Genocides And Holocaust Similarities

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Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and novelist, once said, “To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time” (“10”). The world has made sure as to not forget the Holocaust and its aftermath, though there are genocides other than the Holocaust that many have never heard of. It is important to research these, to find how they are similar to and how they vary from the most infamous Holocaust. The Holocaust and the Croatian Genocides are two dark times that are both similar and different in several ways, and demonstrate the true meaning of the word “genocide”. Throughout history, genocide has maintained the same definition and general stages. Firstly, Genocide is a combination of two words, “genos” which is Greek for race, and “cide”…show more content…
Both of these genocides occurred due to a difference in either faith or view on a certain faith. The Croatian Genocide was formed out of a difference in faith between the Orthodox Christians and Muslims. The History Place describes Yugoslavia, which was split, as being, “composed of ethnic and religious groups that had been historical rivals, even bitter enemies, including the Serbs (Orthodox Christians)...and ethnic Albanians (Muslims)” (“Bosnia”). The Holocaust, not WWII, started due to Hitler’s view on the Jewish faith as being the cause of evil, “and that the Jews, deemed ‘inferior,’ were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community” (“Introduction”). Another similarity between the two are the methods that the leaders used to exterminate the people group they saw as evil. The Germans shipped Jews to “killing centers” (“Timeline”), or concentration camps, and work camps to both contain, and to massacre thousands of Jews. They also shot hundreds at a time, quickly dealing with the “inferior” ethnic group. The Serbs used methods similar to these, “including mass shootings, forced repopulation of entire towns, and confinement in make-shift concentration camps...” (“Bosnia”). Although the two genocides took place years from each other, they are the same in many
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