Holocaust Museum Aims to Predict, Prevent State-Led Mass Killings

The phrase “Never Again” rings cold and hollow as the world faces one “Again” after another: instances of genocide and state-sponsored mass killings have continued to accumulate in the seven decades since the end of the Holocaust, along with responses that are too little and too late. Because the track record has been so disappointing, a new project aims to identify risk before mass killings even begin.

The Early Warning Project—launched publicly on Monday by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide and the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College—uses a combination of statistical analysis and expert opinions to try to gauge the risk of new mass killing episodes in countries around the world, and to turn the conversation to one of prevention rather than just response.

“Most of these countries will be put on the radar once the first shot is fired and once the bodies begin to pile up,” says Cameron Hudson, director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. But “preventive policies are more effective,” he adds. They’re “cheaper in terms of political cost, they’re cheaper in terms of financial cost, and they save lives.”