Genocide - Case Study: Holocaust, Holodomor and Khmer Rouge

Genocide

For a person who went through the time of the annihilation when they hear the term “Genocide”, it can cause shiver and shake their hearts. One would never forget the history of this mass extermination of human kind, which still recorded within them like scars on their hearts. Genocide, a term that didn’t exist until the end of World War II, can be described as an act of extermination of human kind. In other words, it refers to the use of violence crimes to a particular group to eliminate them from the contemporary international stage. According to Cambridge dictionary (Third Edition), the term Genocide referred to “the murder of a whole group of people, especially a whole nation, race or religious group”. There are many terms used to describe the word genocide and each individual also has their own ways of describing it too. These acts of mass killing have occurred throughout the world at different time. As specific actions have happened like the Holocaust which is a mass destruction of Jewish in Europe and Holodomor that is the annihilation of Ukrainians by starvation. Meanwhile, Khmer Rouge regime that is classified as auto-genocide, the extermination of a country’s citizens by its own people or government, has happened in Cambodia during 1975 till 1979 (n.a, n.d).


The worst act ever recorded in human history was the Holocaust which was also known as the mass annihilation of Jewish people in Europe continent led by Adolf Hitler after he became the chancellor of Germany. After the World War I, Germany was humiliated by the Versailles Treaty, which reduced its armed forces and had to pay reparations for the allied powers (n.d, 2010). On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler won a significant number of votes in the elections which then was named as the chancellor of Germany and have helped Germany improved their reputation back on the international stage. Hitler was born and raised in an Anti-Jewish community, therefore so much hatred against Jews were built in his mind. Hitler strengthened his own party which was known as the Nazis and published propaganda to manipulate the Germans’ mind. All Germans supported Hitler’s campaign of “The Jews are our misfortune!” against Jews. As a result, it made them regarded the Jews as inferior to their race. Impressively, in just a year the Nazis turned into dictatorship and started to isolated the Jews by forced them to live in “Ghetto” where there is not enough food supply, cannot travel across the border and have to wear a yellow star to identify themselves (n.d, 2010). On 9th November 1938, the attacks on Jews became severe as many Jews were evacuated to concentration camps in which they are forced to work and poisoned to death there (n.d, 2010). Soon after, in 1940, the Nazis took over Europe which was also at the same time as the beginning of the World War II. Meanwhile, in 1941, Hitler established “the final solutions” which aimed to accelerate the killing progression. There were 3.5 Million Jews were killed in 6 different concentration camps, while around 30,000 Jews killed each day (n.d, 2010). By 1945, the defeat of Germany in the World War II led to the end of the Holocaust. As a result, the lives of 6.5 million people were taken with only around 70,000 Jews survived living in fear (n.d, 2010). Until today that nightmare remained the most painful and aching memory of the Jews.


Another one of the world top massacre occurred in Ukraine from 1932-1933, which was known to the rest of the world as Holodomor meaning “Death by starvation”. Although, before achieving its independence in 1991 Ukraine had always been ruled by foreign governance; never had it been into greater tragedy than being ruled by Soviet Union. Under the control of none other than Joseph Stalin and his hangmen, an estimated number of million Ukrainian was taken within just one year. It started when the Ukraine became one of the republics of Soviet Union during the period of Lenin. After his death, Stalin came into power with the goal of eliminating other ideology except communism and the thought of expanding Soviet Empire by forcing nations under its control such as Ukraine to provide fund for it industrialization by making sale of grain and other foodstuff to the world (Wynnyckyj, 2007). In 1928, he came up with an agricultural program in which compelled Ukraine people to give up their own property made it state-owned property. In 1929, with the fear of people resistance, he first eliminated Ukrainian socialists and either arrested or killed intellectual people in hope that if those people died no one would be against him anymore. However, regardless of what he did, many peasant farmers still refused to do what Stalin brought up; therefore, he branded those who were skeptical of his idea as enemy and he became determined to terminate them (n.a, n.d). He forced them to leave their home to remote areas with neither food nor shelter regardless of what those people say. The complete dictator, Stalin only focused on increasing the productivity of Ukraine and selling it abroad. He oppressed workers to work day and night without providing them enough food to survive in order to ensure that the product quota met the demand needed. This brutal man taught a lesson to Ukrainians by making them experience the worst ever of man-made famine (n.a, n.d). He eliminated any person, even children, who tried to take any food from the working field; moreover, he even blocked the transport of food supply from one village to another (Wynnyckyj, 2007). Even though Ukrainian were perishing from hunger, the West were not aware that the occurrence of Holodomor since Stalin used media to deny this fact and continue to export the million tons of grain which were more than enough to save those people lives (n.a, n.d).


Mentioning about genocide, as Cambodians we cannot forget about ours, which was known as The Khmer Rouge Regime. The Khmer Rouge was the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and its era was one of the worst annihilations. It caused the sorrows that engraved in the hearts of every Cambodian. All of this began because of Pol Pot who was inspired by the idea of communism and hated capitalism (Walker L., 2012). At that time, Cambodia was in the Lon Nol’s regime. Lon Nol, an ambitious man, was blinded by the US dollars and it resulted in big gap between the rich and the poor in Cambodian (Walker L., 2012). Due to his poor leadership, there were a lot of corruptions and angry citizens. King Sihanouk decided to form a group of army to fight against Lon Nol back for his crown, called “Khmer Rouge” leaded by Pol Pot. With King Sihanouk’s popularity, more and more army forces increased and formed up to support and fight for King Sihanouk. Pol Pot saw this as an opportunity to enlarge his army by asking people to join with him to disliking Lon Nol’s action, he took an advantage to betray King Sihanouk and overtook the crown. Cambodia soon faced a civil war between Lon Nol, who was supported by the US and Khmer Rouge with the assistance of the North Vietnam (Walker L., 2012). By the end of the Vietnam’s war, US withdrew from the involvement of the war. At the same time, they stopped sending aid to Lon Nol, which make him slowly losing the war with the Khmer Rouge (Walker L., 2012). By 1975, Khmer Rouge won the war against Lon Nol and took control over Phnom Penh. The war has finally ended and people were overfilled with joy, yet little did they know that the real catastrophe just began. At that same day, they started evacuate people from Phnom Penh by using excuses such as “cleaning the city” (Walker L., 2012). People trusted the fail excuse and began moving from the city to the provinces and that was where their nightmares came to life. With the fear of people rebellion, day-by-day educated people were taken away and executed by Pol Pot. For those who feared death, they obeyed and worked day and night with insufficient food. In 1979, Three years eight months twenty days of pure torture it’s finally come to an end. In the result of this heartless period, about two millions Cambodians were killed and for those who had survived this madness some struggle with metal problems from this tormented experience (Walker L., 2012). Some still have nightmares every night and wake up in terror as they thought they are still in suffering time. Khmer Rouge cause a great agony toward Cambodia as whole and it will forever scar us no matter what.


Genocide is, indeed, an ultimate weapon to eliminate an ethnic group from the contemporary world, which resulted in the death of millions of innocent people, particularly the Holocaust that happened in Europe, Holodomor in Ukraine, and Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. All these history are being remembered every year to remind people that Genocide did exist and wanted all of us to stay away from the same path. Being a mastermind behind all these tragedy, one should be ashamed of them as all human being are rightfully to live and not any individual can force or can putting a halt to anyone’s right regardless of their race or ethnic.


References :


· Wynnyckyj, O. A. (2007). Teaching the Holodomor (Ukrainian Genocide)
[Accessed: 16/Feb/2014]


· Melnyk, M. (2011). A Curriculum Guide for Teaching Genocides with a Focus on the Holodomor, the Famine Genocide in Ukraine
[Accessed: 16/Feb/2014]

· The holocaust: An introductory history. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/history.html [Accessed: 16/Feb/2014]

· Walker, L. (2012). World without genocide: Cambodian genocide. Retrieved from http://worldwithoutgenocide.org/genocides-and-conflicts/cambodian-genocide
[Accessed: 16/Feb/2014]


· Cambridge Advanced Learner Dictionary, 3rd Edition, Version 3.0, Released 2008.

· Encyclo: Auto-Genocide, (n.d). Retrieved from: http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/autogenocide
[Accessed: 16/Feb/2014]