Abstract. – This article is a contribution to anthropological study of violence and focuses on opinions of eyewitnesses to war crimes. The role of witnesses in armed conflicts has been so far insufficiently discussed in the relevant literature. On the basis of unpublished memoires of an eyewitness to genocidal practices and war crimes, perpetrated in Mesopotamia during the First World War, as well as diplomatic reports concerning those events, the author analyzes the moral-cultural dimension of first hand testimony on certain “universal” issues. [Middle East, Iraq, World War I, anthropological study of violence, eye-witnessing, cultural dimension of moral stance]