Never again: Lessons of genocide in survivor testimonies from the Holocaust, Nanjing massacre and Rwandan genocide

Abstract

In the aftermath of traumatic events, individuals and groups seek to make sense of these experiences. ‘Never again’ is often considered the primary lesson of genocide. Yet, people may understand this lesson in different ways, and other lessons may also be relevant. The present paper reports a qualitative content analysis of publicly available testimonies from survivors of the Holocaust, the Rwandan Genocide and the Nanjing Massacre (N = 200), examining the lessons of genocide that these survivors shared publicly. We identified six broad categories of lessons that were represented across contexts and extended the lessons commonly considered: Lessons on the individual and interpersonal level, on the ingroup level, the (inclusive) intergroup level, the universal level, and concerning both collective memories and the future. These lessons go beyond ‘never again’ and show different individual and societal obligations and insights that survivors sharing their testimony deem most important to learn from their experience of genocide.