The objectives contained within the following paper rest on a fundamental interest in the
relationship between social distance and dehumanization severity in genocide. It is the notion of
this paper that the degree of social distance between the perpetrator group and victim group prior
to the outbreak of genocide has an inverse effect on the degree of dehumanization severity
employed by the perpetrator group during the killing operations of the genocide. Consequently,
the extent of social closeness before genocide and degree of dehumanization severity during
genocide, form the pivotal core of the following research and as such the skeleton on which the
research questions and hypothesis were formed. Simply put, the research proposes that the smaller
the social distance between the perpetrator group and the victim group the more severe the
dehumanization behaviours of the perpetrators.
In order to examine and test this proposed relationship the paper utilizes three genocide cases,
namely the Rwandan genocide, the Holocaust as it occurred in Western Europe and the Holocaust
as it occurred in Eastern Europe. To further streamline this analysis the paper employs an
examination of Germany as the model for Western Europe and Poland and the Baltic states as the
model for Eastern Europe. With these genocide contexts forming the boundaries of the research,
the paper employs a primarily literature-based method of analyses combined with a Vignettedesigned
dehumanization severity scale to asses the degree of prior social distance between each
perpetrator and victim group on the one hand and the degree of dehumanization severity during
the killing operations of each genocide on the other.
The paper combines the findings of this two-pronged method under a single investigative umbrella
and as such is able to draw conclusions regarding the relationship between the two phenomena. A
synthesis of the findings for social distance and dehumanization seveirty in two genocide cases,
namely Rwanda and the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, reveals a negative correlation between the
two proposed variables. Hence, it does indeed appear that the smaller the social distance between
the perpetrator group and the victim group the more severe the dehumanization behaviours of the
perpetrators. The results for Wester Europe, however, represented somewhat of an anomaly
within the context of the propsed hypothesis. Yet, on further inspection, explanations for such a
deviation were revealed, which in turn revoked any invalidation of the hypothesis that such a
deviation would have denoted.