The Holocaust and Genocide

Watch

• Ugly History: Japanese American incarceration camps - Densho ↗TED-Ed
• What are the universal human rights? - Benedetta Berti ↗TED-Ed
• What Were Camps in the Holocaust? | Holocaust Explainer ↗United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• What Was Nazi Propaganda? | Holocaust Explainer ↗United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• What was the Holocaust? | Newsround ↗BBC Newsround
• Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution | BBC Select ↗BBC Select

Read

• Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland ↗This seminal work meticulously dissects how ordinary individuals became perpetrators of mass murder, offering chilling insights into the psychology of genocidal violence.Christopher R. Browning
• A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide ↗A Pulitzer-winning examination of America's often-failed responses to genocide, from Armenia to Rwanda, providing a crucial comparative lens on international inaction.Samantha Power
• Genocide: A World History ↗A concise yet comprehensive global survey of genocidal acts, offering essential historical context and a framework for understanding the recurring patterns of mass atrocity.Norman Naimark
• We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda ↗A harrowing, deeply reported account of the Rwandan genocide, providing an intimate and unforgettable case study of state-sponsored mass murder and its aftermath.Philip Gourevitch
• The Eight Stages of GenocideThis influential framework outlines the predictable, escalating stages of genocide, providing a powerful analytical tool for understanding and comparing mass atrocities across different contexts.Gregory H. Stanton

Voices to follow

• Timothy Snyder ↗His incisive analysis of mass atrocities in Eastern Europe offers crucial frameworks for understanding the mechanisms and consequences of genocide across different contexts.Richard C. Levin Professor of History, Yale University
• Deborah Lipstadt ↗A leading authority on Holocaust denial and antisemitism, her work underscores the enduring challenges of historical truth and memory in the face of contemporary genocidal ideologies.United States Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism; Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies, Emory University
• Omer Bartov ↗His meticulous scholarship on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe and the dynamics of perpetrator societies provides profound insights into the local complexities and broader patterns of mass violence.John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History, Brown University
• Samantha Power ↗Her seminal work, 'A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,' offers a compelling historical and policy-oriented examination of international responses to genocide, urging a more robust global conscience.Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID); former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

Glossary

• BystanderA bystander is a person who is present at an event or incident but does not take part or intervene. They see something happening but don't act. For example, if you see someone being bullied in the hallway but walk past without saying anything, you are acting as a bystander.
• Concentration CampA concentration camp is a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are imprisoned in a small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or await mass execution. For example, during the Holocaust, Jewish people and others were sent to concentration camps like Auschwitz, where they were held captive and many were killed.
• DehumanizationDehumanization is the process of making a person or group seem less than human, like animals or objects, to make it easier to treat them badly or harm them without feeling guilt. For example, calling people "pests" or "vermin" is a way of dehumanizing them, making others see them as less worthy of respect or life.
• DiscriminationDiscrimination means treating someone unfairly or differently because of their group, like their race, religion, or gender, instead of their individual qualities. For example, if a school club only allowed students from one specific neighborhood to join, that would be discrimination.
• GenocideGenocide is the planned killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation, with the goal of completely destroying that group. For example, if a government decided to kill everyone from a certain religion to make them disappear, that would be genocide.
• HolocaustThe Holocaust was the specific genocide where Nazi Germany systematically murdered about six million Jews during World War II. It also targeted millions of others, like Roma, disabled people, and political opponents. For example, learning about the Holocaust helps us understand how extreme hatred led to the murder of millions of Jewish people and others.
• PerpetratorA perpetrator is a person who carries out or commits a harmful, illegal, or immoral act. In the context of genocide, they are the ones committing the violence. For example, the person who spreads false rumors to hurt someone's reputation is a perpetrator of gossip.
• PrejudicePrejudice is an unfair and often negative opinion or feeling formed beforehand about a person or group without knowing them or having enough information. It's like judging a book by its cover. For example, believing that all teenagers are lazy, even if you haven't met many, is a form of prejudice.
• PropagandaPropaganda is information, often biased or misleading, used to promote a political cause or point of view, usually to influence how people think and act. For example, during an election, a poster that only shows the good things about one candidate and bad things (even if untrue) about another is using propaganda.
• StereotypeA stereotype is an oversimplified and often untrue idea or image that many people have about a particular type of person or group. It assumes everyone in that group is the same. For example, saying "all athletes are dumb" is a stereotype because it unfairly groups all athletes together and isn't true.
• UpstanderAn upstander is a person who sees wrongdoing and acts to challenge or stop it, even when it's difficult or risky. They stand up for what is right. For example, if you see someone being bullied and you step in to help them or report it to a teacher, you are being an upstander.
• VictimA victim is a person who has been harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other action. In genocide, they are the targets of the violence. For example, if someone's bike is stolen, they are the victim of the theft.

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Where this connects to other fields, and why it's worth knowing.

• Social Psychology Psychology

  In a famous experiment, ordinary people gave what they thought were painful shocks just because a person in charge told them to. A thinker named Arendt saw the same thing in real killers: 'the banality of evil'. Mass murder is often done by regular people following orders, not rare monsters.

• Big Data & Data Science Technology

  To murder millions, the Nazis first needed to find and sort them, and for that they used early data machines. IBM's punch-card counters let them census people, tag them by category, and track them down. Killing at that scale needed a database before it needed weapons.

• Norms, Deviance & Control Sociology

  Before a genocide, propaganda and laws work to shove one group outside the circle of 'people like us.' Once they're painted as not really human, hurting them stops feeling like a crime to the majority and starts feeling normal, even righteous. Mass murder needs that redrawing of who counts as a person first.

• Public Health Health

  The Nazi horror was dressed up as medicine before it became mass murder. They called wiping out groups 'racial hygiene,' as if the nation were a sick body that needed curing. Doctors ran the first gas chambers, using the language of healing to justify killing.

• International & Human Rights Law Law

  The word "genocide" didn't exist until one man, Raphael Lemkin, invented it after the Holocaust. "Crimes against humanity" got its teeth at the Nuremberg trials. Much of today's human rights law is basically the legal aftershock of that one catastrophe.