With the commemoration of the Nazi genocide recognized globally on 27th January each year, I take a look at some cases of mass-murder many of us have overlooked.
When the Nazis surrendered and those fortunate enough to survive their concentration camps told their stories to the world, we reacted with shock and hilarity. How could any sane man torture another to such extent? We promised ourselves never to allow another event in history a rival such barbarity. In this article, I present to you five cases of heart-wrenching genocide in remembrance of almost 70 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1945.
1) Soviet Genocide, 1917-1953
Soviet Russia was an extreme area of Eastern Europe following the takeover of the Communists. Oppression was of a severe nature, causing tension throughout society. In the case that censorship, incomprehensible propaganda and a brutal secret police weren't enough to keep opposition quiet, the Communists murdered more than twenty million of their own people. Arrest was often arbitrary, based on stories from tell-tale neighbours encouraged to report any suspicion. Political conservatism just wasn't an option in Soviet Russia - unless, of course, you wished to be exiled to Siberia and sent to a Gulag camp. Racial and religious minorities, including Jews, were also often subject to egregious extremism.
2) Bosnian Genocide, 1992-1995
The ethnic cleansing campaign, introduced by the Bosnian Serb forces in 1992, included the harassment of thousands of Muslims and Croats using murder, torture and arbitrary arrest. During the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, 8,000 Muslim males were murdered and around 30,000 women and children were forced to leave the area. Muslim households were systematically burnt down and their occupants captured throughout the campaign, with many beaten and subject to extreme violence during the process. The Serb military assaults on the Muslim people of Bosnia persistently inflicted terrifying trepidation upon innocent citizens caught up in the ongoing conflict.
3) Armenian Genocide, 1915
One of the first modern genocides, the Armenian Massacres saw the extermination of the Armenian community in what now constitutes as the modern Republic of Turkey. 250 Armenian community leaders were arrested in Constantinople on 24th April 1915, triggering the complete annihilation of more than one and a half million more. Innocent men, women and children were forced to march hundreds of miles, suffering exhaustion, dehydration, starvation and sexual abuse. Similar minority ethnic groups were also targeted at part of the genocidal regime, though Turkey still denies the truth of such events and does not agree the word genocideis an accurate description of the deliberate killings of huge numbers of people.
4) Stalin's Forced Famine, 1932 - 1933
Seven million Ukrainian people were deprived of the food they'd provided for decades when barbarous leader Josef Stalin induced famine to the area. His policy of collectivization - the joining of individual farm plots into collectivized lands - lead to the deaths of 25,000 people per day at the peak of 1933. Food was collected and distributed by the state, with any surplus to be handed over as part of Stalin's continuation of the ideological Communist dictatorship, following the end of Lenin's New Economic Policy. Peasants burnt their own land, crops and animals in rebellion. 25% of the Ukrainian population starved to death, amongst whom were three million children.
5) North Korean Holocaust, right now
Millions of North Koreans suffer daily oppression and little respect of basic human rights. Political prisoner camps are abundant, with hundreds of thousands of people contained within them. Forced labour, executions and torture and not uncommon. Any opposition to the regime is silenced. Their dire human rights record, threats of war and unnerving leader have all left North Korea in the spotlight.
One question remains: what will their next move be?
Genocide is a crime unthinkable to every one of us. Even the least sentimental of beings would deny themselves the power to kill their own out of selfish, autocratic greed. Yet it is by recognizing such instances that we allow ourselves to become more aware of the world around us. Genocide did not begin and end with the Nazi Regime. Every genocide - regardless of circumstance - is a complete tragedy. Whilst this list is by no means exhausted, and there are far more examples of such obscenity, I hope to have opened your eyes to the reality of the absurd nefariousness millions of minorities have endured.
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