Dehumanizing Through Genocide

Photo Credit: Islamandthegreatwar.umwblogs.org/thearmeniangenocide 

 In Naimark’s Fires of Hatred, the first three chapters were relatively similar in the sense that they described historical events where one group of people wanted to get rid of another-entirely.  Starting off with one of the earliest recorded ethnic cleansings, the Armenian Genocide of 1915.  It was the fall of the Ottoman Empire that essentially triggered a hundred years of genocide in Southeastern Europe and Anatolia.  A brief history on Armenians; they were considered one of the most loyal races in Europe.  Many living in Constantinople were involved in medical, engineering, and law professions.  They were also predominantly Christians.  Fast forward to 20-centruy Europe; the young Turks were responsible for wiping out the Armenians out of Anatolia.  Police would go door to door asking for them to leave their homes and most who resisted got killed instantly.  They were ordered to make their way towards Syria.  Between the years 1918 and 1919 alone, a quarter of a million Armenians died.  In all the chaos a few treaties were signed, but none really illustrated the territorial aspect for the Armenians, “With their numbers decimated by the genocide, disease, and starvation and their hopes for a piece of Anatolian territory dashed by the Allies, the Armenians understood that they would have to seek their future outside of Turkey”(Naimark 40).  Before the genocide took place, some 2 million Armenians lived in the Ottoman region, and in the end only 15% of the population survived.  To this day the Turkish people do not consider it genocide, but rather a punishment. 

The next chapter dealt with the Nazi attacks on the Jews.  In essence the Germans wanted to keep their country “pure”, and they considered Jews “disease infected”.  They believed that Jews were harmful to the populations and did not posses humanly qualities.  At first the Nazi looked into moving the Jews to Palestine and even the island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa, but eventually it didn’t work out.  This is when the ghettos and concentration camps came into play, and in turn when those became too crowded-mass killings took over.  Meanwhile, many Jews also died from hunger and disease.  In 1941, gas chambers began to be used, “Within a fifteen-month period, some 145,000 Jews were killed in mobile gas vans”(Naimark 79).  This statistical fact of course was considered a "success" to Hitler.  He and his political army had killed about 6 million Jews in all, about two-thirds of Jews living in Europe. 

Moving onto Chapter 3, Naimark continues with ethnic cleansing while discussing Stalin and the Soviet Union taking control over their territory and eliminating ethnicities that they felt didn’t belong.  Specifically, it was the Chechens-Ingush and Crimean Tatars groups.  They deported them to Pakistan and other eastern countries.  They just wanted them out of their ruling area.  Once they were ordered to leave, those that did not obey were shot instantly.  This tactic seems to reoccur in ethnic cleansing.  Some 496,460 people had been deported from their homelands and 3,000 died before even being deported.  Typhus left thousands dead and once they arrived to their destinations, many were out of work and lived in inhabitable circumstances.  In the end Stalin’s goal was to eliminate the Chechen-Ingush nations without really killing the people, he left that more so to the disease and starvation. 

No matter which historical event you pay attention to, all qualify as genocide.  To which includes 3 components: nationalism, bureaucracy, and flashpoint.  And to which each event had each of these components.  Talking about these genocides, I think is great because it reminds us how disgusting we can be as humans.  It is bringing awareness to past actions so (hopefully) it won’t happen again.  I remember reading the chapter on the Nazi attacking the Jews and thinking about a past book I read that was on the Holocaust.  It was Night by Elie Wiesel; in it he discussed his experience with the Nazi soldiers and how he lost his family during the Holocaust.  His survival story is a unique one and nothing less than a miracle.  A specific section was when he talked about how they Nazis made him get undressed in front of other men and they would shave everyone and put a number on them as well.  That is what became their identity. 

Photo Credit: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_22982732/israel-remembers-holocaust-victims

Reading Naimark’s Fires of Hatred has brought that feeling of gratitude that I didn’t have to experience those events.  Gratitude for our government and law system in our country.  That feeling of gratitude that this country is more for diversity and not just one ethnicity or race.  

http://islamandthegreatwar.umwblogs.org/topic-2/the-armenian-genocide/ 

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_22982732/israel-remembers-holocaust-victims