As Waintrater explains, witnesses to genocide are struggling to synthesize meaning out of randomly brutal events, and catharsis, through testimony, will help them heal. However much this is true, she warns that most will be unable to recount every horrific episode, and few may be able to testify at all. Those who do are often disorganized and incoherent. Ironically, incoherency lays bare the effects of genocide just as much as testimonies with storylines centered on key moments, or chronological order: in these matters, emotional accuracy is as cathartic for the witness and can have as powerful an effect on the listener as factual accuracy.

The last quarter of the book addresses interviewers specifically, giving them the outlines of a technique to use when seeking testimony. A witness exposing the shame she had to endure is taking the huge step of trusting society to understand her experience; her interviewer should open himself to emoting with her, and demonstrating that her experiences are both valuable and terrifying. A witness’s testimony is really the product of her interaction with her interviewer, and both of them must nurture its creation. This book is a handbook for those in the position of hearing, and healing, the victims of atrocity.