Some authors point to the power of reparations to settle deep-rooted social conflicts and ethnic frictions. Others argue that the politics of reparation fosters a culture of victimhood and perpetuates old antagonisms; and in so doing, nurtures the very logic from which many political and ethnic conflicts emerge. For both sides of the argument, the Holocaust represents the most extreme case of past injustice that not only helped to raise awareness of genocidal violence and other acts of human rights violations in history, but has become a central metaphor that has channelled these historical injustices into the trajectory of reparation and compensation. Our Research Group studies cases, types and models of rectifying past wrongs in a global perspective. Our motivation is thus to propose a historical topic of strong contemporary relevance. In bringing together scholars from different disciplines, our Research Group will stimulate discussion and contribute to a new framework for a long-term perspective of compensation and reconciliation in the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries.

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