la Resistance,
Editions de l'Erudit, 1984; and a co-edition:
Les nationalisations de la Liberation, Presses de Sciences Po, 1987). As a former member of the Fact-Finding Mission on the Spoliation of Jews in France, she published several books on spoliations and restitutions. Her current research is on the behaviour of European civil population toward fugitives in World War II.
Sarah Gensburger obtained a PhD in sociology from EHESS, on the expression of souvenirs through the title of RighteousA". Her publications include
De Jerusalem a Kigali. L'emergence de la categorie de JusteA" coomme paradigme memorielA" in Caroline Hahnel-Mesbard et al. (eds.), Cultures et memoire. Representation contemporaines de la memoire dans les espaces memoriels, les arts du visuel, la literature et le theatre (Edition de l'ecole polytechnique, 2008); with Agnizeszka Niewiedzial, Figure du Juste et politique publique de la memoire en Pologne: entre relations diplomatiques et structures socialsA", Critiques Internationale 1, 2007, and Les figures du 'Juste' et du resistant et l'evolution de la memoire historique francaise de l'OccupationA", Revue francaise de sciences politiques, 52 (2-3), 2002.
