The “Anatomy of a Genocide: A Case Study in Mass Murder” lecture by Omer Bartov will be held on Thursday, Jan. 23 from 4 to 6 p.m. at the UCLA Faculty Center. The event is organized by the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies.
In his talk, Bartov will explain how ethnic cleansing doesn’t occur as is so often portrayed in popular history, with the quick ascent of a vitriolic political leader and the unleashing of military might. It begins in seeming peace, slowly and often unnoticed, with the culmination of pent-up slights and grudges and indignities. The perpetrators aren’t only sociopathic soldiers. They are neighbors and friends and family. They are also middle-aged men who come from elsewhere, often with their wives and children and parents, and settle into a life of bourgeois comfort peppered with bouts of mass murder.
Bartov is the John P. Birkeland Distinguished Professor of European History at Brown University. He is the author of “Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz.”
The event is free and open to the public. RSVP is required for admission.
