The feeling of guilt and remorse among those who planned and committed genocide

Abstract

During WWII the German fascists committed genocide against the non-Germanic peoples, especially the Jews. Many innocent people were expelled from their homes, physically and psychologically tortured, and a great number of them were hanged or burned alive. During the aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina a far more atrocious genocide was committed against the Bosniaks. The Serb nationalists mercilessly persecuted the Bosniaks, tortured them in concentration camps and prisons, and killed them in large numbers. The only crime of the Bosniaks was that they were “guilty” for being who they always were – Bosniaks, and because, in terms of their religious conviction, they considered themselves Muslims. This paper analyses the statements and the behavior of war criminals who were put on trial in Nuremberg in 1945 and those who are now on trial in the Hague. When comparing the statements of Germans who planned and committed genocide and those among the Serbs who did the same, there are no differences. Most of the war criminals do not show any feelings of guilt or remorse for the committed crimes. They even think that they are not guilty at all because they consider the war crimes they committed “righteous deeds.” They were only, as they say, defending the Serb people from the “attacks and the persecution of the Turks.” It is possible to expect forgiveness only if those who planned and committed genocide against the Bosniaks show sincere remorse and ask for forgiveness. For those who show remorse and ask for forgiveness it is possible to expect forgiveness, but the deep scars of genocide cannot be forgotten nor is it psychologically possible to forget them.

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