Based on three absorbing case studies-the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, and the slaughter of the Tutsi in Rwanda-this volume marks the first international, comparative, and multidisciplinary attempt to situate rescue as a research object. The result is an exceptionally rich and disturbing volume that reveals an essential historical truth: while it might be impossible to isolate the factors that turn an individual into a rescuer, informal underground networks, however fragile, inevitably form the moment genocide appears. Compiled by three leaders in genocide studies, this collection features thirty contributors from eleven countries and maps the characteristics of an enduring phenomenon.

Author Biography

Jacques Semelin is a historian and political scientist and senior researcher at CERI Sciences Po-CNRS, Paris. Among his publications are Unarmed Against Hitler: Civil Resistance in Europe, 1939-1942 and Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide. He is the founder and editor in chief of www.massviolence.org. Claire Andrieu is professor of contemporary history at the Institut d'etudes politiques Sciences Po, Paris. A former member of the Fact-Finding Mission on the Spoliation of Jews in France (1998-2000), she is a specialist on the French occupation and the liberation. Her other publications include La spoliation financiere and the Dictionnaire de Gaulle. Sarah Gensburger is a sociologist and political scientist and junior researcher at the CNRS-Institut de Sciences Sociales du Politique. She is the author of Les justes de France: Politiques publiques de la memoire and, with Jean-Marc Dreyfus, Camps in Paris.