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Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive: Guatemalan Genocide

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Guatemalan Genocide

The Guatemalan Genocide refers to the killings of civilians, especially those of Mayan origin, as part of counter-insurgency operations during the 1960-1996 Guatemalan Civil War. While massacres took place in 1966-1967, the most intensive period of killings was from the Panzós massacre in 1978 until 1983. The VHA currently contains 14 interviews with survivors to the Guatemalan Genocide recorded by the Fundación de Antropologia Forense de Guatemala (13) and the USC Shoah Foundation (1). These interviews were recorded in 2015 in Guatemala (13) and the United States (1).

 

Selected Indexing Terms

abandonment (emotion)

adaptation methods

agriculture

anti-Mayan prejudice

arrests

bombardments

brothers

brutal treatment

catechists

children

children's occupations

Comunidades de Poblaciónes en Resistencia

cooperatives

corpses

daughters

death fears

deaths

desaparecidos

determination

dreams

education

ethno-racial relations

evasion

extended family members

family histories

family homes

family life

fathers

fathers' occupations

fear

flight

future message

grandparents

Guatemala 1960 (November 13) - 1978 (November 28)

Guatemala 1983 (August 9) - 1996 (December 29)

Guatemala 1996 (December 30) – 1999 (January 31)

Guatemala City (Guatemala)

Guatemalan armed forces

Guatemalan Earthquake (February 4, 1976)

Guatemalan Genocide testimony-sharing willingness

Guatemalan Genocide-related psychological reactions

Guatemalan Peace Accords (December 29, 1996)

Guatemalan resistance participants

Guatemalan soldiers

hiding adaptation methods

hiding in mountains

hiding-related food

hiding-related food acquisition

hiding-related hunger

home searches

house burnings

human rights activities

hunger

husbands

identity concealment

intergenerational genocide impact

interrogations

interviewee memory

interviewee occupations

interviewees' children

killings

language skills

living conditions

loved ones' deaths

loved ones' fates

loved ones' separations

marriages

mass executions

mass grave exhumations

mass graves

mass murder awareness

Mayan identity

migration (domestic)

military commissioners (Guatemala)

military outposts (Guatemala)

mothers

mothers' occupations

Patrullas de Auto-Defensa Civil

physical condition

post-Guatemalan Genocide reflections

property seizure

resistance decisions

restitution

Roman Catholic Church

roundups

sadness

schools

sexual assaults

sisters

socioeconomic status

sons

testimony-sharing motivations

working life

 

Selected Bibliography

Falla, Ricardo. Massacres in the Jungle: Ixcán, Guatemala, 1975-1982. Boulder: Westview Press, 1994. Print.

Garcia, Prudencio. El Genocidio de Guatemala: a la Luz de la Sociología Militar. Madrid: Sepha Edicion y Diseño, 2005. Print.

Goldman, Francisco. The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? New York: Grove Press, 2008. Print.

Human Rights Office of the Archdiocese of Guatemala (ODHAG). Guatemala: Never Again! REMHI, Recovery of Historical Memory Project: The Official Report of the Human Rights Office, Archdiocese of Guatemala. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999. Print.

Manz, Beatriz. Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror, and Hope. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Print.

Montejo, Victor. Testimony: Death of a Guatemalan Village. Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press; New York, N.Y.: Distributed by Talman Co., 1987. Print.

Rothenberg, Daniel; Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico. Memory of Silence: The Guatemalan Truth Commission Report. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Print.

Sanford, Victoria. Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.

Schirmer, Jennifer. The Guatemalan Military Project: A Violence Called Democracy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. Print.

Special double issue: Guatemala, the Question of Genocide, Journal of Genocide Research 18, no. 2/3 (2016). Print. [USC access]

Vela Castañeda, Manolo. Los pelotones de la muerte: la construcción de los perpetradores del genocidio guatemalteco. México, D.F.: El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Sociológicos 2014. Print.

Yale University. Genocide Studies Program. “Guatemala.” Web.

Visual History Archive Curator

Profile Photo
Anne Grant
she/her/hers
Contact:
Cooper Library
Room 405
864-656-6079