Genocide

Genocide TodayMaggie Dillon

< (“Shoah” in Hebrew means Holocaust)

What is genocide?• The word comes from the Latin words “gens”

(race, stock, kind) and “-cidium” (cutting, killing) and was first used in 1944 in reference to the Holocaust.

• According to wikipedia, “Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.”

• So, basically genocide is a group of people killing another group of people based on their nationality, religion, race, or ethnicity.

Characteristics of Genocide• Begins with segregation of some sort.

• Being classified as something different i.e. “Jew,” “Gypsy,” or being made to wear a color or symbol.

• Dehumanizing of the “others” – Denying rights to visas, banned from some public places, not allowed to marry outside their own “kind.”

• Forcibly putting the groups into ghettos, concentration camps, work camps, & ect.

• Extermination- the radical groups refuse to use words like murder or kill because it identifies the “others” as actual humans when they believe them to be closer to animals or otherwise.

An example you may recognize..

• Holocaust, Shoah, and Final Solution

• Massacre of over 11 million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, Poles and anyone else the Nazi’s considered a “political enemy” during WWII, including men, women, children and the elderly.

Romanian children were the subjects of horrific medical experiments at Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

"Germans defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews."

Why do genocides happen?

• A lot of specific economic and cultural factors come into play when trying to answer this question.

• To figure out why genocides happen, we can analyze the most famous example of genocide, the Holocaust of WWII.

Holocaust of WWII

Hitler wants to create the “perfect race.”

Germany was in a LOT of debt after WWI and they were pretty ashamed.

Hitler needed to create a sense of Nationalism among Germany for her to become stable and

for him to stay in power.

So basically this means one race has to believe it’s superior to another.

Hitler blamed the Jews for the economic Crisis.

Hitler decides to sacrifice the Jewish race to make his dream of a New World

Order to come true.

Why does genocide happen? Continued.

• Basically a country needs to be in some sort of crisis (economic) or have something to gain (resources, power, ex.)

• The ruler uses racial superiority as an excuse to victimize a certain group of people. They may blame them for the problem or say that they are in the way of prosperity.

• Probably the biggest reason that genocides have/do happen are because other people LET it happen. People are so scared that they may be next on the list that they stand aside and do nothing to help.

Genocide TODAY• As hard as it is to believe, there

are still cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing going on today, in our world as we speak – like the crisis in Darfur.

• The Darfur genocide has killed more than 400,000 civilians and has forced over 2.5 MILLION refugees to flee from their homes.

“In February 2003, frustrated by poverty and neglect, two

Darfurian rebel groups launched an uprising against the Khartoum government. The government responded

with a scorched-earth campaign, arming and

bankrolling militias against the innocent civilians of

Darfur.”

What can YOU do?• The rest of the world has to stop

genocides before they start• Recognize the signs• ACT

– Write your senators! Write your President! Eventually with enough pressure, the US can go to the UN and intervene.

– Visit these sites, donate money, supplies and your time!

– www.standnow.org– www.sudandivestment.org– www.genocideintervention.net

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Works cited

• http://www.genocidewatch.org/8stages.htm

• http://www.genocideindarfur.net/ • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_co

nflict• www.eyesondarfur.org/ • http://www.amnestyusa.org/darfur/pa

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