Abstract
Many have been stupefied by the apparent ease with which neighbours turn their amicable relations into hostile ones overnight during ethnic conflicts. Ben Lieberman believes this is possible due to cognitive dissonance. He relates this tonationalist narratives and notes that past and present collapse into a new reality. In the philosophy of history a notion that was recently introduced might help explain this concurrence of the past and the present, namely ‘presence'. This article introduces ‘presence' into the field of holocaust and genocide studies in order to show how the (unrepresented) past can generate momentum for ethnic violence.