The Horror of Genocide

Sean Feirick

SOCI 361

3/4/2014

The Horror of Genocide

Chapter 1 in “Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth Century Europe” written by Norman M. Naimark, talked about the ethnic cleansing that occurred in Europe that dealt with the Armenians and the Greeks of Anatolia. Brought upon the Armenians and Greeks of Anatolia, the Turkish Ottoman Empire instigated massacres, forced deportations that involved death marches, expulsions from the territory that the Ottoman Empire was under control, executions, and also destroying of religious monuments that the Armenians and Greeks cherished. Within the death marches, it is said that only about 15 percent of the people that were a part of these survived. This was a period in world history that I found catastrophic. The way that men, women, and even children were treated by the Turkish Ottoman Empire was tragic. They were somewhat treated like trash just because of their race and ethnicity. In 1920 in an area near Anatolia, there were about 100 decomposing bodies that were piled up in a cave about 300 yards from the cities walls. The Allies in World War I deemed the actions sought out by the Ottoman Empire as crimes against humanity. According to Ottoman official documents, around the year 1919, the Ottoman Empire government allowed the deported Armenians and Greeks to return to their homelands and allowed them to return to their properties that they once lived in, and even gave them financial aid to get back on their feet financially.

Chapter 2 was about the Nazi attacks of the Jewish community and culture starting in Germany. This has to be in my opinion the most recognized form of ethnic cleansing in world history. This attack was lead by Adolf Hitler who was the dictator of Nazi Germany. He constructed a plan that the goal was to completely exterminate the Jewish ethnicity. This even meant people that were only part Jewish were to be wiped off the face of the earth. I do not see how someone can be so insane to want to kill off an entire presence of humanity. Jews were put in ghettos that were overcrowded and in terrible unhealthy conditions before they were transported to extermination camps to be physically put to death. This was if they even made the trip before they died from malnutrition and physical beatings from Nazi soldiers. One somewhat real life experience that gave me a mass amount of knowledge about this horrific time in world events was information that I received from my grandpa that fought in World War II as an American soldier. He explained to me devastating stories about what he saw and experienced. He told me that there was a huge sense of evil throughout Europe at this time. The mass destruction of people’s homes and towns was very hard to see is what he told me. I couldn not believe it when I read that two thirds of the Jewish population living in Europe prior to the Holocaust was exterminated by Nazi power by the time World War II was over.

Chapter 3 was about the Soviet deportation of the Chechens- Ingush and the Crimean Tatars. The Soviet power was led by Stalin who can almost be considered on the same level as Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler might have been more evil in the ways that his death with the Jews, but Stalin’s deportation of these ethnic minorities is a prime example of ethnic cleansing. Stalin’s strict policies killed tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars, deprived them from their homeland that their ancestors originally lived, and overall hurt their national existence. The Soviets stated that the reason for these deportations was because they felt that these racial minorities were committing treason and they felt that they were loyal to Nazi Germany.

http://www.iccrimea.org/scholarly/jopohl.html

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143

Jewish people at an extermination camp known as Auschwitz.