A Suggested Reading Program on Genocide
Compiled by Marta Kozbur
Due to the heightened awareness of the atrocities of genocide, as well as the expansion of
mandated holocaust and genocide education in Illinois, teachers and students are expressing a
keen interest in knowing more on the subject. As a result, the following books intended for
young adult audiences that specifically deal with genocide have been carefully selected and
compiled for use by teachers in the classroom. These selections include historical fiction, poetry
and prose, a graphic novel and nationally recognized documentaries.
In order to coincide with House Bill 312 signed into law on August 5, 2005 by Governor
Blagojevich, the attached recommended books focus on the genocides in Armenia, Ukraine,
Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Sudan and the Holocaust. The law requires Illinois students in
elementary and high school to learn not only about the horrific events of the holocaust but to also
learn about other acts of genocide which have taken place in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries.
The history of genocide is largely unrecorded or recorded with a bias, since the victors generally
write history. For example, the earliest known act of genocide occurred in 146 B.C when the
Romans annihilated over 150,000 men, women and children during the Carthage Genocide.
Despite the large number of deaths, little is recorded or remains to document this incident.
Another example is, much of Turkey still denies acts of ethnic cleansing during the three-year
killing of Armenians beginning in 1915, which brutally took the lives of 1,500,000 persons.
Therefore in selecting the following recommended books, careful consideration was given to
reliability and the offering of varying viewpoints.
The definition of the term genocide and its interpretations are largely debated. Polish lawyer
Raphael Lemkin did not coin the word itself until 1943. Simply put, genocide is the systematic
mass killing of a particular group of unarmed people. “It derives from the Greek word genos,
which means “race” and cide, from the Latin verb caedere, which means to kill” (Springer,
2006). Discussion of the definition of genocide is an important part to any lesson using the
suggested texts. Questions will most certainly arise as you have the discussion with your
students. For example, was colonization of the Americas an act of genocide of the American
Indians? Is the inability to provide medical treatment to HIV/AIDS patients an act of genocide?
The suggested reading list and coinciding questions are listed chronologically, covering the mass
killings in the order in which they occurred. Discussion of natural rights and observance of
human rights are addressed as outlined by the 1945 United Nations charter, as they pertain to the
readings. The topic of genocide brings much to the table for discussion. Why does it occur?
How can it occur? Why isn't it stopped? Students typically express an intense interest in the
topic, so a passionate conversation in the classroom is likely.
SUGGESTED CLASSROOM PROGRAM
Duration: 6 Weeks
Week One: The first week covers the Armenian Genocide, which occurred during World War I
when Turkey entered the war as a German ally. Students will be asked to read Forgotten Fire by
Adam Bagdasarian. Bagdasarian was inspired to write this story after hearing a tape of his great
uncle’s memoir as a boy in Armenia in 1915. Bagdasarian first wrote a short story entitled The
Survivor about his great uncle’s experience. He later spent ten years writing Forgotten Fire. This
novel is recognized as a notable in teen literature. It has won numerous awards including
YALSA’s 2001 Best Book for Young Adults list; YALSA’s 2004 Outstanding Books for the
College Bound; a Booklist Editor’s Choice Award; and was a National Book Award finalist.
Week Two: The second week examines the Soviet man-made famine in Ukraine. Holodomor,
Ukraine’s Genocide of 1932-1933, claimed the lives of over 7 million people, yet until recently it
has remained veiled in obscurity. In the space of little more than a decade, the Soviet Union
managed to inflict two devastating famines on its people and provide a blueprint for how
governments could and would transform limited natural disasters into full-blown starvation.
Clips from two movies are suggested to be shown during week two, The Harvest of Despair and
Holodomor. The Harvest of Despair, produced in Canada, documents the Famine using
interviews with survivors and scholars to supplement photographic evidence and film footage.
This film received numerous international awards, including an Academy Award nomination. It
was also featured on William F. Buckley’s program, Firing Line. The other film, Holodomor,
was the first feature-length documentary film being produced in the United States about
Ukraine’s genocide. Students should be asked to read The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet
Collectivization and the Terror-Famine by Robert Conquest.
Week Three: During week three, students should read The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. The
Book Thief is a 2007 Printz Honor Book, and received starred reviews from both The Bulletin of
the Center for Children's Books and Horn Book. Death narrates this story about Liesel, a young
German girl growing up in the heart of Nazi Germany. Liesel has faced far too much heartache
for her young age, but she turns to books to help her survive her memories. When books become
scarce in her small town, Liesel begins stealing them from anywhere she can, including a book
burning and the mayor's personal library. The Book Thief shows the link between words and the
endurance of the human spirit.
Week Four: The suggested book for week four is First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of
Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung. This is a true account of a young girl whose family was
decimated by the Khmer Rouge under the direction of Pol Pot. Ung's story focuses on multiple
aspects of war; the loss of family members shows just how important and meaningful these
relationships are, how governments can fail their citizens, and the ways that economic and social
classes can define who we are. Loung's will to survive teaches a powerful lesson, and readers
will not be unchanged by this recollection. In addition, Ung's dedication to the Campaign for a
Landmine Free World is an excellent example of the importance of commitment.
Week Five: Week five covers the genocide in Bosnia. Bosnian Genocide is used to refer either
to the genocide committed by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica in 1995 or to the ethnic
cleansing that took place during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. In the 1990’s authorities and
scholars asserted that ethnic cleansing, as it was carried out by the Bosnian Serb army, was
genocide. The Srebrenica massacre has also been found to be an act of genocide by the ICTY
(International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia). This finding was upheld by the ICJ
(International Court of Justice). Participants will be asked to read Zlata’s Diary, by Zlata
Filipovic (1993). Zlata was living with her parents in 1991 when the civil war began. She had
always kept a diary and now, through this diary, students will see how her life changed.
Week Six: During the final week of the program, students discuss a graphic novel Deogratias:
A Tale of Rwanda, as well as watch clips of the video Darfur Diaries: Message from Home.
Deogratias is the 2000 winner of the Goscinny Prize for outstanding graphic novel script. It is a
harrowing tale of the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, as seen through the eyes of a coming of age
Hutsi boy. Deogratias is tale of madness and horror and is to be handled with great sensitivity.
The documentary Darfur Diaries is appropriate for the intended audience. The people forced to
flee from their homes to neighboring Chad tell personal accounts of the horrors in the Darfur
region. Darfur Diaries won the “Best of Fest” at the 3 Continental Film Festival and was the
Official Selection of three other International Human Rights Film Festivals.
Despite humanitarian efforts to end genocide, it still occurs. One known healing element for the
victims of mass killing is the ability to tell and retell their stories. During this six week reading
program, the hope is to keep the stories alive, to be aware, and to remember.
Armenian Genocide (1915 -1918)
1,500,000 Estimated Deaths
Ukraine Famine (1932-1933)
7,000,000 Estimated Deaths
The Holocaust (1938- 1945)
6,000,000 Estimated Deaths
Cambodia (1975-1979)
2,000,000 Estimated Deaths
Bosnia Genocide (1992-1995)
200,000 Estimated Deaths
Rwanda Genocide (1994)
800,000 Estimated Deaths
Sudan Genocide (Began in 2003)
400,000 Estimated Deaths to date and 2.5 million displaced
SCHOOL LIBRARY SUPPORT
One idea is to suggest to your school librarian(s) to have an ongoing book exhibit on genocide.
The suggested books in this packet could be recommended. A book display with additional
reading and a poster for each week could be arranged in a space in the library. Each week, the
library could suggest outside activities that may be available in the area commemorating any of
the genocides in the reading program. As an example, several activities surrounding the
Ukrainian Genocide will be suggested in this portfolio.
BOOK LIST
Armenia
Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdasarian
Bagdasarian, A. (2002). The Forgotten Fire. New York: Laurel-Leaf Books.
“Who does now remember the Armenians?” - Adolf Hitler, 1939
The story begins in 1915 in Bitlis, a beautiful province of Turkey where, as far as twelve-yearold Armenian Vahan Kenderian knows, Turkish and Armenian neighbors live peacefully
alongside each other. Life is good for Vahan. It is better than good. He is the youngest child of
the prominent lawyer Sarkis Kenderian. He lives a privileged life with his parents, loving
grandmother, humorous uncle and five siblings. Vahan has no worries. He applies himself with
little effort, but is often nagged by his father’s urgings for him to build character and be made of
steel through discipline and hard work. Vahan doesn’t have to, he lives an idyllic life: he gets
along with his friends and family, does well at school, knows no hunger or thirst. He and his
family are respected. He holds his head high in the small world of which he lives. With little
warning, all that changes, as Vahan’s dreamy existence becomes an inexplicable nightmare.
Vahan’s father is lead from his home by Turkish gendarmes. He never returns. Days later, his
uncle goes missing. A forceful knock at the door brings further fear to Vahan as the gendarmes
lead he and his family outside to the garden to witness the shooting of his two oldest brothers.
Within three weeks time, Vahan goes from being a wealthy son of opportunity to a homeless
boy, alone, hungry with nowhere to go and no one to trust but himself and the little strength he
has.
In Forgotten Fire, Adam Bagdasarian tells the horrifying story of his great uncle’s struggle for
survival as an Armenian child lost in a civil war during the Armenian Holocaust. This story is
shocking in its truth and beautiful in its telling.
Guiding Questions:
1.
What is the significance of the title of this book, Forgotten Fire?
2.
This story is intended for young adults yet it contains explicit brutality. Could Bagdasarian have
told the story without such details or are they necessary to express the atrocities of this war?
3.
Bagdasarian in an interview said "the most important thing I could do was involve the reader
emotionally in Vahan's experiences so that he could feel them, rather than just read them.” Did you
connect emotionally to Vahan’s experience? Are their characteristics Vahan possesses that you can relate
to?
4.
On page 77, Vahan recalls something his cousin said. “He told me once that no one really knew
what a chair or a glass or a tree or even a blade of grass looked like because no one could see through
more than one pair of eyes, from more than one perspective at a time.” Considering this quote, what was
the perspective of some of the characters in this book: Vahan’s mother, Armenouhi, Mrs. Altoonian,
Selim Bey, and Doctor Tashian.
5.
Discuss the changes in Vahan’s character from the beginning of the story until the end.
Ukraine
Conquest, Robert. (1987) The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the TerrorFamine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The Harvest of Sorrow is the first full history of one of the most horrendous human tragedies of
the 20th century. Between 1929 and 1932 the Soviet Communist Party struck a double blow at
the Russian peasantry: dekulakization, the dispossession and deportation of millions of peasant
families, and collectivization, the abolition of private ownership of land and the concentration of
the remaining peasants in party-controlled "collective" farms. This was followed in 1932-33 by a
"terror-famine," inflicted by the State on the collectivized peasants of the Ukraine and certain
other areas by setting impossibly high grain quotas, removing every other source of food, and
preventing help from outside--even from other areas of the Soviet Union--from reaching the
starving populace. The Harvest of Sorrow is a deeply moving testament to those who died. The
book contains eyewitness accounts and historical documentation of the events that took place in
Central Ukraine from 1932-1933. The author raised three important issues in this book. The first
is the actual number of victims, the second is the percentage of Ukrainians that died as a result of
the famine, and the third is Stalin’s role in the famine. This is the first major work to bring to
light the atrocities of Stalin’s regime and the Genocide in Ukraine.
Guiding Questions:
1. What evidence exists that the Famine was man-made?
2. What events led to the Famine?
3. What methods were used by government officials that made the famine a reality?
4. Why were Western countries silent about this tragedy in 1932-1933? Was there a media cover-up?
5. Is there evidence to suggest that the Famine was directed specifically against the Ukrainian people?
Explain whether it can be considered to be an example of ethnic cleansing?
Germany
Zusak, M. (2006). The Book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
The Book Thief is the story of Liesel Meminger, narrated by Death. Liesel is a foster child living
in a small town outside of Munich, Germany in the late 1930's and early 1940's, under the reign
of Hitler. She turns to books as a way to escape the nightmares of her early life, and to distance
herself from the nightmare of everyday existence in Nazi Germany. When her foster parents
make the decision to shelter a Jewish man in their basement, Liesel depends on reading even
more, and begins stealing books to feed her insatiable appetite. Death visits Liesel three times in
this book, but she is a true survivor.
Guiding Questions:
1. Why do you think the author chooses Death to narrate the book?
2. What is the significance of the author's use of color in the book?
3. Which of the characters do you feel best illustrates courage?
4. In The Book Thief, words have the power to destroy lives as well as save them. Discuss why
this is.
5. Describe Liesel's relationships with Rudy and the Hubermanns. How do these relationships
change and grow throughout the book?
Cambodia
Ung, L. (2000). First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. New
York: Harper Collins Publishers
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers is the true story of Loung
Ung, a Cambodian girl. Loung Ung's father was a high ranking official in the Cambodian
government, but when Loung was only five; their family was forced to leave their home in
Phnom Pehn in order to escape the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot's communist political party. The
family was forced to move among labor camps, and when she was only seven; Loung was
separated from her family and sent to a child labor camp. After surviving numerous atrocities,
Loung was relocated to Vermont, and in 1997, she began working at the Campaign for a
Landmine Free World. Loung continues to be an activist against violence to this day.
Guiding Questions:
1. The Khmer Rouge had many fundamental flaws in their philosophy that led to a great deal of
destruction. Discuss what some of the flaws were.
2. Loung Ung narrates the book using a child's voice; does this have any impact on the reader?
3. The reader knows that Loung's father will be killed before the narrative voice does. Do you think that
this adds or detracts to the story?
4. Loung is separated from her family at the end of the book, both geographically and culturally. Do you
think that she should have tried to stay in Cambodia, or do you admire her decision to assimilate into the
American culture?
5. What do you think were some of Loung's qualities that helped her survive when so many others were
killed?
Bosnia
Filipovic, Zlata. (2006) Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo. New York: Penguin Books.
This book is an actual diary written by a young girl, Zlata, while under siege in Sarajevo. Zlata
was living in Sarajevo with her parents when civil war broke out. As one reads this book, the
daily commentary in her diary goes through a dramatic change as one reads first about her life at
school and playing with her friends, to political upheaval in the country. Zlata’s diary takes the
reader through the shelling of Sarajevo and the scarcity of food in their home. Many of her
friends and relations leave and become refugees. Zlata’s writes about the winter and lack of heat
and water. All of Zlata’s hopes and fears are written down in her diary. Zlata agreed to the
publication of her diary because she wanted the world to know about the devastating effect war
can have on not only adults, but also children.
Guiding Questions:
1. What do you think about Zlata’s Diary?
2. How would you feel if you had to live through a winter with no heat and no water in your
house and were not able to go out of your house and get food because you were being bombed?
3. Can you imagine not being able to just call your friends or go out and see them because they
had to leave all of their belongings and flee their home? How do you think that make you feel?
4. How would you feel if you knew people all around you were being killed?
5. How do you think you would feel if you saw your father in pain with frostbite?
Rwanda
Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda by J.P. Stassen translated by Alexis Siegel
Stassen, J.P. (2006). Deogratias, a tale of Rwanda. New York: First Second.
“We will recommend to our government not to intervene as the risks are high and all that is
here are humans.” Western bureaucrats to General Romeo Dallaire in Rwanda, April 1994
Deogratias is a compelling yet disturbing tale of how the Rwandan genocide affected a teenage
Hutu native. Caught between the forces of wanting to save his Tutsi friends or his own life,
Deogratias is faced with decisions that lead to his ultimate undoing and madness. This coming of
age story is presented as a graphic novel told through flashback, which gradually unfolds to
reveal what he has been through. The book begins with an informative introduction about the
history of the area and the events leading up to the Rwandan massacre. The artwork successfully
conveys life before and after the cataclysmic events that lasted just one hundred days.
Guiding Questions:
1. Do you think the way in which Stassen tells the story with flashbacks intermingled with the present is
effective? Did the use of flashback add to or distract from the story?
2. Discuss the portrayal of Brother Prior, Brother Philip and the French man.
3. What do you think of the artwork in this graphic novel? Does it compliment the narrative? Discuss the
variation of the art before and after the genocide.
4. The name Deogratias means “Thanks be to God”, why do you think Stassen named the main character
that?
5. Discuss the notion of Deogratias as a mad dog.
Suggested Further Reading
The Diary of Pelly D, by L.J. Adlington. (2005). New York: Greenwillow Books.
Tapestry of Hope: Holocaust Writing for Young People, compiled by Lillian Boraks-Nemetz.
(2003).Winner of the Honor Book Award in the 2003 Society of School Librarians International
Over a Thousand Hills I Walk with You, by Hanna Jansen. (2006). Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda
Books.
Adem's Cross, by Alice Mead. (1996). New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.
Genocide, by Jane Springer. (2006). Groundwork guides. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
Rooms and Fields: Dramatic Monologs from the War in Bosnia: Poems, by Lee Peterson.
(2004). Winner of the 2003 Stan and Tom Wich Poetry Prize.
War-Torn Bosnia, by Helen Cothran. (2001). Greenhaven Press.
Kobzar’s Children: A Century of Untold Ukrainian Stories, by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch.
(2007). Markham: Fitzhenry & Whiteside.
One Woman, Five Lives, Five Countries by Eugenia Sakevych Dallas. (1998). National Writers
Press.
Websites to Explore
Armenian National Institute http://www.armenian-genocide.org/
United Human Rights Council http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/
http://www.ukrainiangenocide.com/survivors.html
Memories of Survivors and Witnesses of the Ukrainian Genocide 1932-1933
http://faminegenocide.com/commemoration/througheyes.html
The Library of Congress’ Revelations from Russian Archives: Ukrainian Famine
http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/ukra.html
Films
Darfur Diaries: Message From Home (2004)
Harvest of Despair:
The Unknown Holocaust
HOLODOMOR: Genocide by Famine