Explain The Lessons Learned From The Holocaust

Many times we may hear but not respond, we see and don’t move and having the ability to take action we don’t even move a finger until the situation is out of control. It’s amazing how ignorant and stubborn the human race can be. This is exactly the response of many nations when it comes to genocide. Genocide is the systematic killing of all the people from a national, ethnic, or religious group. Two of the most recent genocides in history are the genocide of Rwanda and the genocide of Cambodia.

Genocide is a reality that no one can ever conquer or vanish if they are working alone or do not look at the consequences upon taking choices of action. We as Americans feel it is our duty to only take a course of action if we know and are fully aware of the actions being made against the people, or if we are being affected directly. If it does not affect us and we do not know about it then obviously we cannot do anything about it.

From the dawn of time to even now, genocides have been happening throughout history. Some earlier genocides have not even been recorded or documented. Genocides happen because one group wants complete control and absolute power of another. People can be killed for having different ideals or being different. Knowing this, one could see that genocides only end with senseless and brutal discrimination and death. From 1975 to 1979, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge carried out a genocide in Cambodia killing all people who seemed to oppose them and their communist government (“The Cambodian Genocide”).

Unfortunately, genocide and mass killings happen in many places around the world and bring destruction to thousands of people. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation. Some genocides occur due to small, invading groups of people, or one dictator in power who dreams of a “pure” land to rule. Others occur because of a country’s own government and the people in it who wish to change the makeup of their country. Genocide, a horrible and terrible thing, happens more often and in more places than most people can imagine. Many individuals believe that genocide is a thing of the past, but in reality mass killings arise and transpire for years at a time

Earth, a gigantic sphere filled with life, joy, health, and love! Doesn’t that sound marvelous? If only I was telling the truth. Unfortunately the Earth has been contaminated with hate, greed, pain, and jealousy. Humans are the main reason why our home is slowing deteriorating. Wars, genocides, and many different types of man-made disasters are functioning all around the world today. It is repulsive and quite pathetic. But wait, there’s more! Remarkably, most of these conflicts are started by world leaders, the people we allow take charge! There is not someone else to blame but ourselves. For example, Adolf Hitler was elected to be president of Germany in 1934. He was already the chancellor at the time so might as well give this pathetic excuse

Why do we need to study the holocaust? So we never forget about that terrible things that happened. It was a very important and terrible time in history. It teaches us so many lessons . One is don’t judge people by what they believe or what they look like. If you look at it different ways then you see a lot of lesson that you can learn from the holocaust.

There is a genocide that is happening and there is nothing that we did about it. There are nations like the United States that are seen as leaders though they don’t seem to do anything to intervene in this situation. Every minute that passed in the Rwanda genocide there was someone who was killed and during the span of 100 days there were more than 800,000 (Mostly Tutsis) deaths. The United Nation sent peace keepers to Rwanda but that didn’t resolve anything but just monitor cease-fire. No force was allowed to be used and Rwanda had to resolve their own problem.

Genocide is a crucial topic in International Relations, as Genocide means the killing of thousands of people from different ethnic groups, races, religions, or national groups. After viewing the full-length documentary on “Genocide: Worse Then War,” I understand what genocide is now and just how many people it has affected then and now as survivors and family members re tell the stories from what they remember.

Proceeding from Kant’s philosophical perspective, humans are moral agents due to their ability to rationalize, reason and be autonomous. In order to make the claim that the international community is morally unjustified in their lack of action regarding the Rwandan genocide is because humanitarian intervention can be regarded as a perfect duty when approached from a Kantian perspective. This ideology is challenging for many critics because if this is a perfect duty then comes the question of who is to claim such responsibility. When arguing from a deontological viewpoint the “duty applies to the universal moral community as such and therefore is everybody’s responsibility. Because this duty concerns the international community as a whole, it should be discharged by that community by institutionalizing its responsibility” (Bagnoli 3). While not all critics agree that such crimes against humanity can be regarded as a perfect duty, in which “an international agency would best…protect the moral concerns of the whole community of rational beings” (Bagnoli 20), even the classification of an imperfect duty can still call for the moral obligation of a nation. In such a case the responsibility and duty to act is directed on the nations that are able to respond at a reasonable rate and with the highest efficiency (Pattison 264). At the time the genocide began in Rwanda, many nations already had citizens in Rwanda attempting to keep the peace, however the outbreak of the conflict

Many countries sometimes turn a blind eye to genocide and the signs of genocide. Some of the signs of genocide can easily be determined by change in political power, changes in race relations, and an incline in hostility between two countries. Also a way to stop genocide is by creating a clear definition of genocide that isn’t too specific and too vague. America and Turkey have been denying their role in genocide in their countries for several years and have been protected because U.N’s definition of genocide is too vague.

Although a specific set of events characterizes a genocide, these events occur throughout the genocide, as opposed to one beginning after the prior is complete (1). In general, because the large amounts of death are easier to cover up in times of turmoil, a genocide is more likely to occur during war or rebellion (1). A genocide begins with classification. Classification, and the resulting genocide, often occurs in societies with little ethnic or ideological mixing. Although, in the words of Gregory Stanton, “all cultures have categories to distinguish people into ‘us and them,’” the categorizations that lead to genocide are more extreme and absolute than a normal society’s (1). Once the classification has taken place, the next step in a genocide is assigning names or symbols to each group (2-17). As humans naturally classify and assign symbols, genocide does not officially begin until the dehumanization stage (1). In this stage, propaganda makes the target group appear sub-human. This process lets the perpetrators believe it’s acceptable to carry out the impending murders (1). These murders are planned in the organization stage (1). The perpetrators involve militias in this stage so the organizing government can later deny its role (1). In the polarization stage of genocide, legal and behavioral actions join the propaganda to drive the targets out of normal society.

The single trait that is most often shown in perpetrators of genocide is that they are egotistical and hold themselves to be more important than other humans. This egotistical behavior is shown in a smaller scale in the form of traditional bullying. Bullies who intentionally harm other people tend to believe that the victim is somehow lesser than them and do not show any regret for their behavior. A hateful and desensitized mindset like this is linked to the ones of mass murderers as they kill hundreds of people but do not seem to care at all for them. Humans that participate in the slaughter of a certain group also think of themselves as higher beings that must eliminate others that do not fit with them. The actions that these people take are always for the benefit of themselves and to support the thought that they are more powerful. Furthermore, other egotistical actions are plainly shown in many of the people who willingly support genocide. During Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler committed genocide to over six million Jewish people. The soldiers that carried out these crimes showed no remorse in the killings of these people and fully believed that the Germans were a superior race. This belief that they are better than other humans is relevant in almost every other event

Intervention before the acts of genocide are carried out is referred to as “Upstream” prevention by James Waller in his book Confronting Evil. Recognizing the warning signs and the risk factors of a society is an important factor in realizing the need for intervention. This

On the contrary when there were the horrendous human rights violations occurring in Rwanda with a genocide taking place killing thousands and thousands of people there was not a single country that chose to stand up and help. Either by providing soldiers that were needed to protect the people or by providing resources like food, water, health, shelter or sanitation that was needed by the Rwandan citizens. The U.N. even did not help and didn’t even take a stand against the governments of the other countries for not providing help. The only reason behind this was that Rwanda did not have anything to offer in return for the countries providing help. It is an underdeveloped country with no resources or benefits that could be gained if help was provided. There is no humanity in governments of countries. They are solely run by their self interests and nothing else. All countries later when questioned as to why they did not take any action the easiest way they found out of this explanation was that they did not know the severity of the situation even after multiple different pleads from the public to the countries as well as the information they were receiving from their respective correspondents in Rwanda. The U.S. in particular did not respond to the situation of Rwanda and when it did they clearly refused to even call the killing and murdering taking place Genocide. They believed that it was another civil war in a country which would conclude very soon without intervention. They

Many people to this day believe that one of the main reasons that we can't reach out and help the genocide problem is because the world isn't developed enough yet to learn how to prevent and predict these mistakes. Even though we learned from history that genocide is a bad thing and not the answer, we still can't predict on what will cause a genocide or why they happen. It can go from sometimes people just being crazy or someone holding a grudge against a certain group of people.