There's a common misconception about genocide that's bothered Omer Bartov for a long time. “We tend to talk about genocide as something that calls for dehumanization,” says the Brown University professor of European history. “We think of it as a process where you have to detach yourself from the victims, to distance yourself from them as much as you can, and to create a system of detachment.” The reality of mass murder, he says, is far more intimate.
Bartov should know. For the past 20 years, he's reconstructed the 400-year history of one Eastern European border town to show the deep-seated roots that led to genocide during World War II.
