Private memories, public memorials: the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide

06 January 2025 – Ummul Muhseneen

As part of my dissertation research on the memorialization of the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide, I have encountered silences in related memorials and in the archives. These silences have led me to ask: What role might oral testimonies play in remedying the silences that surround official attempts to memorialize mass atrocity crimes? And what can oral history interviews tell us about how victims of these crimes have been remembered in private spaces?

In 1971, during the Bangladeshi War of Independence, untold numbers of ethnic Bangladeshi civilians were systematically murdered at the hands of the Pakistani military government. This has come to be known as the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide. Bangladeshi historians claim that the Pakistani military’s targeted attacks killed nearly three million Bangladeshi civilians; 200,000 women were victims of sexual violence. Ten million Bangladeshis took refuge in India and another 30 million were displaced within the country.

This past summer I went to Bangladesh under a fellowship program with the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies to study memorials related to the genocide. One local memorial was established on a mass killing site in the Mirpur region of Dhaka, called Jalladkhana or “butcher’s den” (translated from Urdu), where local collaborators of the Pakistani army slaughtered Bengalis. This memorial site includes a small museum showcasing the excavated items from the two wells where local collaborators dumped the dead bodies of the murdered Bengalis, soil from many similar mass killing sites in Bangladesh, and a mural that represents hope.

Shafurannesa during my interview with her. This image is used with Shafurannesa’s permission. Photo credit: Ummul Muhseneen

Those working on behalf of the Liberation War Museum in Dhaka, Bangladesh, built the memorial. They also prepared a list of victims at this site primarily with the help of oral history. I interviewed a few family members of those killed at the Jalladkhana mass killing site to understand their recalling of the massacres against its denial. Shafurannesa was one of them. Local collaborators took her husband, brother-in-law, and father-in-law and slaughtered them at the site.

I arrived at her house while she was making food for her family. She assured me that she did not need any time to prepare for the interview and continued to chop vegetables while she told me her story. It was clear to me that Shafurannesa had described the incidents of her husband’s death so many times that she did not feel the need to pause her daily tasks for the interview. She also felt comfortable talking about painful details with her adult daughter by her side.

The daughter, incidentally, had heard the stories often enough that she kept filling in the details Shafurannesa missed when describing the last time she saw her husband: running away from those who would soon murder him. Clearly, the daughter had heard this story so many times that it had become an engraved memory for her as well. It was only when the mother teased the daughter, reminding her that she was only a few months old in 1971 when the events took place, that the daughter stopped adding to the story. But in between the teasing and the vegetable chopping, Shafurannesa broke down in tears when relaying memories about her displacement with her four young daughters, which mirrored the trauma she still carries.

Fariduzzaman during my interview with him. This image is used with Fariduzzaman’s permission. Photo credit: Ummul Muhseneen

The Monument at the National Martyrs’ Memorial in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photo credit: Ummul Muhseneen

Despite the pain these memories still caused, the narrators I met were eager to tell their stories, as they expressed that it was necessary to share their experiences and what they witnessed. Another narrator, Fariduzzaman—who saw his father being shot—teared up while also demanding for the government to officially recognize his father’s death. Recognition from the government, perhaps in the form of an official martyrs’ list, was a common demand from victims’ family members, who yearn for their losses to be officially acknowledged.

But as other scholars have written, the road to memorialization is always a rocky one. In this case, the government does not appear to be moving toward addressing survivors’ concerns. The National Martyrs’ Memorial of Bangladesh was constructed in 1972 (finished in 1988) right after the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide. And while it is dedicated to victims of the genocide–commonly called the martyrs by the nation–it more particularly honors the deceased freedom fighters of the liberation war. Likewise, the 1996 national memorial on the site where the Pakistani army shot Bangladeshi intellectuals (teachers, journalists, physicians) during the genocide, is dedicated to the martyred intellectuals. Many, like the families of Fariduzzaman and Shafurannesa, are left out of official memorial efforts. But, as was clear in my interviews, the victims have been memorialized in private. For decades, these families have shared these painful stories in their personal spaces, as the only way to memorialize their losses. Collecting and sharing their stories, it seems, is one path to remedy the resounding silences.

Memorial for the Martyred Intellectuals. Photo credit: Ummul Muhseneen

From a public historian’s perspective, the witnesses’ demand for a martyrs’ list or recognition from the government speaks to the power of memorialization in the cases of mass atrocity crimes. The complexities of memorializing the genocide against its denial from the Pakistani government and the oblivion of many in the world are reflected in such demands. Oral histories in this case aid in remembrance of the events, and reclaim what survivors refer to as their “true memory” against persistent denial and amnesia.

~Ummul Muhseneen is a doctoral candidate at the University of South Florida in the History department. She is the winner of the NCPH 2024 Diversity and Travel Award. Her dissertation is on the memorialization of the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide. She studies memorials, monuments, museums, memory, and oral history of mass atrocity crimes for her work. She is originally from Bangladesh and previously worked in a genocide study center and in a museum.