In 1995, Antoon de Baets, Professor emeritus of History, Ethics and Human Rights at the University of Groningen, founded the international Network of Concerned Historians (NCH). The NCH’s Annual Reports contain news about the realm where history and human rights interconnect, especially about the persecution of historians, archivists and archaeologists around the globe and the censorship of history. For more than 25 years, Antoon de Baets has gathered information about these human rights violations from various human rights organizations and other sources. What started in 1995 with 17 countries and 7 pages, turned, by 2022, into a report covering 100 countries and containing 165 pages.
This Conversation with Antoon de Baets offered a unique, informal opportunity to inquire about the NCH’s history and technique.
Why did he found it in the first place, what motivated him? How does he gather the information? What about the NCH archive – is the precious information about human rights abuses preserved other than in the annual NCH reports? How can we contribute to the report? "In Conversation with Antoon de Baets" offered a unique opportunity to get personal insights into the history and workings of the NCH.
Antoon De Baets is professor emeritus of History, Ethics and Human Rights at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He is the author of many publications, particularly on the censorship of history, the ethics of historians, and the history of human rights. This includes books such as Responsible History (New York / Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009) and Crimes against History (London: Routledge, 2019). Since 1995, he has coordinated the Network of Concerned Historians.
A full curriculum vitae is at http://www.concernedhistorians.org/va/cv.pdf.
His ORCID is 0000-0002-5734-8193.
