World War II was perhaps the bloodiest war of the twentieth century, if not of all history. Estimates for total deaths range between fifty to sixty-five million. Of those, eleven million were civilians murdered systematically by the Nazis. Six million were Jews – about 72% of the total Jewish population in Europe. In some countries, nearly 90% of the Jewish population was killed. Approximately five million non-Jewish civilians were also put to death. The Romani Gypsies were almost completely annihilated. Homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, Christian priests and pastors, and people with physical or mental handicaps were also murdered in concentration camps.
Millions of others were imprisoned, tortured, and dehumanized. Polish citizens were forced into slave labor or drafted into the German army. Those who stood against the Nazi regime were imprisoned or killed. Biracial children of Africa and European descent were forcibly sterilized.
Sixty-two years have passed since the war. The genocide and atrocities of the Holocaust ended in 1945. Many believe that society has so drastically changed in those years that the Holocaust could not occur again. Others go as far as to deny the Holocaust happened in the first place, that such terrible things could ever occur. Never again could someone attempt genocide on entire races of people. Never again could such atrocities occur.
What many people do not realize, is that they already have occurred in the years since the Holocaust, and continue to occur today.
In 1971, for instance, genocide was attempted in Bangladesh, when West Pakistani military forces sought to eradicate the Easterners seeking independence, by committing genocide on the Bengalis. Men were the main targets – the death toll estimates range between one to three million, with men making up about 80% of the dead. Women suffered systematic rapes, often dying from the violent assaults. 1971 – over 30 years after the Holocaust.
In 1994, another genocide occurred, this time in Rwanda, where Hutu militia murdered an estimated 800,000 Tutsis in just 100 days. 1994 – nearly fifty years since the Holocaust.
Another, modern-day genocide is occurring in Darfur as I write. It began in 2003, and to date, over 400,000 civilians have been murdered by the Sudanese militia, which primarily targeted ethnic group from which rebels drew their support. Villages were burned to the ground, leaving millions of civilians displaced from their homes. Sexual violence is rampant - thousands of girls and women have been raped. People are being murdered for no reason other than being from the wrong ethnic group – just like the Holocaust.
Never again, we declare, pointing at the atrocities of the Holocaust. Never again, as daily more are murdered, as in far-flung places of the globe, genocide is attempted.
That is why it is so important the Holocaust be remembered. Atrocities that no one knows of, or cares about, occur every day. The Holocaust is one of the few that is remembered, that has an internationally recognized day of remembrance, one of the few that is taught at an international level to schoolchildren, one of the few that is known by virtually everyone. The Holocaust was the single worst genocide of the 20th century – the most documented, the most publicized, widespread, and shocking.
It’s vital that it continue to be taught – not just the facts, but its lessons. People must know that it was not the first of its kind, nor the last. That people truly can be blind to atrocities. That such things cannot be allowed to continue, that someone must intervene – that every person has the duty to intervene and stop genocide from occurring.
We are the third generation of the Holocaust, we college-goers, grandchildren of the survivors. Those who were our age when the Holocaust occurred – say, twenty years old when it ended up 1945 – are in their eighties by now. By the time we have children, and our children are old enough to be educated on the Holocaust, few, if any, survivors will be left.
We are the third generation, and the last who can speak first-hand to the survivors. As this last generation, our duty is to remember – not remember the history, as a whole, but remember the individuals, for they are what make up the whole, what make it tangible and real. Reading a book or watching a documentary are nothing like sitting face-to-face with a survivor, hearing their story, seeing the pain in their eyes. Statistics only say so much – far more powerful is a hearing a personal account, first-hand. We are the last to have that privilege – treasure it.
A great part of preventing and stopping genocide, and similar atrocities, is education. That’s something every student can do – educate themselves on the Holocaust, on the Bangladesh genocide, the Rwandan genocide, the conflict in Darfur. Educate themselves, then reach out to educate others, through articles, essays, websites, art, and creative writing. The more people are educated about genocide, the closer we are to stopping it – as well as violence more close to home. In the aftermath of the shooting at Virginia Tech, for instance, students will be more likely to raise awareness about violence because they experienced it at close range. Students all over America will be far more aware of the issues and work to solve them because they heard about it to such an extent.
As well as educating ourselves on such atrocities worldwide as a step towards putting a stop to it, we can do things more directly in our own community. Violence, discrimination and prejudice against people, due to their skin color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, class, location, and more, is widespread in our daily life.
Nowadays, students can raise awareness of this fairly easily, with the use of videotaping – simply with a phone – and the internet. Incidents of violence and discrimination can be taped and seen by thousands of people with a few clicks of a mouse. Students can publish blogs about things that concern them, can speak up when they themselves experience discrimination.
If we talk about prejudice in our daily life, others are more likely to examine their own prejudices and make efforts to change themselves, and then their surroundings. Perhaps if we can essentially eliminate daily prejudice, we can create a future where there will be no fear of another genocide.
References:
Ronnie Landau. (1994). The Nazi Holocaust. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.
Ina R. Freidman. (1995). The Other Victims: First-Person Stories of Non-Jews Persecuted by the Nazis. United States: Houghton Mifflin.
Save Darfur Coalition. (2007). http://www.savedarfur.org
Ben S. Austin. (1996, February 21st). An Introduction to the Holocaust. Retrieved April 17th, from http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/holo.html
Terese Pencak Schwartz. (2007). Who Were the Five Million Non-Jewish Holocaust Victims? Retrieved April 17th, from http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/non-jewishvictims.htm
Adam Jones. (1999). Case Study: Genocide in Bangladesh, 1971. Retrieved April 17th, from http://www.gendercide.org/case_bangladesh.html
Zarrin T. Caldwell. (Apr. 21, 2006). Stopping Genocide: Taking the Lead or Muddling Through? Retrieved April 17th, from http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/130665
PBS Frontline. (1999). The Triumph of Evil. Retrieved April 17th, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil
Mike Robinson, Ben Loeterman (producers). Steve Bradshaw (writer). (1999). The Triumph of Evil [film]. United States: WGBH Educational Foundation.
Brian Steidle. (March 20, 2005). In Darfur, My Camera Was Not Nearly Enough. Washington Post, page B02.
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I did not realize that so many genocide-related movements had occured in the past few years until last week. Genocide still scares me, as I am Native American and it seems that not too long ago my ancestors were being targeted. I came across some of the occurences you mentioned while researching the Jewish Holocaust. The most disturbing thing I found was the people who still deny that this ever occured,as you mentioned. I think part of this is lack of education, ignorance, and denial that such a situation could happen to people, just like us.
This was just amazingly excellent. A good read, a good message. Nice work!
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
When it comes to students who do anti-Genocide activism, because if you're really going to put your money where your mouth is on that front you need to stop buying Chinese goods, and few students are willing to do that. Instead, they just pick up a cause, refuse to change the way they live, and claim moral superiority.
And that, to me, is actually worse then not giving a damn, because you know that you don't give a damn and you still present a different face to the world. It's the same type of thinking that lead the Allies to not bomb the railroads leading to the concentration camps in World War II.
So I tend to be a bit jaded when it comes to the 'Save Darfur" so-called Movement. By the time you guys actually get around to doing something it won't matter because all the potential victims will be dead. And when the overwhelming majority of the people in that movement realize it, they will be stupidly arrogant to place the blame for inaction where it belongs: on themselves.
Instead, they'll give lectures about indifference from a computer/modem that had many of its parts made in China while wearing shoes that were made in China while wearing clothes that were made in China while shopping at stores that do business with China.
I don't know if you are one of them, and if you aren't sorry if you're offended. If you are one, then I make no apologies.
My Blog
"We cannot redeem evil, we must combat it." -- Jean Paul Sartre
I am not. As well as attempting to live a better lifestyle (buying free trade goods, recycling everything I can, etc), I'm also doing some fairly active stuff like going to Cambodia to volunteer there.
You buy goods that Oxfam tells you are good in order to assauge your liberal guilt. You then go to a foreign country to volunteer when there are plenty of starving, sick, homeless, and destitute people in need of a few good volunteers around you in this country. If you don't believe me, and are on the East Coast, I will be happy to show you around the less talked about parts of Philadelphia some time.
As Voltaire put it -- quoting the Bible nea the end of Candide -- "we must tend to our own garden."
My Blog
"We cannot redeem evil, we must combat it." -- Jean Paul Sartre
How incredibly judgemental of you. O.o I'm in college studying to be a social worker. I volunteer between 20-40 hours a week at peer counseling, and have for the past five years. I'm doing Americorps Students in Service, I'm working on getting volunteer placements at a crisic clinic and at street outreach programs. Most of what I'll be studying next quarter will probably be about youth homelessness and mental health issues and also about child/adolescent abuse and how it leads to those problems.
Why shouldn't I volunteer in Cambodia? Just because those kids are far away from me geographically doesn't mean they don't matter just as much as the kids in my back yard. I've volunteered in Israel and I've volunteered in the US, so why not Cambodia? Maybe one of those kids will grow up to move to the US and change things here. Maybe one of those kids will grow up to save millions. Maybe one of those kids will grow up to cure cancer and AIDS. There's no reason not to care about them just as much as I care about people here - and as described above, pretty much my entire life is dedicated to helping people in the US. x.x
Oh, and I barely even know what Oxfam is. I try to buy organic goods from local and/or family-owned businesses, particularly those who donate a portion of their earnings to the poor, etc, or those who offer work to the unemployed in the local community. I also avoid corporations, particuarly those who are known to use child labor or mistreat their workers, and try to buy environmentally-friendly and recycleable products. When I buy foreign goods (i.e., coffee), I try to make sure I always buy from companies that benefit the workers abroad.
its one of those things that we americans know is happening, we just dont care. The ones that do care blame our government for taking too long because it is taking too long. The whole of Darfur will be dead before anybody decides to help. For us being america, land of the free and home of the brave, we're pretty damn ignorant of the rest of the world. what i mean is that we only hear of celebrities trying to help somehow, we dont hear about the average joe doing anything. hence- we dont care. if we dont hear about it, we dont care about it. those of us that do dont get publicity we need.
We care when it hit's home. A friend said to me statistics don't matter. It is if you are the statistic that it becomes a reality. then it will matter. We debated that for hours, but he was sensible about that statement.
There is only so much the government can do at one time. We are never going to be able to fight for every group that is persecuted worldwide. Thats what we're going in the middle east, and if we leave now millions who support the US's presence there will be slaughtered. We only have so many men willing to give up their lives for people they have never met, and we have to pick out battles. I agree, we could be doing more and we should be. It starts with you. Figure out what YOU can do to help those in need. Send YOUR money. Maybe others will follow suit, and maybe one life can be saved because of what you did. We cannot save the world without first saving the individual.
-Anne Michelle
There is only so much the government can do at one time. We are never going to be able to fight for every group that is persecuted worldwide. Thats what we're going in the middle east, and if we leave now millions who support the US's presence there will be slaughtered. We only have so many men willing to give up their lives for people they have never met, and we have to pick out battles. I agree, we could be doing more and we should be. It starts with you. Figure out what YOU can do to help those in need. Send YOUR money. Maybe others will follow suit, and maybe one life can be saved because of what you did. We cannot save the world without first saving the individual.
-Anne Michelle
You did a really good job on this. Great information and very informative. Thank You!
Thank you! (Don't forget to rate! :p)
b
One of the things that I always find interesting about WWII and the holocaust is the lack of interest in the chinese holocaust. During WWII and the Japenese invasion of china prior to the official outbreak of WWII over 10,000,000 chinese were killed. Over 400,000 during the rape of nanking. I never knew this until I took a college course in asian history and the professor was from china. I think that as americans we tend to think of the world in terms of europe and the united states. I'm not sure if the wholesale slaughter of the chinese is ignored because it happened to the chinese and shortly after the WWII they became a communist nation to bevillanized as our enemies or because we were in controll of the japanese islands and in an effort at reconcillation their attrocities went completly ignored. It's not that the holocaust in europe wasn't more horrible than words can even describe but how can we hope to combat modern genocide when past attrocities are so completly ignored. That being said I found your peice to be very well written well researched and compasionate. although the topic matter is very depressing I think that this type of writting is very important
Now I can be accused of anti-semitic for this. But look at the economic comparison of the two. The wealthier will have a larger voice. IN NO WAY am I anti-semitic. It is a statement of fact. Now that China is producing our entire marketplace maybe we will see more on PBS. Let's not forget the internment camps that existed in this country for Asian Americans hardly ever discussed, never in the most important time of your life in high school.
Actually, I have studied the Rape of Nanking in depth as well as the camps Japanese-Americans were forced into, etc, I simply chose not to write about it for this specific essay.
And why on earth would I think you're anti-Semitic?
" I'm not sure if the wholesale slaughter of the chinese is ignored because it happened to the chinese and shortly after the WWII they became a communist nation to bevillanized as our enemies or because we were in controll of the japanese islands and in an effort at reconcillation their attrocities went completly ignored."
Perhaps it was because the mass murder did not stop. The Chineese went into civil war following WWII and then Mao killed millions durring the Cheng Feng, selective starvation of his opponents in famines, and the cultural revolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
Truth is a demure lady, much too ladylike to knock you on your head and drag you to her cave. She is there, but people must want her, and seek her out.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
The chinese holocaust is ignored because for a great span of time, China was the enemy.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
My Creative Writing
Have you heard about Hungary? The gypsy's are being persecuted again. The same of the WWII holocaust. These nomad's originally hail from India, they were banished after the defeat of their leader. These people roam throughout the Mediterranean and Balkan states. The Nazi movement was never completely crushed and it appears as if these chicken@#$% are up to more hateful fearful tactics.
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/american/adl/skinhead-international/skin...
here is a piece from christian science monitor
Hungary’s anti-Roma militia grows “In recent months, hardly a week has gone by without a rally being held by the Magyar Garda or ‘Hungarian Guard,’ their members decked out in black boots and uniforms bearing nationalist symbols last employed by Hungarian fascists during World War II. Their target: Romani (gypsy) criminals and those who want to integrate Romani children into the country’s schools. Their rallies usually take place in communities with a large Roma population, where they style themselves as protectors of ethnic Hungarians. ... “It is really Nazism and it is serious and becoming more and more so,” says Viktoria Mohacsi, a Roma leader and a Hungarian representative in the European Parliament. ‘Many [Romani] organizations are calling on me to join secret meetings to organize ourselves the way the Hungarian Guard has. If this happens, there will be killing; there could be civil war.’” Christian Science Monitor (2/13/08)
The extermination of disident, less socialist factions, and Tibetan people by the Mao is by far the largest. You probably left it out because nobody ever stopped it, they just ran out of victims. The worst part is, if you go by Tianamen square and the lack of international action there is a chance they might start back up if they feel the need.
http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html
Education and being non-violent is a good idea to prevent yourself from commiting any genocides. If you want to stop them, or prevent yourself from being the victim of genocide maintaining a strong national defence may be more effective.
You only mentioned three genocides, but since you have a liberal or leftist bias it is interesting that no comunist genocides were worthy of mention. I was particularly suprised since you are going to Cambodia. Your not mentioning the genocides in Iraq prior to the invasion was not surprising at all, since Democrats and the left are adept at ignoring those.
Truth is a demure lady, much too ladylike to knock you on your head and drag you to her cave. She is there, but people must want her, and seek her out.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
As stated above, I have studied the Japanese occupation of China and the Rape of Nanking in particular. My choosing not to mention every single incident of mass murder in this essay has nothing to do with whether or not I 'ignore' those atrocities. Please do not make ridiculous judgements on me based on my choosing to use examples that I feel are better-known and more relevant to the Western world.
After reading your use of rhetoric that sounded almost precisely like that of the nazis, except you hate Christians and conservatives rather than Jews, this blog was a bit sickening to me. It seemed that you were selective, I admit I was speculating on the basis for your selective attention.
Your responce follows the same pattern by ignoring the much larger genocide by the comunists in China, while mentioning the Japanese atrocity.
Would you actually favor doing anything about Darfur? It seems to be a less strong stand than the one needed otherwise.
Truth is a demure lady, much too ladylike to knock you on your head and drag you to her cave. She is there, but people must want her, and seek her out.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Er, half my family is Christian. Several of my best friends are Christian. I absolutely do NOT hate Christians, nor conservatives.
I don't feel that the killing of Chinese by the Communists fits the definition of a genocide. And if I did include it, someone would be bound to find another genocide or massacre I didn't mention and get pissed about it.
Would I actually favor doing anything about Darfur? What sort of ridiculous question is that?
"I don't feel that the killing of Chinese by the Communists fits the definition of a genocide."
More like serial genocide. Ideology rather than race were the causes, except in Tibet. Nixon went to grip and grin with Mao only a few years after he killed those millions.
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"Several of my best friends are Christian."
Ok, I'll take that as fact. I try not to let discussion bleed from one blog to the other because it just gets too confusing. I just wanted to explain where the attitude came from.
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"Would I actually favor doing anything about Darfur? What sort of ridiculous question is that?"
Very serious question. All of the education and petitions in the world will not stop a slaughter like the one in Darfur, and nothing can be done to bring back those already slain. Iraq is the reason I ask. Sadam had committed multiple genocides, yet the same people signing those Save Darfur petitions as if they matter are protesting the act of removing him from power, and occupation while a stable government is formed, and violent factions quelled.
Saving millions of lives is not free. Most of the damage has been done in Darfur, but inteligence agencies KNEW it was happening at the start. The US could have stopped the killing. The only way to stop this type behavior is decisive force, because they finish killing the victims while you negotiate, debate how to respond, or propose sanctions. Would you support military intervention in the NEXT situation where a Rwanda or Darfur or Bosnia type slaughter was starting?
Truth is a demure lady, much too ladylike to knock you on your head and drag you to her cave. She is there, but people must want her, and seek her out.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Precisely. This particular post was more about ethnic genocide. And it's impossible to name every single genocide, and there's nothing wrong with concentrating on a few I selected for various reasons.
Please also don't make judgements like me "hating" the people who make up my mother's side of the family. She converted from Christianity to Judaism when she was nineteen. I don't "hate" any group of people based on something like religion.
I don't know enough about what specific types of intervention help so I can't really answer that question. However, if military intervention would stop such a slaughter, I would certainly support it. I support direct action rather than stuff like signing petitions.
All genocide is politically motivated. It is an effort by a group to consolidate power and take control of a regions political and natural resources. Hitler was an official that was originally elected into power by the German people, due in a large part to his anti-Jewish stance. It proved to be a popular political position that allowed him to become dictator, the absolute consolidation of political power, where he proceeded to eliminate the Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Handicapped, and anyone else he felt like. The movement was political.
The drive for political power allowed Stalin to kill twenty million within his own country, three times as many individuals as Hitler. Moa killed upwards of thirty million Chinese to consolidate communist rule in China, five times as many as Hitler. The Japanese atrocities against ten million Chinese during WWII politically driven. Saddam in Iraq attacking the Kurds using chemical agents banned under the Geneva Convention was a power struggle between two ethnic groups. So was the recent invasion by Turkey into Iraqi Kurdistan. The ethnic battles in Pakistan are for control of the government. Same in Africa. One side wipes out the other for control.
The United States destroyed the native population for of the Americas in order to control the vast natural resources available here. The government needed the money. Same thing happened in the Philippines when America took over the territory after the Spanish American war. We as a nation killed hundreds of thousands of indigenous Filipinos for Americas political interests.
From a certain perspective there is no such thing as ethnic or religious cleansing or genocide. They all take place for political and financial control of the region they occur in. Wholesale slaughter is wholesale slaughter for whatever the reason and there is no way or reason to differentiate between the different scenarios. The reason probably doesn't matter all that much to those on the receiving end.
I've always been passionate about learning and teaching others about the Holocaust. Being raised as a third-generation Jew from a family that lost members during the Holocaust has always impacted me in different ways. I never knew most of my father's side of the family, not only because of the Holocaust, but because they died young for health reasons.
Learning about the Holocaust is just as important as learning about the events that have taken place after the Holocaust. The only reason why the Holocaust has been stressed was because it was the first big atrocity in the 20th century. Additionally, several teachers have even taught that the word 'genocide' hadn't even been coined until after the events of the Holocaust.
Regardless of what religion or nationality one is, the atrocity needs to be remembered. You also mentioned how people said "never again". However, it IS happening again. Regardless of the fact that it is two ethnical groups fighting against each other, or nations at each other's throats, it is happening and it needs to be stopped.
If you forget history, it is likely to repeat itself. Never forget. Always remember. Even if you aren't directly impacted by the events taking place, someone, somewhere, is impacted. It might be the person sitting next to you in class. Or a stranger that you have yet to me. A stranger that you might never meet because you didn't stand up and try to stop what is happening.