Andrew Kanis
PL SC 150-002
November 9, 2012
Blog
8
One
of the most tragic events that can and have happened on our planet is that of
Genocide. Genocide can be defined as “a coordinated plan seeking to eliminate
all members of particular ethnic, religious, or national groups, through mass murder.
1” Although genocides are fairly rare, and often met with international
resistance, they do occur. One of the most famous genocides in history was that
of the Holocaust. We will be using the holocaust as an example of genocide in
order to see if the definition of genocide, as stated above, is accurate.
The
holocaust took place during the Second World War, however the seeds of this
horrific genocide were planted before the war began. It began when the Nazi
party under Adolf Hitler began to gain political power in Germany. One of the
Nazi’s key ideas was that of creating a superior race while cleansing Germany
of any inferior races. Initially, people who belonged to any race that was
considered ‘inferior’ where confined to Ghettos, this action was taken in order
to separate them from society, in addition to being confined their property and
political rights were removed.3 High ranking members of the Nazi
party also formed the Gestapo in order to have a group of people to enforce their
commands. Even with all of the attacks on ‘inferior’ races the Nazi leadership
still didn’t think enough was being done to eliminate the ‘inferior’ people,
after some deliberation they arrived at a “Final Solution” which was to start
to kill the ‘inferior people.3’ Camps were set up in order to
systematically and efficiently kill. Conditions in these camps were deplorable,
people sent to them where forced to work, they were not given enough food and
many died of starvation, there was not medical care provided and disease ran
rampant. In addition to these atrocities people were systemically killed in gas
chambers as well as through lethal injection.3 While the estimations
vary and are disputed, it is estimated that 6 million Jews were killed (approximately
2/3 of the European Jews), 3.3 million Soviet POWS, 10,000 homosexuals, 250,000
gypsies and 250,000 ‘incurable’ disabled individuals.2
One
possible discrepancy when using the definition stated above is the word ‘particular.’
Since the Nazi’s targeted many different races and groups of people it is hard
to name one group in particular. The list includes Jews, Soviet POWs,
Homosexuals, gypsies, the disabled, Non-Jewish poles, and Jehovah’s witnesses.2
The genocide the Nazi’s orchestrated was not so much against a particular group
as much as it was against all people who did not belong to the Nazi’s definition
of the ideal group. This issue presents only a slight problem with the stated
definition and can be easily overlooked.
The
only other possible issue with the stated definition is that the when the
actual extermination of these ‘inferior’ people took place, Germany was
involved in the Second World War. The Second World War is easily classified as
interstate warfare or “the use of violence by states against other states to
achieve political goals. 1” It is hard to imagine that a genocide
on the scale of the holocaust would have been able to take place, in the way
that it did without the Second World War overshadowing and masking the horrific
actions committed. While this does not destroy the stated definition, it is
important to note that these two types of political violence were connected to
each other.
While
it is difficult to define any word without there being holes in the definition
that allow for exceptions and outliers, the definition stated above is accurate
enough to allow us define the holocaust as a genocide. The holocaust was
clearly a “coordinated plan seeking to eliminate all members of particular
ethnic, religious, or national groups, through mass murder.” 1
Works
cited
1- Samuels, David J. "Studying Comparative
Politics." Comparative Politics. New York: Pearson Education,
2013. 4. Print.
2- "How Many People Were Killed during the
Holocaust." WikiAnswers. Answers, n.d.
Web. 09 Nov. 2012. <http://wiki.answers.com/>.
3- "Holocaust History." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. N.p., n.d. Web.
09 Nov. 2012. <http://www.ushmm.org/>.
It looks like you really shoe-horned your paper into fulfilling the guidelines of the assignment. You define the Holocaust as a genocide, then use the Holocaust as the example against which to measure the definition you already used. The Holocaust was what it was; a different definition doesn't change what happened. I could define genocide however I wanted and it wouldn't make a difference (political ostracism of myself aside) to anything else. I would just have to come up with a new word for what happened there.
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