NIOD Rewind Podcast on War & Violence

How do researchers navigate field research in conflict-affected societies? In this episode of NIOD Rewind on War and Violence, we explore the challenges and opportunities of conducting field research. Host Anne van Mourik engages with researchers Solange Fontana and Lauren Gould, both with extensive experience in conflict-impacted societies. Why are first-hand experiences important when researching war and violence? What does the increasing shift to remote warfare mean for scholars seeking to conduct fieldwork? When doing fieldwork, how do you manage security? And how to deal with the emotional toll the work might take?

How to use ego-documents in research on war and violence? In this episode Anne van Mourik speaks with Clara Dijkstra (Cambridge University), and Carlijn Keijzer, Afke Berger and Milan van Lange (NIOD) about this question. The term ego-documents pertains to the realm of the individual, encompassing both the people who create these personal records and the content they document. Besides, as historical sources, ego-documents have a lot to offer beyond the individual’s perspective. This episode delves into a topic central to the NIOD: the intricate connection between ego documents and research, discussing some of the (im)possibilities, pitfalls, and opportunities of using such sources in documenting and studying the history of war.

In this episode Anne van Mourik speaks with visual historian Kylie Thomas (University College Cork and NIOD) about the meaning of the medium of photography for thinking about the Holocaust. How can photographs intersect with how we perceive this history? What happens when images relating to the Holocaust, for example of Anne Frank, become ubiquitous? In this conversation, Kylie and Anne focus on the work of the Austrian-born Jewish photographer Dora Kallmus (1891-1963).  How do her photographs of slaughtered animals function in the aftermath of the Holocaust? 

"Visual Narratives of Catastrophe" is a quote from Lisa Silverman, Art of Loss: Madame d’Ora, Photography and the Restitution of Haus Doranna, in: Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 60, 1 (2015).

Laurien Vastenhout and Anne van Mourik speak with historian Anna Hájková about her landmark work The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt (Oxford University Press). What was life in the Theresienstadt ghetto like, and what does this case study tell us more generally about human behaviour under extreme conditions? How should we (re)define the concept of agency in the context of Holocaust and Genocide Studies (and beyond)? And what is the meaning of kinship and family ties in times of crisis?

Wat kun je lezen in de dagboekcollectie van het NIOD? Aan de hand van dagboekbeschrijvingen vertelt collectiespecialist Michiel Wilmink over de levens van mensen in de Tweede Wereldoorlog. We horen over de date-ervaringen van dwangarbeider, over een politieman die Jodenarresteert en over hoe het dagelijks leven voor sommigen doorging – terwijl het voor anderen drastisch veranderde. Wil je een dagboek schenken of komen inzien? Neem dan contact op het NIOD. 

How do Kurdish women struggle to voice themselves in contemporary Turkey? Anne van Mourik speaks with Marlene Schäfers (Utrecht University) about her book ‘Voices that Matter: Kurdish Women at the Limits of Representation in Contemporary Turkey’ (University of Chicago Press, 2022). What does it mean to ‘have a voice’ in a context of protracted political violence? To what extent do Kurdish women’s gaining voices lead to empowerment? And how does Marlene, as a scholar specialized in women’s struggle for voice, view the current protests in Iran?

Photo: Braxton Hood. Kurdish singer (dengbêj) Gazîn performing via mobile phone, Wan, Turkey, 2011.

Why does the Jewish Council phenomenon remain such a controversial topic? Anne van Mourik speaks with Laurien Vastenhout on her new book ‘Between Community and Collaboration: “Jewish Councils” in Western Europe under Nazi Occupation’ (Cambridge University Press). What were differences and similarities between the ‘Jewish Councils’ across occupied Western Europe? What room for manoeuvre did the Jewish leaders have, and what impact did local factors have on the form and function of these Councils? We talk about the importance of comparative analyses, socio-historical conditions in Western Europe during the war, and many other themes.

Photograph by Johan de Haas, reproduced by kind permission of the De Haas family and the NIOD

What was the Indonesian revolution (1945-1949) like as a lived experience? Anne van Mourik speaks with historians Abdul Wahid, Yulianti and Roel Frakking about their new book Revolutionary Worlds: Local Perspectives and Dynamics during the Indonesian Independence War, 1945-49 (Amsterdam University Press). With the book, Indonesian and Dutch researchers bring together two historiographical traditions to shed light on the complexities of the revolutionary war. What did this collaborative project yield? And what does it mean that the book’s primary focus lies with the period between 1945 and 1950? What stories emerge when the consequences of the revolution for different communities locally are centered?

Image: ‘The guerilla’s are defining their tactics’ (Gerilya Mengatur Siasat) 1964. Painting by S. Sudjojono, Presidential palace, Bogor.

How is memory weaponised in the Russian-Ukrainian war? In this episode, Anne van Mourik and Thijs Bouwknegt talk with historian Nanci Adler. How does she, as a scholar of transitional justice, reflect on this conflict? What is the significance of Vladimir Putin’s shut down of the Russian human rights organisation Memorial? And how does this feed in to Russia’s repression of its Stalinist history?

Why do humans fight? Anne van Mourik speaks with Sinisa Malešević (University College Dublin) on his new book (published by Cambridge University Press). Drawing on interviews with former combatants, Sinisa explores how violence operates in the context of face-to-face actions. What motivates human beings to fight? To what extent do people fight for reasons of self-interest? And in which contexts is fighting more likely to happen?

In this episode Anne van Mourik and Dat Nguyen talk with Tam Ngo and Sarah Wagner on the remains of the war dead of the Vietnam-American War (1957-1975). Following the end of the war, the commemoration and identification of the fallen and missing-in-action soldiers from both the Vietnamese (North and South) and American sides remains a contentious issue. With Tam and Dat researching respectively the North- and South Vietnamese perspectives and Sarah the U.S. perspective, this episode approaches the topic from three different angles of the war. What is the contention about? How are the bones used for necro-political and necro-governmental agendas over time?

Ever since its founding an important theme within NIOD research has been 'violence': the perpetration of violence, the legacies of violence, and the multilayered experience of violence and its effects on individuals, communities and nations.

To renew thinking on the core question of what constitutes violence and how to study it, in June 2022 the NIOD organised, together with the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) a workshop on the question ‘What is violence? Debates and Directions’. In this episode, scholars Sinisa Malesevic, Tatjana Tönsmeyer, Avi Sharma and Ton Zwaan discuss how they use the concept of violence in their work. How to address less visible kinds of violence, such as long-term pollution or climate change, which have the potential to kill entire populations and destroy entire regions of the world? How can research on violence draw attention to institutionalised inequalities and exploitation? And who actually decides what counts as violence – in the past but also in the present and future?

Het NIOD beheert meer dan 2500 meter archiefmateriaal: van een op sigarettenvloei geschreven dagboek uit een Japans interneringskamp in de Tweede Wereldoorlog tot aan archiefmateriaal verzameld en opgemaakt gedurende het Srebrenica onderzoek in 1996-2002. Hoe wordt deze bulk aan data opgeslagen en doorzoekbaar gemaakt? Anne van Mourik spreekt met Carlijn Keijzer, NIOD beleidsadviseur Collecties en Diensten. De totstandkoming van archieven is mensenwerk waarbij keuzes worden gemaakt over het bewaren en structureren van het materiaal. Wat betekent deze selectie en waardering voor welke geschiedenissen wel en niet uitgelicht worden? Hoe reflecteren bestaande machtsstructuren op welke verhalen in de archieven worden verteld en welke worden vergeten?

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In de aflevering wordt verwezen naar: Ismee Tames, 'Digitale ontsluiting van het Centraal Archief Bijzondere Rechtspleging: Mogelijkheden en onmogelijkheden', Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 133 no. 2 (2020): 303 - 324.

Why was music key to anticolonial and antiracist cultural politics in interwar Paris? Anne van Mourik interviews Rachel Gillet on her new book At Home in Our Sounds: Music, Race, and Cultural Politics in Interwar Paris. In the aftermath of World War I, Black men and women participated in the Parisian cultural and political life via music. How could music function to build community and assert belonging? And how was it deployed to combat fascism and racism in the early 1930s?

In this episode of NIOD Rewind Anne van Mourik speaks with Ralf Futselaar about his inaugural lecture Born under a bad sign. The indelible Marks of Total War on Twentieth Century Lives (November 2021). Ralf warns against focusing too much on individual lives in historical narratives that suppose to ‘give history a face’. Instead, he advocates to investigate warfare and its long-term consequences on large, specific groups of people. What are the drawbacks of making history relatable by telling individual life stories to represent violent episodes? How can computational analysis of large data sets help us understand group effects of violent episodes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? Can such analyses further our understandings of the Dutch Hunger Winter, for example?

Photo: Collectie Fries Verzetsmuseum, Leeuwarden

How did Germany and the Netherlands deal with violent political groups of the 60s and 70s? How can we compare this with Dutch reactions to violent political groups? And how to understand current far right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) politics? Anne van Mourik speaks with professor Jacco Pekelder about the dynamics of violence in Germany and the Netherlands in the long twentieth century. In 2021 Jacco got assigned as head of the Centre of Netherlands-Studies and in his work deals with the relationship between Germany and the Netherlands. What are his plans for future research?​

In the interview, Jacco spoke about the film 'Buongiorno notte' (2003) directed by Marco Bellochio.

Picture: Rob Bogaerts/ Dutch National Archives/ Anefo

How and why did the rules of war come about? To what extent and how can the 1949 Geneva Conventions be operationalised in both past and contemporary war? In this episode Anne van Mourik and Thijs Bouwknegt talk with historian Boyd van Dijk about his brand-new book Preparing for War: The Making of the Geneva Conventions (Oxford University Press, 2022). Van Dijk takes us through rationales for the Conventions, by placing them in world historical context and highlighting the role played by some remarkable people. Also, he discusses how the Geneva Conventions could provide a prism through which to perceive the Dutch colonial war in Indonesia between 1945 and 1949, and today’s Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Image: ICRC Audiovisual Archives, V-P-HIST-03538-05.

What is the value and meaning of political apologies across cultures? In this episode Anne van Mourik speaks with historian Marieke Zoodsma, who researches how apologies are expressed and received across the world. How do political authorities across the world address or redress past wrongdoings in these accounts? How can we understand the large number of political apologies in the recent past? And can political excuses effectively help processing suffering or lead to reconciliation?

https://www.politicalapologies.com/

Photo: visitors paying their respects at the 2019 commemoration of the Jeju 4.3 Uprising, Jeju, Republic of Korea. By Marieke Zoodsma.

Audio fragment: NOS Koningspaar in Indonesië (2020)

How did the First World War transform the lives of ordinary people all over the world? In the latest episode of NIOD Rewind, Anne van Mourik interviews Maartje Abbenhuis and Ismee Tames about their new book Global War, Global Catastrophe: Neutrals, Belligerents and the Transformations of the First World War. Conventionally, the history of The First World War is predominantly one of Western belligerents and battlefields. Maartje and Ismee, however, turn this traditional history inside out and focus on the histories of those who are often marginalised in the narratives on the war. What did the war mean for people and societies in colonies and neutral states? How did this innovative idea for the book came about? And what is it that we can learn from the book for our present-day society?

What did it mean to live in Europe under German occupation?
In this episode Anne van Mourik and Thijs Bouwknegt talk with professor Tatjana Tönsmeyer on the new Source Edition Fighting Hunger, Dealing with Shortage. Everyday Life under Occupation in World War II Europe. How did these two volumes come about, and what sources does it cover? And in what way did food shortages affect the lives of ordinary people as well as specific groups such as Jews, Sinti and Roma, and women — and how did they cope with it?

(Image: Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe Marburg, Image Archive)

In deze speciale editie van Niod Rewind zitten Anne van Mourik en Thijs Bouwknegt aan de directeurstafel van het Niod. Ze spreken met Martijn Eickhoff en Frank van Vree. Martijn volgde op 1 september 2021 Frank op als directeur. Wat dreef hen om de Tweede Wereldoorlog, de Holocaust en wereldwijd massaal geweld te gaan onderzoeken? Hoe reflecteert Frank op zijn voorbije directeurschap? En hoe ziet Martijn de toekomst van het instituut voor zich?

Muziek intro: Roy van Rosendaal
Muziek: Rosemary and Garlic

War, mass violence and its consequences are not a thing of the past. They are very much present in the world of today and tomorrow.

In collaboration with the NIAS, researchers of the NIOD Institute are teaming up with a group of international scholars, in order to develop an innovative and multidisciplinary research agenda in the field of the multiple connections between the topic of ‘war and society’ in the recent past - and in the world of today.

In this episode of the podcast Niod Rewind, Anne van Mourik speaks with several of these researchers about this new fellowship program. Why is it so important to investigate the past in light of the present? And how can we connect histories of mass violence with present-day societies?

​

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The people in this episode:

Ismee Tames

Sophie de Schaepdrijver

Siniša Malešević

Avi Sharma

Ville Kivimäki

​

This podcast was made with the help of: Bethany Warner and Alex Strete

What kind of knowledge can we gain from WWII games? In episode 12 of Niod Rewind, Anne van Mourik interviews Pieter van den Heede about his dissertation 'Engaging with the Second World War through Digital Gaming', which he defended last February (2021). Pieter studied how digital entertainment games such as Call of Duty represent the war and the Holocaust in particular, and how players reflect on playing these games.

To what extent do studios make WWII games according to the last historical insights about how people actually dealt with this mass violence? How is it that some games become political and thereby seem to align with right-wing ideologies?

In this episode of NIOD Rewind, Anne van Mourik speaks  with Ismee Tames and Robert Gildea about their new book Fighters across  Frontiers. Transnational resistance in Europe, 1936-1948. The book is  the product of years of research by a team of two dozen historians, and  it reveals that resistance against Fascism was not narrowly delineated  by country but startlingly transnational.

What did Ismee and  Robert learn from this collaborative scholarship? How did the book come about? Where do the experiences of the transnational fighters take us?  And what does it tell us?

Anne van Mourik talks with Roel Frakking on the term 'extreme violence'  and the importance of local dynamics in researching decolonisation  conflict. Roel is a postdoc researcher at the Royal Netherlands  Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (KITLV, Leiden) where he is  researching the regional dynamics of the Indonesian war against Dutch  recolonisation (1945-1950). His latest publication, co-authored with  Professor Martin Thomas (Exeter), deals with the micro-dynamics of  violence during decolonization conflicts in Southeast Asia and Africa  after 1945 in the Low Countries Historical Review 135, 2 (2020).

In episode 9 of NIOD REWIND, Anne van Mourik and Thijs Bouwknegt interview historian Kerstin von Lingen.

Prof. Dr. Kerstin von Lingen is a historian and researcher, Professor at the Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna. From 2013-2017, she led an independent research group at Heidelberg University in the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” entitled “Transcultural Justice: Legal Flows and the Emergence of International Justice within the East Asian War Crimes Trials, 1946-1954,” supervising four doctoral dissertations on the Soviet, Chinese, Dutch, and French war crimes trial policies in Asia, respectively. Her publications include two monographs in English, Kesselring’s Last Battle: War Crimes Trials and Cold War Politics, 1945-1960 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2009) and Allen Dulles, the OSS and Nazi War Criminals: The Dynamics of Selective Prosecution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). Her edited volumes include: Transcultural Justice at the Tokyo Tribunal: The Allied Struggle for Justice, 1946-48 (Brill 2018); Justice in times of turmoil: War Crimes trials in the Wake of Decolonization and Cold War in Asia(Palgrave 2016); Debating Collaboration and Complicity in War Crimes Trials in Asia (Palgrave 2017). In German, she published the multi-authored volumes Kriegserfahrung und nationale Identität in Europa [War experience and national identity in Europe after 1945], Paderborn: Schoeningh, 2009, and co-edited with Klaus Gestwa, Zwangsarbeit als Kriegsressource in Europa und Asien [Forced labor as a resource of War: European and Asian perspectives), Schoening 2014.

CREDITS
Music, intro/ outro: Roy van Rosendaal
Logo: Jesper Buursink
Advice: Ismee Tames
Montage/Editing: Anne van Mourik

In episode 8 of NIOD REWIND, Anne van Mourik and Thijs Bouwknegt interview historian Iva Vukušić. Iva is a lecturer at Utrecht University and a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London. She recently defended her PhD — online (!) — which focuses on Serbian paramilitaries and irregular armed forces during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Iva worked for the Sense News Agency in The Hague, analyzing evidence from trials at the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and before that, she was an analyst and researcher at the Special War Crimes Department of the State Prosecutor’s office in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Follow her on Twitter: @VukusicIva

CREDITS

Music, intro/ outro: Roy van Rosendaal
Logo: Jesper Buursink
Advice: Ismee Tames
Montage/Editing: Anne van Mourik

In deze speciale reeks van de NIOD Rewind podcast gaan  onderzoekers van het NIOD in op de coronacrisis en de onzekere tijden  die dit met zich mee brengt. Hoe ervaren zij de crisis zelf? En hoe  analyseren zij, vanuit het perspectief van hun onderzoek, de  gebeurtenissen in de samenleving?

Anne van Mourik spreekt met  NIOD-directeur Frank van Vree. Hoe analyseert hij de coronacrisis? Welke  historische analogieën ziet hij? En het NIOD staat deze week stil bij  het 75-jarig bestaan, hoe ziet Frank de toekomst van het instituut?

Een podcast door: Anne van Mourik, Thijs Bouwknegt en Anne-Lise Bobeldijk.

Credits:
Montage: Anne van Mourik
Foto logo: Joris van den Tol
Muziek intro/ outro: Roy van Rosendaal
Advies: Ismee Tames

In deze speciale reeks van de NIOD Rewind podcast gaan  onderzoekers van het NIOD in op de coronacrisis en de onzekere tijden  die dit met zich mee brengt. Hoe ervaren zij de crisis zelf? En hoe  analyseren zij, vanuit het perspectief van hun onderzoek, de  gebeurtenissen in de samenleving? In de derde aflevering spreekt  Anne-Lise Bobeldijk met Ralf Futselaar over medische geschiedenis,  hamsteren en zijn werk aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam.

Een podcast door: Anne van Mourik, Thijs Bouwknegt en Anne-Lise Bobeldijk.

Credits:
Montage: Anne van Mourik
Foto logo: Joris van den Tol
Muziek intro/ outro: Roy van Rosendaal
Advies: Ismee Tames

In this seventh episode of NIOD REWIND Anne van Mourik and Thijs Bouwknegt interview Prof. dr. Peter Romijn. Peter is head of the Research Department of the NIOD and Professor of Twentieth-Century History at the University of Amsterdam.

Recently he published a new book about The Netherlands at war in Europe and Asia, 1940-1950. During the Second World War both the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia) were under German and Japanese occupation (1940-1945). After being liberated, the Netherlands engaged in a violent decolonisation war in Indonesia (1945-1950). In his book, Peter, refuses to see the latter war only as an aftermath of the former one; it focuses on the many continuities of a society continuously mobilised for internal conflict and external warfare, trying to come to terms with the profound changes in international relations.

More information on his book can be found here (in Dutch): https://www.niod.nl/nl/de-lange-tweede-wereldoorlog-nederland-1940-1949

Muziek intro/ outro: Roy van Rosendaal
Logo: Jesper Buursink
Advies: Ismee Tames
Montage: Anne van Mourik

In deze speciale reeks van de NIOD Rewind podcast gaan  onderzoekers van het NIOD in op de coronacrisis en de onzekere tijden  die dit met zich mee brengt. Hoe ervaren zij de crisis zelf? En hoe  analyseren zij, vanuit het perspectief van hun onderzoek, de  gebeurtenissen in de samenleving? In de tweede aflevering spreekt Thijs  Bouwknegt de kersverse hoogleraar Holocaust en Genocide Studies, Uğur  Ümit Üngör.

Een podcast door: Anne van Mourik, Thijs Bouwknegt en Anne-Lise Bobeldijk.

Credits:
Foto logo: Joris van den Tol
Muziek intro/outro: Roy van Rosendaal
Advies: Ismee Tames.

In deze speciale reeks van de NIOD Rewind podcast gaan  onderzoekers van het NIOD in op de coronacrisis en de onzekere tijden  die dit met zich mee brengt. Hoe ervaren zij de crisis zelf? En hoe  analyseren zij, vanuit het perspectief van hun onderzoek, de  gebeurtenissen in de samenleving? In de eerste aflevering spreekt Anne  van Mourik met Ismee Tames.

Een podcast door: Anne van Mourik, Thijs Bouwknegt en Anne-Lise Bobeldijk.

Foto logo: Joris van den Tol
Muziek intro/ outro: Roy van Rosendaal
Advies: Ismee Tames

Anne talks with Farabi Fakih about the Indonesian national identity during the revolutionary period in Indonesia (1946-1948). Farabi is a lecturer at the History Department, Universitas Gadjah Mada. His main research interests are on urban history, the history of the Indonesian state and the intellectual history of Indonesia. In the background you hear the noise of life at UGM, where the interview was taken.

Further reading:
K’tut Tantri, Revolt in Paradise (1989).

Music:
-       Indonesia Raya
-       NonaRia performed at Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival (JJF) at JI Expo, Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, Indonesia on March 2nd, 2018 (by Senang0906)
-       Amiina
-       Rosemary and Garlic​

The NIOD REWIND Podcast presents interviews with scholars on the history  and study of mass violence, war and genocide. In the second episode  Anne van Mourik and Thijs Bouwknegt speak with Wim Manuhutu.

The NIOD REWIND podcast presents interviews with scholars on the history and study of mass violence, war and genocide. In the first episode Anne  van Mourik and Thijs Bouwknegt talk to Professor Kees Ribbens about his research on World War Two and the representation of the Holocaust in  comic books and popular culture.