2 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2017
    1. It is safe to assume that it was first and foremost the racialized aspect of the German war in the East and its colonization policies that accelerated violence like that described in taped POW conversations and shown in the rape photograph.

      This example of racialized warfare is similar to the example of the violence against indigenous women by the colonizers during the time of contact. This reminded me of the discussion of how the colonizers would refer to land as parts of a woman's body, linking together conquest of indigenous land with violence against indigenous bodies. Both that example and this passage highlight notions of power over a certain racialized group.

    2. In a similar vein, historians working on the his-tory of colonialism have argued that source collections in the official—and unofficial—archives not only are constructed but also must be understood as the product of historically specific subjectivities and emotional states.

      This passage challenges the notion of the "archive" (official or not) as being something that is objective, but rather something that is a product of the society that put it together. I think that the same caution and analysis should be applied to the historian themselves. As a historian, you need to realize how your own emotions and biases intersect with your own personal understanding of sensitive material.