Perpetrators have much to teach us. I would argue, in fact, that coming to understand specific perpetrators in specific contexts might be one of our most important opportunities for learning how to prevent future atrocities. People are not born monsters. They are made, carefully and ingeniously. We know, for instance, that perpetrators are often driven by fear of ethnic or gender “contamination”, that they hate nothing more than their own shame embodied in others. And we know that political and military institutions have many techniques for triggering such fear and shame. Few people are better situated than perpetrators to help us identify, anticipate, and even counteract those techniques.
In the time I have spent with war criminals, however, I have found it extremely difficult to get them to open up.
In the time I have spent with war criminals, however, I have found it extremely difficult to get them to open up, and even harder to get them to reflect with open curiosity upon their own experiences and motivations. They are quick to detect judgmental reactions and can be hypervigilant about being probed or manipulated. One wrong step, one wrong word, and you will get nothing from them but the defensive, clichéd, and often deceitful stories they have used to justify their nightmarish choices: “I was only obeying orders. I would’ve been killed otherwise.” “Yes, I have heard of such things happening, but I never did that.” “Everybody felt and acted that way in those days.”
