Skeletal evidence of the ethnic cleansing actions in the Free City of Danzig (1939-1942) based on the KL Stutthof victims analysis.

In the early days of World War II, many of the prominent and influential people of Polish nationality from the Free City of Danzig were arrested by the Germans and sent to the nearby concentration camp KL Stutthof. Nearly a hundred of them died within the next seven months upon their arrival, and were buried in a clandestine mass grave in a nearby forest. However, the exact nature of their death is unknown, as it is unclear what the attitude of the aggressors was toward the victims. We do not know whether there was only one executioner or there were several assassins, nor if the killing methodology was consistent with the other state-regulated executions. The studied material represents the commingled remains of a minimum thirty-four people, possibly all male, aged from under eighteen to over sixty at the time of death. Perimortem traumatic lesions are shown mainly on the skull bones. We asked whether the perimortem trauma lesions visible on the victims' skeletons could be informative on the cause and manner of their death. Our results show the prevalence of the perimortem trauma inflicted by a blunt object are on the parietal bones above the Hat Brim Line (HBL), which is commonly associated with a violent attack. The gunshot trauma was usually localized on the occipital bone or posterior parietal, which could indicate a shot to the back of the head, and this was commonly encountered during executions. No signs of defensive injuries can be explained either by restraining of the hands or by a surprise attack. The abundance and variability of the trauma type can be evident of multiple assailants. Moreover, the multiple impact points detected on several crania prove unnecessary overkill and brutality, which reflects the personal attitudes of the executioners towards the victims.

[How can we explain the crimes of nazis doctors in Auschwitz?] / Comment peut-on expliquer les crimes des médecins nazis à Auschwitz ?

The Nazi doctors committed crimes in the camp of Auschwitz which constitute the darkest page in the history of medicine of the twentieth century. They were largely directly involved in the murder of the 1.1 million Jewish majority and about 21,000 gypsies who were transported from all over Europe. How can we explain the intellectual journey of those men who had embraced the medical career to relieve their neighbors? How could these cultivated and refined men, from the most prestigious faculties of medicine, have been able to achieve activities ethically unacceptable? Eight factors help to explain the crimes committed by these educated and cultivated SS doctors: indoctrination fervent to Nazism, adherence to racial hygiene, a false sense of participation in a "public health enterprise", virulent anti-Semitism, unreserved obedience to orders, the opportunity to avoid the danger of fighting areas, the ambition to carry out medical research and the desire to improve surgical knowledge.

Victor's justice: atrocities in postwar Nigeria.

The Nigerian Government's declaration of 'no victor, no vanquished' after the capitulation of Biafra on 12 January 1970, was applauded as the right step towards reconciliation and transition from war to peace. Despite this declaration and assurance of amnesty, the Nigerian Government and its soldiers still engaged in acts that amounted to retributive justice. They starved and killed innocent Biafran civilians, looted their property and raped their women. Surprisingly, these postwar atrocities committed against former Biafrans have been largely ignored in the historiography of the Nigeria-Biafra War. This paper seeks to fill the gap in the war literature by interrogating Nigerian Government's attitude towards the postwar humanitarian crisis and crimes against humanity in former Biafra. The paper argues that former Biafrans were not fully reintegrated into the Nigerian society and that the Nigerian Government deliberately neglected them to die in large numbers, thereby making it difficult for the war victims to recover from the hardships of the conflict.

Australia: The 'Good' Genocide Perpetrator?

In 1949, federal parliamentarians were indignant when asked to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (hereafter, UNGC). We could not in any way be associated with 'the unthinkable' crime, senior members claimed, because we are 'a moral people' with a 'clean record'. This essay assesses the 'decent' Australian democrats who, as the indelible records show, set out to kill the Aboriginal people they deemed 'vermin' and then later, decided to engage in a eugenicist fantasy to rid Australia of Aborigines by intermarriage or, failing that, forcibly removing their children in large numbers. The colonial frontier killings were justified as 'dispersing kangaroos'. Child removals were done 'in their best interests'. This essay attempts to gain an insight into the mindset of those who did commit 'the unthinkable' crime of genocide: killing, removal of children, and 'causing serious bodily and mental harm'. Subsequent policies infantalised the Aboriginal and Islander population and denied them basic human rights.