Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide was committed by the Ottoman Empire in what is now known as the Republic Of Turkey. Along with this, The Aremnian Genocide was the first genocide to occur in the 20th century. Since 1876, the Ottoman state had been led by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, but the words " kill every Armenian woman, child and man without concern for anything" spoken by Talaat Pasha (Former Ottoman Empire Leader) sparked the genocide.

 It is said that the Armenian Genocide served as a blueprint for future Genocides. Similar to the Holocaust, the genocide of 1915 shows the similar interests and motives of mankind and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust. All genocides have been committed by humans, but in no way were they humane. Just as Germany had a "Jewish problem" the Armenian's had a "Young Turks problem." The genocide was an organized manner to eliminate the Armenians, seeing as Armenians were viewed as outsiders because they didn't speak the Turkish language.

There is no denying that religion was fundamental to the Armenian Genocide.  Even though the most used factor is ethnicity, religion accounted more for a person’s identity than language or heritage. This is still demonstrated daily throughout the Islamic world today, where Muslim governments and Muslim mobs persecute Christian minorities. These minorities share the same ethnicity, language, and culture, and are essentially the same as the majority, except, of course, for being non-Muslims.

By the nineteenth century, the empire was in serious decline. It had been reduced in size and by 1914 had lost virtually all its colonies in Europe and Africa. This decline created enormous internal political and economic pressures which contributed to the intensification of ethnic tensions. Armenian aspirations for representation and participation in government aroused suspicions among the Muslim Turks who had never shared power in their country with any minority and who also saw nationalist movements. In response to the issues in the Ottoman Empire, a new political group called the Young Turks seized power by revolution in 1908.

Essentially, the Armenian Genocide occurred in two phases. First all men were mass murdered or forced into labor camps, then, all women children and elderly were deported or taken on death marches in the Syrian Desert similar to those of the holocaust. If early 20th century Turkey had the technology to execute in mass murder like 1940's German gas chambers;the entire Armenian population may well have been eliminated.

Over 1 million people were killed just from the death marches. The deportations were disguised as a resettlement program. The brutal treatment of the deportees, most of whom were made to walk to their destinations, made it apparent that the deportations were mainly intended as death marches. As well as the policy of deportation surgically removing the Armenians from the rest of society, it disposed of great masses of people with little or no destruction of property. The deportation process served as a major opportunity for the Ottoman Empire to claim the material wealth of the Armenians and proved an effortless method taking all of their properties.



Armenian civilians, escorted by armed Ottoman soldiers, are marched to a nearby prison 

On April 24th 1915, Ottoman officials arrested over 250 Armenian political, religious, educational, and intellectual leaders next. Next, the Turkish government ordered the deportation of the Armenian people to "relocation centers" - actually to the barren deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia.  forced Armenians out of their homes and marched them through the Syrian Desert without food or water. Massacres occurred without any regard to gender, age, or religion. Ottoman troops escorting the Armenians allowed others to rob, kill, and rape other Armenians, and often participated in these activities themselves. The death rate from starvation and sickness is very high and is increased by the brutal treatment from the Officials whom acted as slave drivers throughout the march.


Bodies of the deceased lay in piles across the Syrian Desert

Reports of the murders gradually came out and were eventually spread the world over by newspapers, journals, and eyewitness accounts. In the United States a number of prominent leaders and organizations established fundraising drives for the remnants of the "Starving Armenians". In Europe the Allied Powers gave public notice that they would hold personally responsible all members of the Turkish government and others who had planned or participated in the massacres. Yet, within a few years, these same governments and statesmen turned away from the Armenians in total disregard of their pledges. Soon the Armenian genocide had become the "Forgotten Genocide".


Demons of the Past: The Armenian Genocide and the Turks


The memory of the nation was intended for obliteration. The existence of Armenians in Turkey was denied by Turkish Government and maps and history were rewritten. Churches, schools, and cultural monuments were destroyed and misnamed. Armenian children were taken from their parents and placed in homes where they would grow up as Turks. Nations worldwide and several states of the U.S. have passed resolutions recognizing the Armenian Genocide despite of Turkish government’s consistent denial of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, especially by Western countries.


Main article: Witnesses and testimonies of the Armenian Genocide in the New York Times

Despite the denial; documents authenticated by Turkish authorities in 1919 in a telegram sent in June 1915 by Dr. Sakir, one of the leaders of the organization that carried out the planning the Genocide.  He asks the provincial party official who is responsible for carrying out the deportations and massacres of Armenians within his district: "Are the Armenians, who are being dispatched from there, being liquidated? Are those harmful persons whom you inform us you are exiling and banishing, being exterminated, or are they being merely dispatched and exiled?" showing proof not only from the few survivors but physical evidence.

More than one million Armenians died as the result of execution, starvation, disease, the harsh environment, and physical abuse.  People who had lived in eastern Turkey for nearly 3,000 years lost their homes and were reduced in the first large-scale genocide of the twentieth century.  At the beginning of 1915 there were about two million Armenians living in Turkey; today there are fewer than 60,000.

(This 10 minute video probably explains the genocide better than i ever could if you're still confused)

Holodomor Genocide

Map of the Ukraine in 1932 showing the control of the USSR

The Holodomor Genocide of 1932 was a man-made famine that occurred in the Soviet Republic of Ukraine and resulted in over 7.5 million deaths across the nation. With it's Ukrainian origin, "Holodomor"  literally translates into "death by hunger."

No one really knows the exact cause of the Holodomor famine, and there are many arguments that portray many different ideas, although the general consensus is that the "Collectivization in the USSR" affected the working class and the ability to produce crops. Enforced by the power of Joseph Stalin, the purpose of the "Collectivization in the USSR" was to consolidate individual land onto collective farms, thus increasing the food production by taking all individual control of the farm and land from the owner. The Soviet Communist Party had never been happy with private agriculture and saw collectivization as the best solution for the problem. Although it began with trying to increase the food supply for the entire nation, the Soviet Communist Party's attempt for rapid industrialization resulted in uneven  and unfair distribution of food (mostly grains) across the nation.


Workers on a collectivized farm


When Stalin came to power, he was able to create the communist community he wanted. Later this “communist community” would be referred to as the Holodomor Genocide as he starved citizens to death. Using the idea of collectivization, Stalin bought the farmland of his people, and then paid the people to work the land; essentially he redistributed the wealth just as Hitler did in the Holocaust.

Starving children on the streets of Kharkiv searching for food. Ukraine, 1933.

When Joseph Stalin assumed command as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union after Lenin passed away, he implemented a policy to force the collectivization of farms in order to increase the overall efficiency and productivity of farms. These collective farms were called kolkhozes and were completely owned by the government; the farmers were not able to keep any products, and they received very little to no pay. Starving peasants dared not touch the collectivized food in fear of execution. From the start, these farms were destined to fail. The Communist regime placed the blame for the failure of the kolkhozes on the few relatively wealthier peasants that had avoided collectivization.  


Picking tomatoes at a kolkhoz on the outskirts of Moscow. The pickers appear to be all women.

Stalin's disappointment in and frustration with the inefficiency of the collectives fuel his rage. As a result he ordered for the severe punishment of any workers who did not let their efforts maximize productivity. Peasants who were unjustly labeled kulaks or seemed to be slacking off were either executed, sent to remote slave labor camps in Russia, or assigned to local labor assignments. Joseph Stalin essentially used the failure of the collective farms as an excuse for the punishment of Ukrainian nationalists who opposed the regime and organized uprisings against the regime. This caused the USSR closed the borders to foreign aid and migration.


By the summer of 1932, most of the kulaks had be executed, but the remaining peasants managed to keep their resistance to communism despite the fact that they were on the brink of a mass starvation. Stalin increased the total grain production quota by 44 percent, a goal that would definitely be impossible to attain. The pressure to increase the grain exports to foreign countries resulted in Stalin's order for all remaining grain reserves be taken if the collectives fail to meet quota. The government considered any grain that peasants refused to surrender to be stolen property was punishable by execution. Thousands of people were shot for supposedly attempting to take a handful of grain or a few beets from the kolkhozes.
 

It was in 1933 that the famine reached it's height. Daily; 25,000 people died of starvation. During this time the life expediencies hit an all time low, with 7.3 years old for females and 10.8 years for males. Starvation drove the workers insane. People turned to anything they could find that remotely resembled food such as weeds, bark, and few were fortunate enough to trap small woodland animals for meat. Millions were dying due to malnutrition, and babies and children were dying due to birth defects once again as a result of malnutrition during pregnancy. At this time, citizens didn't even have enough food to stay alive, let alone fight off viruses and disease. Typhus, Malaria, and Typhoid fever also claimed lives during the famine.

Victims of the famine 

Children on the Collectives

The 1937 population census revealed a sharp decrease in the Ukrainian population as a result of the Holodomor. The workers who conducted the survey were shot, and the census results were buried.

As 7 to 10 million died from starvation, the world kept silent. The American government supposedly had information about the Famine but failed react to the situation. Even today, many people try to ignore the fact that Holodomor existed. No criminal charges or accusations of Holodomor have been laid

Current Statistics of the Ukraine (2013)


Timeline of Holodomor
1917- The Russian Federative Socialist Republic is formed which later became the Soviet Union
1919- Ukraine declares independence and develops an independent state. Ukraine is left out of the hearings regarding the Treaty Of Versailles
1921- Famine begins in the Ukraine as food is being exported to Russia to supply Russian cities. 
1922-The Soviet Union becomes united with Ukraine
1924- Joseph Stalin gains power in Ukraine
1928- Stalin makes plans to begin collectivization. Land is taken from citizens
1929- Enforcement of the collectives begins. Hundreds of inhabitants(mostly farmers) are sent to Siberia to starve.
1932- The production quota is raised to 40% the death penalty for theft of grains is introduced. 
1933- Russification is brought to the Ukraine. Borders between Russia and the Ukraine are closed. Adolf Hitler comes to power in Germany (See Holocaust)
1934- The USSR joins the League of Nations. House representatives introduce a resolution which called for the condemnation of the Soviet Government causing destruction of the Ukraine people

Summary of Holodomor in 4 Minutes

The Cambodian Genocide

'To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.'

-Part of the slogans used during the genocide

Cambodia is a country in South East Asia, less than half the size of California and twice the size of Scotland.

The Cambodian Genocide  was carried out by the Khmer Rouge (KR) regime led by Pol Pot between 1975 and 1979. During this time 2-3 million people were murdered. The KR policies of forced relocation of the population from urban centers, mass executions, use of forced labor and malnutrition led to the deaths of an estimated 25 per cent of the total population. Before the genocide occurred, the population of Cambodia was just over 7 million, with a predominate Buddhist population. 

Pol Pot leading Khmer Rouge troops

With Pol Pot's leadership, the Khmer Rouge began  on an organised mission; they ruthlessly imposed an extremist program to reconstruct Cambodia. The main goal of the mission was that the population was forced to work as laborers in one huge federation of collective farms. Anyone who opposed was eliminated. Along with this; all educated people such as doctors and engineers  were assumed to be a threat and must be disposed of immediately. 

Using death threats; all citizens of Cambodia were forced to leave their homes. This had no exceptions and the sick, disabled, old or young were forced out regardless of the capability to leave. Absolutely no one was spared. Individuals who refused to leave were murdered on the spot. The Khmer Rouge also vigorously interrogated its own troops, and frequently executed members on suspicions of treachery or sabotage. 

Pol Pot removed all civil and political rights. Children were removed from the family and placed in labor camps. Factories, schools and hospitals were shut down. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists and professional people in any field (including the army) were murdered, along with their extended family.

Bodies of those who refused to leave were left on the street to rot

Religion was now banned and all Buddhist monks were killed and all temples were destroyed. The Khmer Rouge also targeted those of ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai descent. Half of the Muslim population was murdered along with 8,000 Christians. Things such as music and radio were also banned. An individual could be shot simply for knowing a foreign language, wearing glasses, laughing or even crying. Personal relationships were discouraged in the labor camp,along with expressions of affection.

Those who managed to escape being murdered became unpaid workers who worked with minimal rations and for incredibly long hours daily. Prisoners soon became weak from malnutrition and over exhaustion. If one fell sick, there was no treatment seeing as doctors were all killed and hospitals shut down; and the individual was left for death. Survival in Khmer Rouge Cambodia was determined by one’s ability to work. Starvation played a large role in the Genocide as over 2 million people are estimated to have died from starvation during this time. 

The murders began with a warning from the KR in the labor camps. People receiving more than two warnings were sent for "re-education," which meant near-certain death. Prisoners were taken to mass-grave sites and were told that they  would be forgiven if they admitted to "pre-revolutionary lifestyles and crimes" which essentially meant any free-market activity or contact with foreigners. Prisoners were then taken away to prisons such as Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek for torture and/or execution. In order to save ammunition, the executions were often carried out using poison, spades or sharpened bamboo sticks. In some cases the children and infants of adult victims were killed by having their heads bashed against the trunks of Chankiri trees. Tuol Sleng translates into "Hill of the Poisonous Trees". 

The buildings at Tuol Sleng have been preserved to represent how they were when Khmer Rouge were driven out in 1979. The regime kept extensive records, including thousands of photographs. Several rooms of the museum are now lined, floor to ceiling, with black and white photographs of some of the estimated 17,000 prisoners who passed through the prison..Some victims were required to dig their own graves; their weakness from starvation often meant that they were unable to dig very deep. The soldiers who carried out the executions were mostly young men or women from peasant families. Since 1995 mass graves began to be uncovered, revealing the genocide's extent. The resurrected bones and skulls have been preserved to create memorials of the dead in 'the killing fields' where they died.

Skulls  and bones of victims in a discovered Killing Field. Over 20,000 killing fields have been found

 Waterboard displayed at Tuol Sleng Museum. Prisoners' legs were shackled to the bar on the right, 

their wrists were restrained to the brackets on the left, and water was poured over their face, using

 blue watering can, to drown them.

These conditions of genocide continued for three years until 1978 when Vietnam invaded Kampuchea and overthrew the Khmer Rouge. Vietnam took control and set up a "puppet government" based off Vietnam's communist government founded mainly from KR members that had defected. Unfortunately Pol Pot's policies had ruined the economy. Cambodia lay in ruins under the newly-established Vietnamese regime as all professionals, engineers, technicians and planners who could reorganize and restart Cambodia had been murdered.

Timeline Of The Cambodian Genocide:

1975 – Year Zero, as it was called, marks the beginning of the Khmer Rouge regime.

1975 – Tortures and executions all across the country. The social categories in focus are intellectuals, teachers, doctors, former military police members, lawyers, and anybody else opposing the regime. This is the year with the most casualties.

1976 – The country is renamed Democratic Kampuchea, to mark the beginning of a new era. The name is the old form of the contemporary form Cambodia.

1977 – The Cambodian-Vietnamese War begins.

1978 – Cambodia is invaded by Vietnam.

1979, January – The Khmer Rouge rule is over.

The Khmer Rouge had this desire to bring the nation back to a “mythic past.” Outside nations were considered a corrupting influence and by stopping entrance into the nation the KR was able to restore the country to an agrarian society.This new agrarian society was to be based on Stalinist ideals (See Holodomor for more details).The manner in which they tried to implement was one factor in the genocide.

Comparing the Holocaust, Cambodian genocide, and Armenian Genocide; all were unique, but they also shared the common idea of racism. Along with racism, religious minorities were targeted, and the attempt to expand territory (Turkestan, Lebensraum, and Kampuchea Krom)were present.  The Khmer Rouge was attempting to “purify” Cambodian society. By targeting various ethnic, social,  political groups, as well as leaders of industry,( journalists, students, doctors, lawyers) as well as the Vietnamese and Chinese ethnic groups being purged.using force, minority groups were relocated and the use of minority languages was forbidden. This was the “ethnic cleansing” of the genocide. 

Before his suicide on April 15th 1998, Pol Pot stated that he had a clear conscience and denied being responsible for genocide in an interview. Pol Pot asserted that he "came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people.” Under international pressure, Vietnam finally withdrew its occupying army from Cambodia in 1989. In 2013, current Cambodian Prime Minister; Hun Sen passed legislation which made the denial of the Cambodian genocide and other war crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge illegal.  Researchers still discuss whether the events in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 can be referred to as genocide, because the massive killings which occurred there under the Khmer Rouge rule did not specifically target a certain ethnic or religious group. However, most agree that the term should be used, given the large number of casualties. 

Display of the rise and frequency of HIV since 1990

Current Life Statistics in Germany Compared to Vietnam and Germany

This is a quick video which shows the methods of the Khmer Rouge. The quote near the end "We'll never learn from crimes in the past but instead use them as blueprints for the future" shows the brutal reality of genocide. Many genocides have occurred of the history of mankind but none have been prevented. This only goes to show the power of genocide and the unawareness of other countries in the world. 

The German Holocaust

By Keasa Davies

Germany Post-WWI

When Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany in 1933; he almost immediately began enforcing anti-Semitic laws to eliminate Jewish rights. Along with this, he began "Lebensraum" which was intended to gain more territory and living space for Germany. Post WWI Germany was an economic disaster. When the Treaty Of Versailles left Germany to blame for WWI  and held Germany responsible for all loss and damage that occurred in the war, Germany had produced so much money in order to pay off the treaty, the money left in circulation was worth less than the paper it was printed on. 

 Adolf came to power by using his charismatic personality to appeal to the people. Hitler promised the people what they wanted, which caused the people of Germany to believe in him, thus giving him more power. At the time, the way Germany was laid out was very culture based. This resulted in boycotting in certain communities due to racism or cultural indifferences. Obviously this resulted in more financial instability across the nation. Hitler’s promise of financial stability was delivered. By creating the work camps he created jobs, housing, and a steady food supply for the nation, Hitler brought Germany out of the rut it had been living in for so long. This is what the people wanted. In reality Hitler was taking what he gave to the people from the people by redistributing the wealth, which shows the communist personality of Hitler. Nonetheless at the time this did not matter as Hitler was gaining the power he desired, and the citizens of Germany were no longer starving and economically broken.

 Not only did Adolf deliver on his promise to end the hyper-inflation of the German market, Hitler further delivered his promise by giving citizens the differentiation that the individuals wanted. Using the Star of David, Hitler identified the Jewish people of Germany as an individual nation within a nation. Once again this is what the people wanted. The Jewish people, now marked by a Star of David worn on their body, portrayed ultra-nationalistic values; not knowing it would later result in mass murder. Later; Hitler’s anti-Semitism laws blamed Jews for Germany’s conflicts, and in an attempt to expand German Territory; Jews were eliminated

The Holocaust was the mass murder of over six million Jews during World War II, as well as over five million other prisoners in a state-sponsored genocide. Lead by Adolf Hitler, the Nazi party came to power in 1933 Germany. Out of the 9 million Jews that had lived in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two thirds were killed. During this time, over 40,000 German facilities were turned into concentration camps or holding camps where citizens were killed in mass murders. In these camps Jews and prisoners were subjected to slavery until extreme exhaustion or disease killed them.

Extermination camps (Or death camps) were built to systematically kill millions of people via execution, mainly by the use of gas chambers where prisoners were lead to large rooms, bodies from the chambers were then burned in large ovens. Along with that, victims were taken to “killing centres” disguised as hospitals and were euthanized. In the last months of the war, Guards forced prisoners on “death marches” to hide all living proof of the camps. During this thousands of pages of documents were destroyed.

Prisoners prepared to enter the gas chambers

 Gas Chambers at Auschwitz

The Nazi Soldiers kept the people fated to die unaware of what was ahead of them. They were told that they were being sent to the camp, but that they first had to undergo disinfection and bathe. After the victims undressed, they were taken into the gas chamber, locked in, and killed with Zyklon B gas. Once dead, the corpses were taken out of the chambers, the women we're removed of their hair and all victims were burned in large pits, on pyres, or in the crematorium furnaces. (Until September 1942, some of the corpses were buried in mass graves; these corpses were burned from September to November 1942.)

A Holocaust survivor displays the identification number tattooed on his arm. 
All prisoners were required to show the numbers before execution as the Nazi 
party recorded them and were later found in record, backing the proof that over
5 million people were killed. 

Initially these identification numbers were sewn onto clothes, but with the rapidly rising death rate, it became difficult to identify corpses since clothing was removed prior to murder. In May 1944, the Jewish men received the letters "A" or "B" to indicate particular series of numbers. For some unknown reason, this number series for women never began again with the "B" series after they had reached the number limit of 20,000 for the "A" series.

Germany Surrendered to Allies on May 8th, 1945, but once the Allies liberated the concentration camps; many prisoners did not have a home to return to. The holocaust devastated many communities and the land across Europe, and Jews eventually immigrated to to Israel, Australia, and other countries after World War II. Hitler was confident that if Armenian genocide perpetrators were not punished and got away with what they did, he too, could use the world’s indifference and silence as a permit to proceed with mass destruction of Jewish people.Trials were held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949.  The first trial, and best known of these trials, described as "the greatest trial in history", Held between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946, Twenty-four individuals were indicted, along with six Nazi organizations determined to be criminals. Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and  Joseph Goebbels, all of whom had been the driving force behind the Holocaust, committed suicide several months before therefore were absent from the trial. The Nuremberg trials are now regarded as a milestone toward the establishment of a permanent international court, and an important precedent for dealing with later instances of genocide and other crimes against humanity.

Current Life Expectancy of German Citizens 


















(Watch me stutter as I try to summarize the holocaust)