Past Genocides
1915 - 1917Armenian Genocide
During World War I in the Ottoman Empire, the Armenian Genocide took the lives of almost 2 million Christians. These events are described as the Armenian Genocide because the Armenians consisted of 1.5 million of the victims. They organized a volunteer battalion to aid the Russians against the Turks as the war intensified. On April 24th, 1915, intellectuals and political leaders were rounded up by the Ottoman empire in Istanbul. This is how the Turks took over, by cutting off the head of the snake. The Turks pushed the Armenians out of their homes and sent them on death marches through the Mesopotamian Desert without food, water or shelter. The marchers were often stripped naked, forced to walk until they died.
When the Turks finally led them into the middle of the desert, They left them to die without any resources. With miles of desert on every side, there was no escaping their deaths.
1933 - 1945The Holocaust
The Holocaust was the largest state sponsored murder of 6 million Jews and 5 million others, which included Roma (Gypsies), Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals and Poles by the Nazis and its collaborators. The word HOLOCAUST means “Sacrifice by Fire” which is Greek in origin. In January 1933, the Nazis took power and deemed Jews “inferior” and Germans “racially superior.” The Nazis claimed the Jews were a threat to the German community, and they used propaganda and terror to enforce their anti-Semitic policies. The Nuremburg Laws were passed which took away all civil rights of Jews, including: forcing them from professions, and ultimately confiscating their money, property and businesses. Jews were made to wear a yellow star of David to make it easier to identify them. They were moved into "ghettos," which were temporary facilities made to segregate the Jews. From the ghettos the Nazis forced most European Jews into concentration camps where they were forced into hard labor and starvation. In 1941, the final solution was created to murder all of the Jews of Europe. The largest and most well known "death camp" was Auschwitz-Birkenau, or Auschwitz II. The estimated number of deaths here was approximately 1.1 million people. This included about 960,000 Jews, 74,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet POWs, and 12,000 other nationalities.
Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. He initiated fascist policies that led to World War II and the deaths of at least 11 million people, including the mass murder of an estimated six million Jews.
1975 - 1979The Cambodian Genocide
Child soldiers were a huge tool of the Khmer Rouge, as they were easy to control and would follow orders without hesitation, to the point where many were forced to shoot their own parents.
1992 - 1995Bosnian Genocide
Claimed to be the site of the deadliest warfare, the Bosnian Genocide took the lives of an estimated 100,000 Bosniaks and Croats in the Serbian territory. After the death of their dictator Josip Broz Tito, politicians began pitting the Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks against each other. The Bosnians and Croats human rights began to be violated in many of the same used in the Holocaust, such as, curfews, forced relocations, rape, castration, and imprisonment in concentration camps. The Serbs used liquidation, separation, and execution of the leaders and intelligentsia of the town to take over . In July of 1995, women and children were separated from the men, and approximately 7,000 men and boys were murdered in Sreberenica. The rest of the victims were sent to one of the 381 concentration camps, where they were subject to torture, beatings and mass execution every day. The camps claimed over 10,000 people over the course of the war. Approximately 20,000 women were raped and tortured between 1992 and 1995.
Reports of mass killings and rape had slowly came out of Bosnia, and once photos and videos of concentration camps like Omarska and Trnopolje were published by Western Journalists, the reports captured the world's attention.
April-July 1994Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan genocide began on April 6, 1994 and ended approximately 100 days later on July 16th. During this time it is estimated that between 800,000 and 1,000,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered. Seventy percent of the Tutsi population was wiped out. The Hutus were the majority ethnic group in Rwanda. The Belgians, however, gave the Tutsis better jobs and greater status because they were through to be taller, thinner and have finer features than the Hutus. This led to a serious class divide. On April 6, 1994 Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed in a plane crash which was blamed on the Hutu extremists and the rebel Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Hutu leaders used radio broadcasts to incite genocide and to identify Tutsi targets and locations. The majority of the murders were done by using machetes. Hundreds of thousands of women were raped. For the first time rape was listed as an official act of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Neighbors killed neighbors and some Hutu husbands even killed their Tutsi wives out of fear for their own lives. The rest of the world watched as this genocide occurred, it was one of history's greatest failures. The killing ended when the RPF took control. Two million Hutus fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo where they caused years of conflict and were responsible for up to five million deaths.
Hutu leaders used radio broadcasts to incite genocide, broadcast misinformation and identify Tutsi targets and locations. Ten percent of the violence can be attributed to the radio broadcasts. Tutsis were labelled as "cockroaches" that needed to be exterminated.