The Inhumanity of Genocides
There are important context about history that many people should be aware of and how they should acknowledge the results in order to prevent the same error again. Genocides is one of the main topics in history to talk about because it is a representation of how humans are capable of suppressing other humans based on their differences. In the book, “’A Fate Worse Than Dying’: Sexual Violence during the Armenian Genocide” by Matthias Bjornlund, she elaborated on the massacre and extreme violence that the Armenians had gone through under the control of the Ottoman government in World War I. In the reading “Camp Brothels: Forced Sex Labour in Nazi Concentration Camps” by Robert Sommer, he talked about the Holocaust
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The Armenian people were seen as traitors because Ottoman military officers feared that they might join the enemy and join them to fight back the government. In the book “’A Fate Worse Than Dying’: Sexual Violence during the Armenian Genocide” by Matthias Bjornlund, she said, “Organized, gender-selective mass killing – sometimes termed gendercide – is a common feature of war, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, and has in such situation of conflict primarily targeted men through history, especially younger ‘battle-age’ men.6”(Pg.17) This shows how the Ottoman empire had an agenda to eliminate a specific population that interferes their way of thinking because if any of these population oppose to any of their ideas then their would be an issue overcoming it. In this case since men were seen as ma much stronger and bold gender, they were considered as a threat because they had the possibility to join the army and fight alongside with the enemy. In this book, Matthias Bjornlund said, “They, in turn, were followed by those of the remaining men and older boys who had not managed to hide or escape and were massacred as prelude to, or in the early stages of, the deportation – the death marches.”(Pg.18) This represents the Ottoman military tactics by looking and executing Christian men throughout their territory. Although executing all the …show more content…
In the Nazi concentration camps women that were not Jewish had the opportunity to work as a prostitute. In the reading, the author says, “When another prisoner asked why she had done it, she answered: ‘Winter is coming and I work in the fields!’24 She knew that she would have never survived another winter in Auschwitz and preferred forced sex labour to the crematory”(Pg.173) This shows how women within the concentration camps had to live and the only option they had for this survival was forced sex labour. This kind of act was tortuous toward these women because the Nazi soldiers saw them critically vulnerable and observed how they were willing to do anything to live. Sommer also mention about how both genders were treated inhumanly as possible. Sommer says, “After surviving these shocks, some prisoners were able to adapt to the reality of the camp while many others died. In the process of adaptation, reconquering a sexual identity becomes a major strategy of survival.”(Pg.182) What the author meant is that some of the prisoners of the concentration camps lost grip of reality because of their sexual identity being torn away from them. Women and men in these concentration camps were stripped off from their sexual identity in order for them to feel worthless human
Many people recognize the Holocaust as the biggest and worst genocide ever. Although the Holocaust was one of the worst and biggest genocides ever. It is important to learn about other genocides to study how and why they happened and to understand the causes and effects. The ultimate goal is to get rid of genocides all together. Through education we learn to stop and prevent these types of events from happening. One and a half million people died from 1915 to 1923 in the Armenian genocide. A genocide is deliberate killing of a large group of people (dictionary.com). In 1915 the Armenian people living in the Ottoman Empire were targeted by the Turkish government. Many people do not know about the Armenian genocide because they do not teach
The Holocaust is the undisputed genocide of all genocides, and it has been contended energetically by numerous students of history that no other dim period in mankind's history very thinks about to it. Albeit subjectively valid in a few perspectives, current students of history no longer need to depend on shades of obscurity keeping in mind the end goal to break down genocide.
The Armenian people under the Ottoman Empire have gone through persecution by their government on more than one occasion. While the Armenian Genocide is still not acknowledged by present-day Turkey, the motivations behind the deaths are questionable. The persecution of a whole people is racist, but other motivations may have been a stronger influence. Previous acts against the Armenian people were meant to sabotage the growing sense of Armenian nationalism by intimidating the Armenian people with severe consequences for disputes. The massacres of 1894 to 1896, carried out under the control of Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, witnessed the killing of Armenian people in broad daylight in front of the general public. The public killings were meant to send
Genocide is the term created by Raphael Lemkin to describe the horrific events of the brutal murder of over 6 million Jews during Hitler’s rule over Germany and Europe. Later, Gregory H. Stanton created a model called The 10 Stages of Genocide to use in order to determine if a group was being targeted for genocide. The ten stages give descriptions of ongoing processes that help define the actions being implemented against the targeted group. The 10 Stages of Genocide can be used to examine the Holocaust, as each of the ten processes have been met and can be further supported by accounts of the victims and reports on the events. Of the ten, there are four that stand out as the most observable: symbolization, dehumanization, extermination, and
In the past 150 years, tens of millions of men, women and children have lost their lives to ethnic cleansing or genocide. Although the definition is often scrutinized, according to Merriam Webster, "Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group". The most notable event associated with the term is the Holocaust. Stated by Judah Gribets, Edward Greenstein and Regina Stein, "nearly six million Jews fell victim to genocide during the years of the Holocaust". Of This number, one million were children who were unable to take care of themselves. People's hopes and dreams for the future were stripped from them, and many families were ripped apart. Many of these people were tortured or raped
The events that happened during the Armenian genocide was very disturbing as to why and how it happened. For the Armenians it was mainly the women and kids who were forced to be converted to islam. Another measure of the genocidal process is deleting all traces of the population who have been massacred or driven away by such deportations. Women were raped and sold in slave
Nowadays, there has been a major concern that everyone has underestimated one of the worst genocides in the history, the Holocaust and moved on. - Thesis statement: We should never forget about this sorrowful side of history or about its enormous negative impacts on the whole world. - Reasons: We should always memorize about this not only because of the importance of remembering history but also because we, therefore, can raise people awareness, do something to heal the victims’ pains and prevent this history occur again. II. Body
It is made known that before 1944, the term “genocide” did not exist. A Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin wanted to describe the acts of the Nazi policies, in regards to the mass murders of the European Jews. Using the Greek word “geno-“, meaning race or tribe, as well as the Latin word “-cide” for killing, he formed the word “genocide” (History.com Staff). According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the term holocaust 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: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately
Their goal was to create a completely Turkish state in the Ottoman Empire, and they saw the Armenians as an obstacle. The Turks were also Muslim, and greatly outnumbered the Armenians, who were Christian. The extreme hatred for Christians not only sprung from the Young Turk’s goal of being homogeneously Turkish, but also they were allied with Germany and against France, Britain, and Russia in World War I. Since they were allied with Germany and had hatred for Christians, the objective of mass Armenian killings, could almost seem justified. Talaat Pasha, one of the leaders of the Young Turks said that there were to be no Christians allowed. At the beginning of the genocide in 1915, hundreds of Armenian leaders in their communities were arrested, sent eastbound toward the Syrian deserts, and executed under the rule of the Young Turks and Talaat. Quickly, churches were burned, Armenian schools were closed, and any teachers who refused to convert to Islam were killed. Eventually there were deportation orders that were posted all around calling for the of Armenians to camps in the Syrian deserts. However, there were no such camps prepared for the deported Armenians and nearly half of them died on the journey there. The women were raped and abused, the men mutilated and both men and women were murdered
In Rwanda during 1994 Genocide happened between the Hutus and Tutsis. Hutus and Tutsis had disagreements on who will have power which effected the whole population of Rwanda. This leads to the question why there is Genocide in Rwanda? Genocide happened by two clans who caused mass causalities. Others did little to help which caused Genocide to happen in Rwanda.
The memoirs and stories that we have read and discussed in class have described The Holocaust as a life changing event that made both the conquered and conquerors question if there was any faith left in humanity and what were their true motives. Arguably the most horrific event of the twentieth century and even in Earth’s history, The Holocaust devastated most of Central and Eastern Europe. It separated loved ones, most of the time forever. These stories display the courage and hope of ordinary people who just wanted to make it to the next day, by any means necessary.
The crime of genocide is one of the most devastating human tragedies throughout the history. And the word genocide refers to an organised destruction to a specific group of people who belongs to the same culture, ethnic, racial, religious, or national group often in a war situation. Similar to mass killing, where anyone who is related to the particular group regardless their age, gender and ethnic background becomes the killing targets, genocide involves in more depth towards destroying people’s identity and it usually consists a fine thorough plan prearranged in order to demolish the unwanted group due to political reasons mostly. While the term genocide had only been created recently in 1943 by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish legal
At first the Armenians were hopeful that their more modern government would help their region and give them equal rights. However, shortly after they came to power, the Young Turks made it clear that their numbers one priority was to “Turkify” all of the empire. On April 15, 1915, the genocide truly began. The government first arrested and murdered several hundred Armenian intellectuals. Secondly, they went into regular Armenians’ houses and grabbed them from their homes and took them on death marches in the scorching heat of the Mesopotamian desert until they dropped dead with no food, no water, no clothes. If you stopped to rest you would be shot. On top of these death marches, there were special organizations called “killing squads” that went around drowning, stabbing, and burning Armenians. In 1922 as the genocide began to end, “there were just 388,000 Armenians remaining in the Ottoman Empire” (“The Armenian Genocide”). So in the end, the Armenian Genocide is one of the many Genocides that have happened and are happening currently that we are not educated on. If this particular genocide is either forgotten or unspoken, it really is a little bit of
Genocide, a dire event, has been recurring time and time again throughout history. In the past, there was the Holocaust, where Hitler exterminated over six million Jews based on his anti-semitic views. Elie Wiesel, a Jewish author, has become a very influential man in educating the world of the true events of the Holocaust due to his involvement in the disaster. Presently, a genocide is occurring in the Darfur region of southern Sudan, in which according to Cheryl Goldmark, “a systematic slaughter of non-Arab residents at the the hands of Arab militiamen called Janjaweed” has been taking place since 2003. (1) Not only is genocide a tragic historical event, it also continuously occurs today.
Confucius believed in the respectable relationship between a teacher and student. The Cultural Revolution challenged this, demonstrating what happens when the students become the power. The Cultural Revolution was a campaign started by Mao Zedong. Its goal was to reinforce communism and cleanse China of long-established, capitalist beliefs. But, it wasn’t just a movement to improve the economic system in China.