Transcript Genocide - Cabarrus County Schools

Genocide:
Committing acts with the intent to destroy
(in whole or in part) a group of people
based on a specific characteristic of the
group (such as race, religion, ethnicity, etc.)
In 1948 the international community
adopted the Genocide Convention, which
gives a legal definition of genocide and which
obligates the countries that sign the treaty to
intervene to stop genocide when it is
occurring.
What is Genocide?
The legal definition of genocide as defined by the Genocide Convention is:
“[A]ny 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.
~ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, Article 2
Genocide in the 20th Century
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the Holocaust
Rwanda
Darfur
Cambodia
Bosnia
10 Stages of Genocide
1. Classification
2. Symbolization
3. Discrimination
4. Dehumanization
5. Organization
6. Polarization
7. Preparation
8. Persecution
9. Extermination
10. Denial
1. Classification
All cultures have categories to distinguish people
into “us and them” by ethnicity, race, religion, or
nationality (Examples: German and Jew, Hutu
and Tutsi). Societies that lack multiple mixed
categories, such as Rwanda, are the most likely
to have genocide.
2. Symbolization
We give names or other symbols to the classifications.
We call people “Jews”, etc. , or differentiate them by
colors or dress; and apply these distinctions to members
of “other” groups. Classification and symbolization are
part of human nature and do not necessarily result in
genocide unless they lead to the next stage,
dehumanization.
When combined with hatred, symbols may be forced
upon unwilling members of pariah groups.
Examples: the yellow star for Jews under Nazi rule, the
blue scarf for people from the Eastern Zone in Khmer
Rouge Cambodia.
3. Discrimination
A dominant group uses law, custom, and
political power to deny the rights of other
groups. The powerless group may not have full
civil rights or citizenship.
Example: Nuremberg Laws of 1935 in Nazi
Germany, which stripped Jews of their German
citizenship and prohibited their employment by
the government and by universities.
4. Dehumanization
One group denies the humanity of the other
group. Dehumanization overcomes the normal
human revulsion against murder. At this stage,
hate propaganda in print and on hate radio is
used to vilify the victim group.
5. Organization
Genocide is always organized, usually by the
state, though sometimes informally or by
terrorist groups. Special army units or militias
are often trained and armed. Plans are made for
genocidal killings.
6. Polarization
Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate groups
broadcast polarizing propaganda. Laws may
forbid intermarriage or social interaction.
Extremist terrorism targets moderates,
intimidating and silencing the center, which is
traditionally the majority.
7. Preparation
National or perpetrator group leaders plan the
“Final Solution” to the targeted group. They
often use euphemisms to cloak their intentions,
such as referring to their goals as “ethnic
cleansing,” “purification,” or “counterterrorism.” They build armies, buy weapons and
train their troops and militias. They indoctrinate
the populace with fear of the victim group.
8. Persecution
Victims are identified and separated out
because of their ethnic or religious identity. In
state-sponsored genocide, members of victim
groups may be forced to wear identifying
symbols. Their property is often taken.
Sometimes they are segregated into ghettoes,
deported into concentration camps, or confined
to a famine-struck region and
starved. Genocidal massacres begin.
9. Extermination
Extermination begins, and quickly becomes the
mass killing legally called “genocide.” When it is
sponsored by the state, the armed forces often
work with militias to do the killing. Sometimes
the genocide results in revenge killings by
groups against each other, creating the
downward whirlpool-like cycle of bilateral
genocide.
10. Denial
Denial is often the final stage that follows a
genocide. It is among the surest indicators of
further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of
genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies,
try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the
witnesses. They deny that they committed any
crimes, and often blame what happened on the
victims. They block investigations of the crimes, and
continue to govern until driven from power by
force, when they flee into exile.
The Holocaust
“The Holocaust was the systematic,
bureaucratic annihilation of six million Jews
by the Nazi regime and their collaborators
as a central act of state during World War II.”
January 1933 - May 1945
Fact:
• In 1933 approximately nine million
Jews lived in the 21 countries of
Europe that would be occupied by
Germany during the war. By 1945 two
out of every three European Jews had
been killed.
Two Main Phases
• PHASE ONE: BEGAN WHEN HITLER NAMED CHANCELLOR
• First Phase: 1933-1939.
• On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor,
the most powerful position in the German government
• Hitler was the leader of the right-wing National Socialist
German Workers Party (called the Nazi Party for short); it
was, by 1933, one of the strongest parties in Germany
• The Nazis began to put into practice their racial ideology.
The Nazis believed that the Germans were "racially
superior”. They saw Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and the
handicapped as a serious biological threat to the purity of
the "German Race,” what they called the “Master Race."
"Though not all victims were Jews, all Jews were
victims." -Elie Wiesel
• The Nazis mistakenly identified Jews as a race and
defined this race as "inferior." They also spewed
hatemongering propaganda, which unfairly blamed Jews
for Germany's economic depression and the country's
defeat in World War I (1914-1918).
• Jews could not attend public schools, go to theaters,
cinemas, or vacation resorts, or reside or walk in certain
sections of German cities.
• Also between 1937 and 1939, Jews were forced from
Germany's economic life: the Nazis either seized Jewish
businesses and properties outright or forced Jews to sell
them at bargain prices.
Phase Two
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PHASE TWO BEGAN WITH
INVASION OF POLAND/WWII
BEGINS
1939-1945: On September 1,
1939, Germany invaded Poland and
World War II began.
Within one month, Nazi defeated
Poland and began killing Polish
leaders like university professors,
artists, writers, politicians, and
many Catholic priests.
As the war began in 1939, Hitler
initiated an order to kill
institutionalized, handicapped
patients deemed "incurable”and
worthy of being killed based on the
review of a special commission of
physicians.
Nazi leadership created a
euthanasia program in secret.
Young children, elderly, and other
victims were thereafter killed by
lethal injection, pills, and by forced
starvation.
• This program was also
called The Final Solution.
Concentration &
Extermination Camps
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These camps are most closely
associated with the Holocaust
and its means of killing. These
camps remain an enduring
symbol of the Nazi regime. The
first camps opened soon after
the Nazis took power in
January 1933, but their use
both increased throughout the
war (especially into Phase Two)
and continued on as a basic
part of Nazi rule until May 8,
1945, when the war, and the
Nazi regime, ended.
• By 1940 an estimated
33,000 prisoners, mostly
Jews, were murdered.
• Between 1942 and
1944, the Germans
moved to eliminate the
ghettos in occupied
Poland and elsewhere,
deporting ghetto
residents to
"extermination camps,"
killing centers equipped
with gassing facilities,
located in Poland.
• 150,000 individuals were
killed there between
December 1941 and
March 1943 and again
from June to July 1944.
• Auschwitz-Birkenau,
became the killing center
where the largest
number of European
Jews and Gypsies were
killed.
• More than 1.25 million
prisoners were killed at
Auschwitz-Birkenau; 9
out of 10 were Jews.
• In retreat at the end of
the war, the Germans
deported prisoners to
camps inside Germany to
prevent their liberation.
Many inmates died during
the long journeys on foot
known as "death
marches."
• In May 1945, Nazi
Germany collapsed, the
S.S. guards fled, and the
camps ceased to exist as
extermination or
concentration camps.
US Involvement
• By 1942, the US
and Great Britain
had learned of The
Final Solution.
• The US started to
take limited rescue
efforts in 1944.