From Genocide to Holocaust
The Holocaust you hear that and your mind is instantly transported to the darkest part of the human psyche! The parts that will allow one human to degrade, defame, and destroy their fellow human. Yet at the same time your mind and heart are drawn to fact that the Holocaust is for the most part remembered for the death of the six million Jewish who died. Not as well known or as well publicized are Other targets of the Nazi Genocide or “Nazi genocidal policy”, that included Slavic’s Polish Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussia’s, Serbs, Romania’s, and others that included the mentally ill, Homosexuals, “sexual deviants”, and of course political opponents. They have all been remembered in some manner, but mostly the Jewish contingent. Does the Holocaust touch so many because those who performed it the German Nazi’s who so well documented it? Is what happened in World War II differ from the other atrocities of Genocide. In the movie Schindler’s List you see the efficiency of the Nazi’s as the move people and record every detail. This very sentiment is stated in the graphic novel Maus
“They marched us to the main courtyard and lined us by alphabet at tables. This the Germans did very good always they did everything very systematic and it was all done in one day”.
Elli Wiesel would see this system again in the book Night, this time it would be seen for a lifetime,
” In the afternoon, they made us line up. Three prisoners brought a table and some medical instrument. We were told to roll up our left sleeves and file past the table. The three “veteran” prisons, needles in hand, and tattooed numbers on our left arms I became A-7713. From then on I had no other name”.
Is this fact of the Nazi’s prolific recoded keeping that moves this from just Genocide to the Holocaust? Now don’t get me wrong the lost of life and the torment that they endured is still minded numbing. It is however Genocide the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural groups just as all the others in history. Like the very one that is in the news today. You would of course think that I am speaking of Darfur no I speak of the Armenian Genocide that happened in 1915 during World War I over a million died and still today it is only a Genocide not a Holocaust. What truly saddens me is the position some Israelis take on it.
Is mass death not all the same why would any take a position like this and one that appears to be a official governmental one. Then as you look on Darfur many demand this!
Where is Israel it would seem that they should have the most compassion and eagerness to stop such atrocities. Why not a cry for an Israeli lead intervention! Now some say there is no genocide going on.
What of the 400,000 dead no it is not the numbers that the Jews faced, but it does not stop these images from being true.
Now I am well a ware of movies such as Hotel Rwanda and other books that tell of Genocide and I feel great compassion for anyone who has to endure the memories of such horrific massacres of humans, but is not all Genocide a Holocaust, is that fact that so much was filmed, written and logged in by the Nazi that we turn a different eye to it. In war millions die some go unforgotten and the plight of the Jewish during WWII should never be forgotten, but should it be singled out by name and if yes why?
Washington Post
Fox news
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Schindler’s List Universal Studios 1993
Hotel Rwanda Lions Gate Universal 2004
April 16th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I don’t necessarily know if things have to be documented in order for it to touch people. I mean, yes it helps get the word out to millions of people around the world, but anytime 6 million people just disappear, someone somewhere is going to notice. I think just the act of genocide is enough to touch the humanity in all people, whether there are stories about it or not.
At least i HOPE humanity is that decent….if not, we’re in for a load of trouble…..
April 16th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
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