A Note on Objectives and Source Materials

Primary Focus

The resources made available here, or linked to, are those that focus on some of the most important twentieth-century genocidal and mass man-made killing occurrences.  A major emphasis is on the provision of primary materials relating to such occurrences. As with most Web presentations, this one is being continuously added to, on either a daily or weekly basis.  

The non-inclusion of materials or links relating to many incidents that would fit under the above reference points does not signify any assessment as to their importance, on any scale-educational, explanatory, moral, suffering, etc. I would like, for example, to include materials on the masacres of Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, the Hereros, the destruction of European Gypsies during World War II, and the Armenian massacres of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  I do not, however, have access to any primary materials at present on these conflicts that I could upload here. Also, in respect of other incidents, I simply do not have the time available to do so.

Sources

The files available on this server fall into three categories:

(1) Materials that I have uploaded for the most part with the permission of others who have made them available earlier at other sites. I endeavour to always note this at the top of the page under Source: and to include a hyperlink to the address at which the document was originally found. Too often people write to me assuming that I wrote such material myself. Where appropriate I include a log of the originator. 

In some instances the resources have been made available to me as the person who originally uploaded them on a Web server no longer had the facilities to do so, as in the case of the very important Final Report of the Commission of Experts on the then situation in the former Yugoslavia.  Other than performing the necessary html adjustments to make the documents fully functional on a different server, I do not make any amendments to these. 

(2) Resources that have been scanned in. These consist principally of primary materials.  Scanning software tends to produce very imperfect results as far as text recognition is concerned.  As the materials that I have scanned include numerous words in foreign languages, italicised and emboldened phrases, special characters, numbers, tables, etc., and the quality of printing of the originals was frequently poor at the time, every document necessitates careful checking. However careful, I would be surprised if some errors escape detection.  The files then usually needs to be converted to html so that they can be made available on a Web server.   This provides scope for additional errors.

Generally, however, my re-reading of the documents reveal very few errors of substance.  Experience with scanning, using specific software, alerts the user to the type of errors likely to occur frequently.

It is important to note, however, that errors that you may detect in  many of the documents available on this server, occur in the original materials.  Many were translated from the German immediately at the end of the Second World War, to be used in the various tribunals that were established to try those accused of crimes against the peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.  The volume of materials translated and made available in a very short space of time was very substantial.  Because of the pressure of time and other considerations, some of the translation is far from perfect, both semantically and syntactically.   With very few exceptions, I have not changed any of the original materials.  Occasionally I have placed a comment in ( ) or [ ], noted the correct spelling and added -editor,  for purposes of clarification.  The formatting of these documents was frequently imperfect, particularly with reference to indentation and paragraph/sub-paragraph numbering.    I have not changed the numbering but have varied the indentation from the original when I thought that this would serve to clarify matters for the reader. 

For similar reasons to those referred to immediately above, German characters are not generally included in the original documents, presumably because typewriters being used did not have an umlaut and other accent characters.  That is why Führer appears sometimes as Fuehrer, Göring as Goering, and similar.  This has also had the result that in some instances the same individual's name is spelt differently.  I have not strayed from the original versions.

I have endeavoured to reference all documents so that readers can compare the Web version with the original.

(3) The third category of files available are those that I have written myself.  Responsibility for errors in all areas (html, meaning, syntax, formatting, design and substance) is mine.

Cross-Referencing

Hypertext provides the opportunity to litter documents with hyperlinks.   There is, however, a relationship between the number of hyperlinks per screen and the ability of the reader to comprehend the textual material. I have, therefore, exercised restraint in this respect.  If a file is likely to be read sequentially, and it mentions something to which a link that will clarify matters might be included, I do not include the link on every occasion that the identical text occurs.  On the other hand, if there is link to a particular place in a lengthy document, the same text may be linked to a number of times.  Of course, this is not rocket science.

I have in some documents highlighted in yellow sections that could be hyperlinked to other documents on the server, but where I have not had the time to track these down prior to uploading. I have thought it more important to make the documents available as soon as possible, and only later add the hyperlinks.

Error Reporting

If there are any errors or hyperlinks to documents are not working; please inform me. This is a large Web presentation and errors do occur.  Some of the links to documents on other servers may not work because they are no longer active, or have moved.  Once again, the larger the number of documents and links that I make available, the more difficult it is for me to check these. 

Referencing Internet Materials

Details