The Other Side of Persecution. Self-Testimonies of 19th and 20th Century Europe revisited
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Self-testimonies of persecuted people are still mainly used as illustrations to already elaborated arguments. Yet they offer much more than just an add-on. Ego-documents can open up a different perspective on history. The online platform The Other Side of Persecution draws attention to the potential of self-testimonies and highlights their value as historical sources. In doing so, we want to steer away from the status of the "merely" persecuted, to embed the individuals and their stories of persecution in the context of their respective experiences. The sources presented on the platform thereby gives victims back a voice that is often lost in historiography.
The temporal and geographical focus of the platform is 19th and 20th century Europe. The extreme history of violence in the 20th century has already been frequently highlighted. With its partly genocidal persecution dynamics, it can also be considered the century of persecution. Institutional preconditions of these dynamics, however, already shaped the 19th century.
In the platform self-testimonies of different persecuted people will be made accessible and a professional study of the source for certain points is put at the visitors' fingertips. Guidelines of e.g. how to use self-testimonies as sources of history should also help younger or inexperienced visitors to work independently with the sources.