WORLD WAR II. I. Differences between Democratic, Fascist, & Communism A. Democracies: Based on individual rights 1. Economic Rights: Capitalism (Own.

WORLD WAR II

I. Differences between Democratic, Fascist, & Communism

A. Democracies: Based on individual rights

1. Economic Rights: Capitalism (Own

business & make money)

2. Government Rights: Democratic

Elected gov’t.

a. Choose leaders by voting

3. Examples: U.S./ Britain/ France

B. Fascist: Dictatorship w/ private business

1. Economic rights: Capitalism (own business

–make $

2. Government rights: NONE

a. Totalitarian/Dictatorship

1. One person or Party leader

3. Examples: Germany/ Italy/ Japan

C. Communism: “Good of everyone”

1. Economic rights: NONE

a. All owned by government

2. Government rights: One person/party

a. Totalitarian/Dictatorship

b. Examples: Soviet Union (Russia)

D. Advantages & Disadvantages

1. Communism & Fascism

a. Gov’t controls ALL information

& there is NO opposition

2. Democracies: People choose to

fight, can elect new leaders any

time.

Democracy Communism Fascism

II. Major causes of WWII in Europe A. WWI & Depression causes

1. Winners of WWI harsh on Germany (Reparations & smaller military- humiliating)

2. Great Depression hurts Europe especially Germany a. Fascist think Democracy is weak & can’t help

B. Rise of Fascism due to WWI & Depression 1. Italy the 1st Fascist country a. Upset it didn’t get more after WWI

b. Benito Mussolini comes to power in 1922

2. Germany & Adolf Hitler

a. NAZI- National Socialist German

Worker Party

b. Uses “Thugs”- Brown Shirts to beat up

opponents and critics (young men, no

jobs)

c. Wants to blame everyone for

Germany’s trouble: Jews, Democracy!!,

The Allies

d. Never Had Majority- Scared or Killed

people

C. Hitler’s Goals for Revenge

1. “LEBENSRAUM” – ‘Living Space’ for

Germans

a. Take land from non-Germans

(considered less human)

b. Adds land w/No fighting: APPEASEMENT

- Britain & France give land to avoid War

- Austria, Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia-all)

2. Builds huge military

a. Modern army with tanks & planes

- All move fast & work together (radio)

b. BLITZKREIG – “Lightning War”

- practices on Spain to help Fascists there

D. War & The Reaction

1. Hitler invades Poland Sept. 1, 1939

a. Uses Blitzkrieg & destroys Poland

b. Britain & France declare WAR

1. Appeasement was a JOKE

2. Hitler had secret treaty with

Soviets (Stalin)

2. United States reaction

a. Officially Neutral & Isolationist

-many famous people almost like Hitler

(Ford, Kennedy, Lindbergh)

b. Great Britain all Alone!! (Churchill)

- France got butt kicked & Germany controls it

- Germany bombing Britain and planning

attack

c. Roosevelt helps Britain

1. Lend Lease Policy (Boats/guns)

2. Atlantic Charter

a. U.S. & Britain are “Friends”

3. U.S. begins to build up own military

III. Japan’s Expansion in the Pacific

A. Military takes control of Japan

1. Emperor Hirohito’s power????

(Prisoner?)

a. General Tojo in REAL power

2. Wants Japan to be equal to European

powers

a. Believes they are better than all

other Asians just like Germany in Europe

b. Signs treaty with Germany

B. Japan wants raw material and colonies 1. Invades China, Korea & British Colonies a. Brutal to China “Rape of Nanking” 1. Murder MILLIONS of Chinese 2. Only competition in Pacific is U.S. a. U.S. has Philippines, Hawaii, Samoa & Alaska

C. Attacking the U.S. – Pearl Harbor 1. Japan thinks U.S. is racist (true) & will try to stop them from growing (true) a. U.S. stopped selling steel & limits trade to them

2. Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – Dec. 7, 1941

a. Goal is to destroy U.S. AIRCRAFT CARRIERS

- Carriers were out at sea & they survive

b. Surprise attack – U.S. should have known

– broke Japanese code

3. Waking a “Sleeping Dog”

a. Japanese General said it was a mistake

b. U.S. declares WAR

- Roosevelt “A day that will live in infamy”

- Germany declares war on U.S.

The ships were:USS Arizona - Magazine explosion, sunk with few survivors

USS California - Sunk USS Maryland - Damaged

USS Nevada - Damaged and run aground USS Oklahoma - Capsized and sunk

USS Pennsylvania - Damaged. The Pennsylvania was in dry dock USS Tennessee - Damaged USS West Virginia - Sunk

The USS Arizona (BB-39) burning after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Battleships USS West Virginia and USS Tennessee after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Photograph of the USS Nevada beached at Hospital Point after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Aircraft damage at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii from Japanese attack.

Captured Japanese photograph taken during the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. In the foreground, part of Battleship Row. In the distance, the smoke rises from Hickam Field.

IV. Hitler’s defeat in Europe

A. Germany unstoppable early

1. Blitzkreig kills: Poland & France (1939,

1940)

2. Britain becomes a fortress

a. Germany bombs daily

b. Royal Air Force (RAF) fights back

c. Churchill – “Never Surrender”

B. Tag Team Enemies

1. Hitler invades Soviet Union

(1941- Barbarosa)

a. Soviets being killed like crazy

b. Siege of Leningrad- Slash & burn retreat

2. Britain & U.S. help soviets

a. “I would favor the devil if it was

against Germany” W. Churchill

b. FDR sends aid to Soviets ( Isolationists mad) & US fear communists more!

c. Germany has to fight on two fronts

1. West: U.S. & Britain

2. East: Soviets

3. Germany declares war on U.S. after

Pearl Harbor

a. Smart????? Why not???

Germany fights on two fronts

C. Attacking the German Empire

1. Africa

a. German Gen. Rommel “Desert Fox”

1. Kicked butt early

b. U.S. joins fight & helps British

c. Germany kicked out by 1942

2. Italy (1943)

a. Starts in Southern Italy with

paratroopers & sea landings

b. Mussolini overthrown by Italians

- Executed & dragged in streets

c. Germans still fight in Italy

against Allies

3. D-Day (Normandy) June 6, 1944

a. Allies invade France (Operation

Overload)

-General Eisenhower “Supreme

Commander”

****Wrote failure letter just in case

- Germany had France 4 years

- Builds fortress along coast

b. Huge DEADLY attack- 150,000

men

- Dropped on beach to face

machine guns

c. 1 million men in France in 6 weeks !!

Landing ships putting cargo ashore on one of the invasion beaches, at low tide during the first days of the operation, June 1944.

Coast Guard manned USS LST-21 unloads British Army tanks and trucks onto a "Rhino" barge during the early hours of the invasion, 6 June 1944

U.S. Army troops administer first aid to the survivors of sunken landing craft, on "D-Day", 6 June 1944.

Army troops wade ashore on "Omaha" Beach during the "D-Day" landings, 6 June 1944.

U.S. Soldiers of the 8th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, move out over the seawall on "Utah" Beach, after coming ashore.

D. Germany is defeated

1. Germany’s last chance-

Battle of the Bulge

a. Germany defeated but huge battle

2. U.S. & Britain bomb Germany

a. U.S. in day; Britain at night

(deadly job)

- Huge losses in factories/supplies

3. Soviets start to win in East

a. Russian winter freezes Germans

Battle of the Bulge

Battle of the Bulge

Rifle and helmet: traditional tribute to a fallen soldier

E. V-E Day (Victory in Europe)

1. Hitler’s suicide – April 30, 1945

a. Germany surrenders May 7, 1945

- Soviets capture Berlin

2. U.S. & Soviets meet 60 miles south of

Berlin

a. Start of Democracy v. Communism

V. U.S. Island Hopping Japan to Defeat

A. Japan’s 6 months of victory

1. Pearl Harbor—Great attack but

missed ____________

2. Japan conquers Pacific and Asia

a. Philippines taken (MacArthur- “I

shall return”)

b. Guam/Wake/Singapore/Hong Kong

3. Japanese brutal to prisoners/civilians

a. Executions/starvation/torture

(Bataan Death March)

B. Island hopping to victory- General MacArthur

1. May & June 1942

a. Battle of Coral Sea & Battle of Midway

b. Japanese Aircraft Carriers sunk

2. Horrible fights

a. Japanese fight to the death (suicide attacks)

b. Battle of Iwo Jima (flag picture)

c. “Kamikaze” – suicide planes

C. The BOMB – Hiroshima & Nagasaki

1. Manhattan Project

a. Secret project to build “Atomic Bomb”

- Einstein told Roosevelt about Germany

b. Dr. Oppenheimer from Univ. of Cali

- Plus tons of others in secret treaties

On Okinawa, just 350 miles from Japan, a Marine dashes through Japanese machine gun fire while crossing a draw, called 'Death Valley' by the men fighting there. Marines sustained more than 125 casualties in eight hours crossing this valley. May 1945.

2. Why ????? a. Japanese promise EVERY man, woman and child will fight to the DEATH!!! b. Pres. Truman claim 1 million soldiers might die c. Already bombed cities in Japan & Germany - Dresden in Germany ‘Fire Storm 3. When – August 1945 a. Truman warns- Prompt & Utter Destruction b. Hiroshima- August 6, 1945 - Enola Gay dropped bomb “Little Boy” c. Nagasaki- August 9, 1945 - Box Car drops “Fat Man” d. 110,000 killed + radiation deaths later - U.S. studies bomb victims

Col. Paul W. Tibbets, pilot of the B-29 Superfortress ENOLA GAY, waves from the cockpit just before taking off from Tinian Island to drop the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima. The 9,000 lb. bomb was dropped from 31,600 feet and detonated at 8:15 a.m., August 6, 1945, about 1,900 feet above the center of Hiroshima. A blinding light, tremendous explosion and dark gray cloud enveloped the city, followed by a rising mushroom shaped cloud. The Japanese estimated 72,000 were killed and 70,000 out of 76,000 buildings in the city were destroyed.

On August 9, 1945, the American B-29 bomber, Bock's Car left Tinian carrying Fat Man, a plutonium implosion-type bomb. It was dropped on Nagasaki.

The ruins around the Industrial Promotion Hall, now known as the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima. (Aug. 6, 1945)

D. Japan surrenders Aug. 15, 1945 V-J Day

(Victory over Japan)

1. Emperor announces surrender on radio

a. 1st time Japanese have heard his voice

2. Japan surrenders to MacArthur on

the USS Missouri battleship

3. U.S. takes control of Japan & creates

new Gov’t

E. Results

1. Battle Dead:

Britain U.S. Soviets Japan

Soldiers 303,000 322,000 7,500,000 1,576,000

Civilians 85,000 0 20,000,000 300,000

2. Unconditional Surrender a. Both Germany & Japan * Japan- U.S. military control * Germany- Split sectors controlled by Allies (Berlin in USSR sector but still split) - totally at mercy of victors b. Soviets and U.S. World Powers -Old European powers destroyed by war ex: France & Britain -Fascism dead, democracy must face the “devil” (Communism)

USS Missouri

Gen. Douglas MacArthur signs as Supreme Allied Commander during formal surrender ceremonies on the USS MISSOURI in Tokyo Bay. September 2, 1945.

VI. Everyone Helps At Home

A. Factories and farms roar

1. Huge amounts produced

a. NO bombing makes it easy

2. Ladies to the rescue

a. women take factory jobs

(Rosie the Riveter)

B. Ration Books: Coupons that limit how

much of anything you can buy at a time

(week, month, year)

1. Tires/ shoes/ sugar/ butter/ gas

2. Some things not available:

Panty hose for parachutes

C. We Need Troops 1. Selective Service (Draft) a. Men 18-35 MUST serve if called b. Still around today (register @ 18) 2. Women serve (WAC’s & WAVES) a. Army & Navy women’s service (nurses, pilots) D. Racism at home (Fighting NAZI’s??????????) 1. Japanese-Americans (are they loyal?)

a. Starts at Pearl Harbor: Not trusted Ex-planes

b. Japanese Internment Camps - Japanese on West coast moved to camps - Loose property/ homes/ business

- Supreme Ct. & Roosevelt support it

Young Americans of Japanese descent who have just arrived at an assembly center

2. Army still segregated

a. Tuskegee Airmen: All Black fighter pilots

b. Nisei Battalion: Japanese Amer.

fight in Italy

c. Navajo Code Talkers: Native Amer.

use language as radio men to keep

Japanese clueless

HOLOCAUST

I. The Holocaust

A. Hitler’s Terror

1. Mein Kampf (1924)

a. Book written explaining views

b. Blames Jew for WWI & Depression

c. Focuses on racial purity

2. Terror Group – SS

a. Troops directly loyal to Hitler

1. Led by Heinrich Himmler

b. “Believe, Obey, Fight” – follow

Hitler’s orders no matter legal or not

c. Gestapo (State Police) 1. Crush any opposition to Hitler 2. Above the law protecting Hitler a. Spies, impersonators d. Run Death Camps 1. Organize & carry out exterminations a. Labor, medical experiments

3. Concentration Camps (1933) a. NOT killing centers b. Political & religious dissidents c. Run as labor camps & to keep dissent quiet d. Death through exhaustion

**FINAL SOLUTION-Extermination of Jews in Europe – includes gypsies, mentally ill, soviet POW’s and other non-conformists

4. KILLING centers

a. Camps only used for mass killings

b. Camp organization

1. SS Administration

2. Guards—SS men

3. Kapos—Jews or camp prisoners

c. 1st Method-Instatgrupen “Death Squads” 1. shooting d. 2nd Method-”Bread Vans” 1. Use CO from exhaust to kill e. 3rd Method-”Busses with Lye” 1. Same as vans with lye on the floor to kill quicker f. 4th Method-”Death Camps” 1. Gas Chambers (Zyclon B) 2. Shootings 3. 45 min. from arrival to death

5. Camps a. Chelmo, Treblinka, Sobibor, Maidanek, Belzac and Auschwitz

B. Nuremburg Trials

1. Allies formed a court to try Nazi leaders

a. 21 Nazis were convicted of crimes

7 Japanese leaders were put to death

for crimes against humanity.

Camp Location Established Murdered

Auschwitz Poland May 1940 1,100,000

BelzecBelzec Poland March 1942 600,000

Bergen-Belsen Germany April 1943 35,000

Chelmno Poland Dec. 1941 320,000

Dachau Germany March 193 332,000

MajdanekLublin Poland Feb.1943 360,000

Mauthausen      Austria August 1938 120,000

Stutthof Poland Sept. 1939 65,000

Treblinka Poland July 1942 n/a

Westerbork Netherlands  October 1939 n/a

GERMANY

POLAND

JOURNALD: Correct dateQ: Explain the following statement.

In Germany first they came for the CommunistsAnd I did not speak out

Because I was not Communist.Then they came for the Jews.

And I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out becauseI was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics And I did not speak out because I was not Catholic.

Then they came for meAnd there was no one left

To speak for me.(Paster Martin Niemoller)

Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler inspects the women's concentration camp Ravensbrueck. (1941)

View of the entrance to the main camp of Auschwitz (Auschwitz I). The gate bears the motto “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work makes one free)

The furnaces of Krema II in Auschwitz

The furnaces of Krema II in Auschwitz

Cannisters of Zyklon B used in gas chambers at Auschwitz

Jewish children, kept alive in the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) pose in concentrationcamp uniforms between two rows of barbed wire fencing after liberation.

Jewish children, the victims of medical experiments in Auschwitz

Birkenau crematorium under construction

The group on the right was selected for the gas chambers at Birkenau

GENOCIDE

JOURNALD: Write correct date.

Q: What is Genocide?

(Write a paragraph about

what genocide is or what

you think it is.)

GENOCIDE:

The deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

Quoted from a speech delivered by Hitler to the Supreme Commanders and Commanding Generals, as the Nazis marched into Poland in 1939.

I have issued the command - and I’ll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad - that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly I have placed my death-head formations in readiness - for the present only in the East - with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

Adolf Hitler August 22, 1939

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the United Nations’ Definition of Genocide)

General Assembly Resolution 260A (III) Article 2 In the present Convention, genocide means any of the

following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

- (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of

the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life

calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

The slave ship “Brookes” built for 421 slaves;

packed with 700

Unlike most twentieth-century cases of premeditated mass killing, the African slave trade was not undertaken by a single political force or military entity during the course of a few months or years. The transatlantic slave trade lasted for 400 years, from the 1450s to the 1860s, as a series of exchanges of captives reaching from the interior of sub-Saharan Africa to final purchasers in the Americas. It has been estimated that in the Atlantic slave trade, up to 12 million Africans were loaded and transported across the ocean under dreadful conditions. About 2 million victims died on the Atlantic voyage (the dreaded “Middle Passage”) and in the first year in the Americas.

Source : Seymour Drescher The Encyclopedia of Genocide “Slavery as Genocide” (ABC-CLIO, Inc., 1999) pp.517-518

Genocide of the Native Americans

“The Trail of Tears” Painting by Robert Lindneux in the Woolaroc Museum, Bartlesville, Oklahoma

The genocide of peoples indigenous to the U.S. portion of North America proceeded along different tracks, each defined by the policies of the colonial power pursuing it. The colonization began in 1607 when England’s Jamestown colonists arrived in present-day Virginia with instructions to “settle” the already heavily populated coastal area. Beginning in 1830, the U.S. undertook a policy of “removing” all native people from the area east of the Mississippi River. In the series of interments and thousand-mile forced marches which followed, entire peoples were decimated. The Cherokees, for instance, suffered 50 percent fatalities during the “Trail of Tears”; the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles and Creeks, 25 to 35 percent apiece.

Source: Ward Churchill The Encyclopedia of Genocide “Genocide of the Native Populations in the United States”

(ABC-CLIO, Inc., 1999) pp.434-436

The Herero Genocide

Hereros captured by the German Military in 1904.

The Herero Genocide occurred between 1904-1907 in current day Namibia. The Hereros were herdsmen who migrated to the region in the 17th and 18th centuries. After a German presence was established in the region in the 1800s, the Herero territory was annexed (in 1885) as a part of German South West Africa.

A series of uprisings against German colonialists, from 1904–1907, led to the extermination of approximately four-fifths of the Herero population. After Herero soldiers attacked German farmers, German troops implemented a policy to eliminate all Hereros from the region, including women and children.

The Armenian Genocide

Source: Henry Morgenthau, Sr. Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story (Doubleday, Page & Co., 1918,) Fig. 50.

The Armenian Genocide was carried out by the "Young Turk" government of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923. Starting in April 1915, Armenians in the Ottoman armies, serving separately in unarmed labor battalions, were removed and murdered. Of the remaining population, the adult and teenage males were separated from the deportation caravans and killed under the direction of Young Turk functionaries. Women and children were driven for months over mountains and desert, often raped, tortured, and mutilated. Deprived of food and water, they fell by the hundreds of thousands along the routes to the desert. Ultimately, more than half the Armenian population (1,500,000 people) was annihilated. Pontic Greeks and the Assyrians were also targeted by the Ottoman Turks.

The Ukrainian Genocide/The Great Famine

Source: The Artificial Famine/Genocide in Ukraine 1932-33 Web site

In 1932-33, Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, imposed the system of land management know as collectivization. This resulted in the seizure of all privately owned farmland and livestock. By 1932, much of the wheat crop was dumped on the foreign market to generate cash to aid Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. The law demanded that no grain could be given to feed the peasants until a quota was met. By the spring of 1933, an estimated 25,000 people died every day in the Ukraine. Deprived of the food they had grown with their own hands, an estimated 7,000,000 persons perished due to the resulting famine in this area known as the breadbasket of Europe. Between 1934-39 13,000,000 peasants/civilians died.

Source: The History Place - Genocide in the 20th Century Web site

(www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/stalin.htm)

Rape of Nanking

Source: China: Past & Present Web site (www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/ChinaHistory)

In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army marched into China’s capital city of Nanking and proceeded to murder 300,000 out of the 600,000 civilians and soldiers in the city. After just four days of fighting, Japanese troops smashed into the city with orders issued to “kill all captives.” The terrible violence - citywide burnings, stabbings, drownings, rapes, and thefts - did not cease for about six weeks. It is for the crimes against the women of Nanking that this tragedy is most notorious. The Japanese troops raped over 20,000 women, most of whom were murdered thereafter so they could never bear witness.

Source: The History Place - Genocide in the 20th Century Web site (www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/nanking.htm)

The Holocaust

Source: Teresa Swiebocka Auschwitz: A History in Photographs (Indiana University Press, 1993)

In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that the Third Reich would occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, close to two out of every three European Jews had been killed as part of the "Final Solution", the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe. Although Jews were the primary victims of Nazi racism, other victims included tens of thousands of Roma (Gypsies). At least 200,000 mentally or physically disabled people were murdered in the Euthanasia Program. As Nazi tyranny spread across Europe, the Nazis persecuted and murdered millions of other people. More than three million Soviet prisoners of war were murdered or died of starvation, disease, neglect, or maltreatment. The Germans targeted the non-Jewish Polish intelligentsia for killing, and deported millions of Polish and Soviet citizens for forced labor in Germany or in occupied Poland. From the earliest years of the Nazi regime, homosexuals and others deemed to be behaving in a socially unacceptable way were persecuted. Thousands of political dissidents (including Communists, Socialists, and trade unionists) and religious dissidents (such as Jehovah's Witnesses) were also targeted. Many of these individuals died as a result of incarceration and maltreatment. Between 12-17 million perished.

Source: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/)

Mao Tse-tung’s Cultural Revolution

Source: Ji-Li Jiang's Web site (www.jilijiang.com/red-scarf-girl)

October 1, 1949 marked Mao Tse-tung’s proclamation of the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese Communist Party launched numerous movements to systematically destroy the traditional Chinese social and political system. One of Mao’s major goals was the total collectivization of the peasants. In 1958, he launched the “Great Leap Forward” campaign. This act was aimed at accomplishing economic and technical development of the country at a faster pace and with greater results. Instead, the “Great Leap Forward” destroyed the agricultural system, causing a terrible famine in which 27 million people starved to death. In all over 49,000,000 perished between 1958-1969.

Source : R.J. Rummel The Encyclopedia of Genocide “China, Genocide in: The Communist Anthill” (ABC-CLIO, Inc., 1999) pp.150

The Killing Fields: The Cambodian Genocide

Source: The History Wiz Web site (www.historywiz.com/cambodia.htm)

From 1975-1979, Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge political party in a reign of violence, fear, and brutality over Cambodia. An attempt to form a Communist peasant farming society resulted in the deaths of 25% of the population from starvation, overwork, and executions. By 1975, the U.S. had withdrawn its troops from Vietnam, and Cambodia lost its American military support. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge seized control of Cambodia. Inspired by Mao’s Cultural Revolution in Communist China, Pol Pot attempted to “purify” Cambodia of western culture, city life, and religion. Different ethnic groups and all those considered to be of the “old society”, intellectuals, former government officials, and Buddhist monks were murdered. “What is rotten must be removed” was a slogan proclaimed throughout the Khmer Rouge era. 1,700,000 perished.

Genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Source: The Genocide Factor Web site (www.genocidefactor.com/image6.htm)

In the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, conflict between the three main ethnic groups - the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims - resulted in genocide committed by the Serbs against Bosnian Muslims. In the late 1980’s a Serbian named Slobodan Milosevic came to power. In 1992 acts of “ethnic cleansing” started in Bosnia, a mostly Muslim country where the Serb minority made up only 32% of the population. Milosevic responded to Bosnia’s declaration of independence by attacking Sarajevo, where Serb snipers shot down civilians. The Bosnian Muslims were outgunned and the Serbs continued to gain ground. They systematically rounded up local Muslims and committed acts of mass murder, deported men and boys to concentration camps, and forced repopulation of entire towns. Serbs also terrorized Muslim families by using rape as a weapon against women and girls. Over 200,000 Muslim civilians were systematically murdered and 2,000,000 became refugees at the hands of the Serbs.

Source: The History Place - Genocide in the 20th Century Web site

(www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/bosnia.htm)

The Rwandan Genocide

Source: Father Ryan High School Web site (www.fatherryan.org/holocaust/rwanda/picture.htm)

Beginning on April 6, 1994, groups of ethnic Hutu, armed mostly with machetes, began a campaign of terror and bloodshed which embroiled the Central African country of Rwanda. For about 100 days, the Hutu militias, known in Rwanda as Interhamwe, followed what evidence suggests was a clear and premeditated attempt to exterminate the country's ethnic Tutsi population. The Rwandan state radio, controlled by Hutu extremists, further encouraged the killings by broadcasting non-stop hate propaganda and even pinpointed the locations of Tutsis in hiding. The killings only ended after armed Tutsi rebels, invading from neighboring countries, managed to defeat the Hutus and halt the genocide in July 1994. By then, over one-tenth of the population, an estimated 800,000 persons, had been killed. The country's industrial infrastructure had been destroyed and much of its population had been dislocated.

Source: The History Place - Genocide in the 20th Century Web site

(www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/rwanda.htm)

The Genocide in Darfur

The remains of the village of Jijira Adi Abbe in Darfur, western Sudan, after the government attack.

Violence and destruction are raging in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Since February 2003, government-sponsored militias known as the Janjaweed have conducted a calculated campaign of slaughter, rape, starvation and displacement in Darfur.

It is estimated that 400,000 people have died due to violence, starvation and disease. More than 2.5 million people have been displaced from their homes and over 200,000 have fled across the border to Chad. Many now live in camps lacking adequate food, shelter, sanitation, and health care.

The United States Congress and President George W. Bush recognized the situation in Darfur as "genocide." Darfur, "near Hell on Earth," has been declared the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.

Source: Excerpt from the Save Darfur Coalition Web Site (www.savedarfur.org)

THE WORST GENOCIDES OF THE 20TH CENTURY

CHINA Mao Ze-Dong (1958-69) 49,000,000

USSR Stalin (1934-39) 13,000,000

GERMANY Hitler (1939-45) 12,000,000

JAPAN Hideki Tojo (1941-44) 5,000,000

CAMBODIA Pol Pot (1975-79) 1,700,000

N. KOREA Kim Il Sung (1948-94) 1,600,000

ETHIOPIA Menghistu (1975-78) 1,500,000

TURKEY Ismail Enver (1915) 1,200,000

BIAFRA Yakubu Gowon (1967-70) 1,000,000

AFGANISTAN Brezhnev (1979-82) 900,000

RWANDA Kambanda (1994) 800,000

EAST TIMOR Suharto (1966-98) 800,000

IRAN Hussein (1980-90) 600,000

PAKISTAN Khan (1971) 500,000

JAPAN Konoe (1937-39) 500,000

ANGOLA Savimbi (1975-2002) 400,000

Additional genocide by leaders in Uganda, Bangladesh, Zaire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Yugoslavia, Burundi, Sudan, Vietnam, Guatemala, Haiti, Chad, Taiwan, Cuba, Syria, Zimbabwe, Chili, Argentina, Iraq.