University of Southern California Shoah Foundation
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.
