This series of contemporary illuminated manuscripts examines regions of the world where large scale episodes of genocide have been perpetrated. Looking at and beyond the cataclysm, the series depicts and interprets the myriad historic cultural achievements and uniqueness of environment within each area over the course of history.

Brief Description of Genocide and Illuminations

Early illuminated manuscripts were books made by hand, often including gold or silver, religious text and social themes in their illustration. Because illuminated manuscripts were very expensive to create they were highly prized and often represented major religious, social and artistic beliefs of the period.

This selection of modern day illuminated manuscripts draws on the history of illumination to represent the perplexing social theme of genocide. Each illumination is a visual story which represents a culture or civilization which has been threatened or extinguished by the violence of genocide. Uniting all illuminations in this series is the inclusion of the Hebrew blessing the “Mourners Kaddish" within each manuscript. This ancient Hebrew prayer for the dead pays homage to the victims of unimaginable suffering. It speaks a human a blessing, drawn from the heritage of the artist, of solace and remorse, for the hundreds of millions of people who have perished by this human atrocity and historic achievements destroyed. These penetrating illuminations recognize the greatest achievements of humankind and our most violent crimes. They help the viewer to see a personal and individual reflection of our common legacy of genocide. They inspire us to look deeper into the lessons of our past so that we can free ourselves from perpetrating this massive violence upon one another in the present.

As the globe draws closer to true understanding of our inter-being, we recognize that each individual desires to live in peace, without fear of domination, neglect, or annihilation. Each one of us can live with dignity and honor by cultivating genuine appreciation for each other, respect and awe for the astounding beauty and complexity of the world we live in.

It is my hope that these thoughtfully researched and carefully illuminated artworks create an inspiring testimony to the humanity and cultural legacies cast aside in violence and hatred, and honor the fruits of the civilizations reduced to ruins by genocide.

Proceeds from the sale of each giclee reproduction will be contributed to organizations working with victims of genocide, trauma relief, creation of memorials and educational centers about genocide, and to help re-build cultural heritage identity destroyed by genocide. A list of the charitable organizations receiving funding will be provided with the purchase of each illumination.

Let us all look at genocide as our personal legacy and see ourselves in the history of another's life. Let us garner strength and inspiration to do better for those who came before us and were annihilated, and those who will come after us into a new world created by our hands.

1. Afghanistan
View Illumination, Completed 2003

This illumination explores primarily two periods of history where mass annihilation of human life and cultural heritage has taken place in the region of the world now known as Afghanistan. The first episode of mass slaughter examined for this manuscript occurred during the Mongol conquests of the 13th century. In 1219 Genghis Khan and his Mongol warriors completely and permanently transformed the social fabric of ancient Afghanistan with mass slaughter and subjugation of kingdoms and empires which spanned the globe from Germany to Korea. The second period of mass annihilation and conquest , explored artistically, begins with the Soviet invasion in 1979, and the atrocities of this 10 year occupation. Modern Afghan history is also interpreted artistically with observations illuminating the rise of the Taliban military organization within the country, their destruction of historic cultural monuments and their violent oppression of women in modern Afghani society.

2. Armenia
View Illumination, Completed 2004

The rich and ancient history of the Armenian people provided ample material for visual exploration in this illumination. The Turkish government's campaign of genocide against its Christian Armenians at the beginning of the 20th Century eliminated the entire Armenian population from their homeland of nearly three thousand years. The pre WWI Turkish government targeted its Armenian population for annihilation by executing teenage and adult males and organizing mass deportations into the Syrian and Mesopotamian deserts of women and children. The visual details of this illumination spans the breadth of history of the Armenian people recognizing the creation of the Armenian alphabet in the 4th century, holy landmarks and structures, 19th and 20th century folk arts and imagery of the deportations beginning in 1915.

3. Bangladesh/India/Pakistan
View Illumination, Completed 2004

The proud and gentle country of Bangladesh emerged only in modern times as a sovereign nation. However, the regional distinction of the Bengali people has its origins in antiquity. In 1971 the Pakistani army invaded the geographically separated region of East Pakistan to subjugate its Hindu and British commercial and landed elites. The slaughter and terror unleashed upon the hinterland of Bengal by the invading Pakistani armed forces counts the atrocities in its wake at 1.5 million deaths and over 400 thousand women and girls raped. That the people of Bangladesh emerged victorious in their defense against the Pakistani army is a noted anomaly in the annals of genocide history. This illuminations reflects the pride and honor of the people of Bangladesh and explores the origins of Bengali history through its unique literary heritage, ancient national monuments, lost traditional handcrafts , topography and natural history.

4. Cambodia
View Illumination, Completed 2005

The rise of the Pol Pot regime in the wake of the Vietnam War transformed a country desperate to steer free of the violence occurring in its neighboring country. The genocide of the Cambodian people organized by a native ruler defies the terminology of genocide according to the United Nations legal definition. Approximately 4 million Cambodians (one third of its entire population) perished between 1975 - 1979 in death and work camps, by execution and torture. Buddhist monks and Buddhist religion were targeted for destruction with 68 thousand monks slaughtered and temples destroyed. Today the nation is still wounded by this massive destruction with schools ignoring the history of the genocide and its victims, and criminal leaders of that time being honored as heroes. This illumination bears testimony to the silencing of the children of Cambodia, and recognizes foundational periods of ancient Cambodian civilization. The central composition focuses on the geographic feature of the Tonle Sap, the originating source of settlement and continued life of this South East Asia peninsula. It honors the efforts of Buddhist ritual arts to facilitate peace, and documents the cry of the survivors of this genocide.

5. China
View Illumination, Completed 2006

The history of human civilization in China is one of the oldest and most complex histories on earth. The atrocities of the 20th century, by far, outnumber in deaths, every other mass atrocity recorded. At the end of the era of dynastic rule in 1911 competing forces of warlords, rebel gangs, nationalists and communists bloodied the Chinese landscape with over 12 million deaths. The Japanese invasion into China in1937 was one of the most barbaric mass atrocities known to man. Rape and murder of Chinese women, brutal torture and execution of Chinese civilians still live in the memory of witnesses. The domination of Mao Tze Tung and the Communist Party sacrificed millions of defiant citizens to the will of "The Party." The social engineering policy of the “Great Leap Forward” destroyed the agricultural system in China and caused the world’s greatest famine. This complex illumination draws upon the words of Confucius as its central theme. The poetry inscribed, written in ancient history, is an appropriate reminder of our obligation not to force upon others that which we would not wish upon ourselves. The atrocities illuminated bear testimony to our willful disregard of the lesson of Confucius. A mixture of reverence for the bewilderingly numerous wonders of the Chinese nation and the indignity of the bloodshed perpetrated within, creates a startlingly penetrating illumination worthy of the enormity of the history of Chinese civilization and its atrocities of the 20th Century.

6. Crusades and Inquisition
View Illumination, Completed 2007

The official policy of the Roman Church’s empire during the era of the Crusades and Inquisition sanctioned waves of killing and persecution which was initiated during the First Crusade in 1096 and spread across Europe and the Middle East. The mentality of intolerance which the Church institutionalized endured into the 18th century. Muslim, Jewish, Cathar and other independence groups were victimized by successive waves of military and popular annihilations. Religious “purity” was used by Church officials to gain political control over insubordinate or “heretical” populations. The verse and images portrayed in this illumination focus on central teachings of Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths as well as imagery from historic episodes of mass atrocity which define this era of European history. The image of the Cross and central panel of the Pieta evoke the pathos of the tortured and dead adult Christ weighing heavy in his mother’s lap. Illustrations of mass atrocity perpetrated during this era, combine with the telling of the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, written in the Koran and Genesis.

To be Illuminated

The death toll in the bewilderingly complex civil war has reached at least 3.3 million in less than five years, according to the international Rescue Committee. Another 3 million or more people are refugees….Most are ordinary men, women and children….Many- forced to flee their homes for forests and crowded refugee camps that turn into fields of mud in the rainy season – died of illness and malnutrition. This is the greatest concentration of war-related deaths anywhere on earth since World War II. (7)

8. Ethiopia

In 1974 The Provisional Military Administration Council seized control of Ethiopia and instituted a policy of arrests torture and extrajudicial killing to repress any opposition. Armed opposition of ethnic forces vying for control escalated mutual violence to the point of mutual annihilation. Genocidal killings occurred in 1974 -1979, and again in 1984 – 1986 as a result of forcible resettlement of hundreds of thousands of peasants.

9. Hereros

A cattle herding nomadic people living in S.W. Africa established as a colony of Germany. Hereros were isolated and without civil or political rights. In 1903 they rebelled against the German settlements and were counter attacked. Most of the military Hereros were destroyed. Surviving women and children were driven into the Omaheke Desert where they died of thirst and starvation. All native villages were attacked and 80 % of Herero people died (65000 people)

10. Hiroshima (and Nagasaki)

Aug 6th 1945 a nuclear bomb was dropped over the city of Hiroshima at 8:15am. Of approximately 400 thousand people living in the city 100,000 immediate deaths were caused and approximately 140,000 by the end of 1945 as a result of the bombing. Including Nagasaki total dead: 360,000

11. Holocaust

This genocide episode began with concentration camp incarceration in 1933 used by the Nazis to incarcerate and eventually exterminate a host of ethnic groups under German control within Europe. Ending with the extermination of 12 million lives by 1945, 6 million of whom were of Judaic heritage the Holocaust stands as one of the most significant episodes of systematic mass exterminations of the 20th century.

12. Indonesia / East Timor/ Sri Lanka

During the months from October 1965 to March 1966, conservative forces, including the army and Muslim militias, killed at least a hundred thousand people in Indonesia.

Since 1976 approximately 200 thousand people in East Timor have been murdered by occupying Indonesian forces, illness and malnutrition. For 300 years the eastern part of the island was a Portuguese colony. In 1974 a revolution in Lisbon began the process of decolonization. In 1975 political divisions incited a civil war. In July of 1976 Indonesia annexed East Timor to its territory as 27th state. It has ruled the island with an iron hand.

After the independence from Great Britain in 1948 Tamil guerillas defended against Sinhalese discrimination. In July of 1983 a political massacre precipitated an outbreak of genocidal violence against Tamils as mobs hunted down Tamil men, women and children.

13. Kurds

The first stirrings of Kurdish nationalism occurred in the late 19th Century. In 1920 Turkey quelled Kurdish uprising with violent repression and forced assimilation. In 1990 about 20 million lives were victimized by ethnocide, the 4th most numerous in the mid east.

In 1987 1989 Saddam Hussein launched one of the most notorious genocidal massacres of his career as a political leader with many executions; imprisonments; and denials of human rights. Of note are the destruction of food sources with defoliants and the sterilization of East Timorese women.

14. Mozambique

1973 Colonial Portuguese in E. African county of Mozambique carried out systematic genocide of African villagers rivaling My Lai Vietnam. A guerilla war between Frelimo and Portuguese authorities ended in 1975 when independence came to Mozambique. Civil war broke out and innocent villagers were caught between two opposing political groups. In 1984 South Africa and Mozambique signed a non aggression pact, but S. A. disregarded it and in May 1986 260,000 refugees fled Renamo atrocities to South Africa. Estimated 36,000 children, most under age 5 died of malnutrition.

15. Native Populations of Canada and US

Extermination of Native American Canadian and US populations relied on “treaties” allotting each native village a miniscule parcel of land, hunting and fishing rights were ignored, resulting in obliteration of indigenous economies and rendering self sufficient Indians as dependent subsistence on modern economy. At present 85% of Canadian and US Indians live at or below country’s official poverty level.

Colonization beginning in 1607 Jamestown. Powhattan confederation numbered 200 thousand was reduced to 3000. Extermination against most native tribes coincided with European settlements. Some notable campaigns were the Natches in 1729, Pequots in 1637; Wampanogs; Narragansetts and other costal people of Massachusetts; Hurons in 1649 by the French. The mission system from 1690 – 1845 extended across southern US from Florida to California. 90% decline in indigenous population of these areas by bounty hunting, biological warfare; and other extermination methods.

16. Native Americans of Central America and South America

Obliteration of native population and their cultures began in 1492 with the first voyages of Columbus to the Caribbean. Columbus established a regime on Island of Espanola that incorporated the enslavement of 8 million native Tainos.

In 1519 Tenochititlan (Aztec Capital) which is now Mexico City was conquered by Hernan Cortes. 350,000 Aztecs were slaughtered erasing all aspects of Aztec culture. By 1525 Cortes’ lieutenants began to fan out in pursuit of new conquests: Mayan of Belize,

Yucatan and Guatemala. Overall native population stretching from Panama to the Rio Grande numbered over 30 million.

Pizarro’s conquest and colonization of the Incas in the 1530’s eradicated the Tupi; Tapuya and other costal people. Less than 10% of Brazil’s original 2.5 million inhabitants survived into the 1600’s. Some of the native populations eradicated were: Paraguay: Aches: Columbia; Cuibas: Patagonia: Mapuches: Bolivia; Minikas

17. Native Populations of Australia

Prior to white settlement of 1788 probable 500,000 indigenous people lived scattered across the continent in small tribal groups. These hunter gatherers began life here in periods varying from 20,000 to 60,000 hears ago. Introduced diseases decimated the population. Discrimination and elimination by forced labor, killing and forced adoption by white society supports statistics of a physical genocide.

18. Nigeria

In 1960 Nigeria gained independence from Great Britain. There were diverse ethnic and religious groups including: 15,000,000 Muslim Housa Fulania in the north, 10,000,000 Yoruba in west half of whom were Christian, half Islamic and 10,000,000 Ibo in the east, largely Christian. Many of these ethnic groups were forced to look for work in the north due to poverty, by 1966 civil war ensued and an estimated 1,000,000 easterners were killed.

19. North Korea

From 1948 to 1987 the democratic Peoples Republic of Korea was ruled by Kim Il-sung, an absolute communist dictator who has turned his country into an Orwellian state. People were so tightly controlled that little independent information about the regime’s purges, executions and concentration / forced labor camps filtered out of the country. Perhaps from 710.000 to 3,500,000 people have been murdered…. Altogether, during the war in North Korea communists probably killed nearly 500,000 Koreans. Aside from the war, populations and deaths…are extrapolated…and there is nothing except anecdotal accounts from defectors to the south….Calculations based on Korean war statistics and extrapolation add up to a probable North Korean democide of 1, 293,000 men, women, and children (6.)

20. Pogroms Russia

Pogrom is the Russian word for Massacre. Three notable periods of wanton destruction of Russian Jewish life took place in: 1881 – 1884; 1903 – 1906; 1917 – 1921. The last of these episodes left 60,000 dead, and coincided with the Russian Revolution.

21. Rwanda and Burundi

Since 1972, Rwanda has suffered one seventh of its population massacred in an ethnic frenzy of atrocious acts. In 1972 2000 – 3000 Tutsi were killed by Hutu, retaliatory killing of Hutu by Tutsi estimates 100 thousand to 300 thousand. In 1994 killings of Hutu and Tutsi by Hutu estimate 800 thousand, retaliatory killing of Hutu by Tutsi estimate 50 – 60 thousand. In Burundi between 1993 and 1997, 160 thousand victims of ethnic violence between groups.

22. Soviet Union

Approximately 62 Million people were murdered by the Communist Party under Stalin.

In the Ukraine, between the years 1932 – 1933 5 – 7 million peasants starved to death because of Soviet Union seizure of crops and foodstuffs from the population.

23. Sudan

One of the most ethnically diverse country’s in Africa with nearly 600 ethnic groups and 400 languages. Since 1956 independence from Great Britain the Muslim led government has waged a civil war against non Muslim rebels in the south. 200,000 people were murdered and 4500000 forced to leave their homes. The Nuba who live in a fertile hilly region in east central Sudan have been specifically targeted for genocide by the government. Similar tactics have been waged against the Dinka.

24. Tibet

In the 1950’s China began a campaign of destroying Tibetan monasteries. In 1959 the capital Llasa was shelled and thousands of Tibetans were killed. In 1960 Chinese radio announced that 87,000 Tibetans were executed in central Tibet.

25. Uganda

For eight years Idi Amin (Dada) 1979 – 1979 ruled Uganda with a corrupt iron hand, appointing himself Field Marshal in 1975 and President for Life in 1976. Idi Amin’s internal repression of any and all dissent led to the estimated murders of more than 300,000 of his own people. Reports of such massacres included wanton rapes of women, beheadings of men, women, and children, and cannibalism.

26. Yugoslavia

Serbs: 13th to 14th centuries were independent orthodox Croats flourished from 10th to 13th centuries they were Catholic Muslims: many converted during the period of Ottoman Turks (1400’s).

In the 40’s a puppet state set up a Nazi like doctrine of final solution for Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. The Jasenovac concentration camp was set up where hundreds of thousands were systematically murdered.

The renewed conflicts and genocides of the late 1990’s are related to the collapse of communist rule in the Soviet Union. By the fall of 1991 massacres of civilians had been committed by both Serb and Croatian forces. War and genocide spread to Bosnia and Hersegovina in 1992. The purposeful nationalistic campaign to “cleanse” an area of unwanted “outside” ethnic groups earned a new name of ethnic cleansing. A brutal system of concentration camps run by Serbs in which Muslims and others were tortured and murdered was exposed, evoking haunting memories of Nazi concentration camps.

References sited:

(Please note, where there are no references sited in this overview yet information has been compiled from the above reference)

2. The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies Frank Chalk and Kurt Johassohn Yale University Press 1990

3. “A Problem From Hell” America and the Age of Genocide: Samantha Power, Perennial Press 2002

4. The History and Sociology of Genocide Analyses and Case studies: Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn Yale Press 1990

5. Bangladesh a Country Study Area Handbook Series: Federal Research Division; Library of Congress 1981

6. Statistics of Deomcide: Genocide and Mass Murder since 1900 Rudolph J. Rummel: Center for national Security Law, School of Law, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia USA 1997

7. Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Susan Brownmiller Ballantine Books Reprint Edition June 1993

8. Heart of Sadness: Congo: Adam Hochschild Amnesty Now Fall 2003 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Genocides And Mass Human Elimination Episodes
to be Illuminated