Blogcritics.org, OH
March 23 2006
On Holocaust: Anti-Semite or Anti-Human?
March 23, 2006
temporal
Defining the Horrific : Readings on Genocide and Holocaust in the
20th Century
William Hewitt
hol.o.caust n. 1. Great destruction resulting in the extensive loss
of life, especially by fire. 2. [Middle English, burnt offering, from
Old French holocauste, from Latin holocaustum, from Greek
holokauston, from neuter of holokaustos, burnt whole : holo-, holo- +
kaustos, burnt (from kaiein, to burn).]
I just finished reading an involved, wonderfully mesmerizing review
of Lajos Koltai’s Fateless: Death and the Children by Alan Dale.
Something I read there caught my eye and lingered in my mind long
after I finished reading that review. He wrote: The Holocaust, a
crime of historic proportions, is simply greater than any heroic
ordeal out of conventional romance–it calls for a new approach to
character and narrative.
Forget entire human history: even our recent history is replete with
what we call crimes against peace, humanity and genocide.
Consider these:
Roma (Gypsy) Holocaust Deaths: Determining the percentage or number
of Roma (Gypsies) who died in the Holocaust (called the Porrajmos,
“paw-RYE-mos” in Romani, a word which means “the Devouring”) is not
easy. The latest (1997) figure from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Research Institute in Washington puts the number of Romani lives lost
by 1945 at “between a half and one and a half million.”
Armenian Genocide: The official Ottoman statistics compiled for the
period between 1915 to 1917-18 were of 800,000 (Armenians) killed,
which suggests that possibly over a million perished. This figure
originates from Djemal’s bureau’s compilation statistics. The results
have been published in the official Ottoman gazette.
A report provided that as soon as February 1916, 1.5 million
Armenians were destroyed. A report in May 27, 1916, by Foreign Office
Intelligence Director Erzberger provided the same figure, as did an
October 4, 1916 report by the German Interim Ambassador to Turkey,
Radowitz, again with 1.5 million as the estimate of Armenian’s having
perished. It seems that the generally cited 1.5 million figure had
originated from those German sources. What might be considered by
many one of the most balanced German account is those of the German
major Endres, who served in the Turkish army, and who has estimated
the number of Armenians having lost their lives during the war to be
1.2 million.
“We have never denied the Armenian crime of genocide inflicted upon
2.5 million Muslim people between 1914 and 1920.” Agop Zahoryan,
‘Voices of Agonies’, p. 91.
Massacre in Cambodia: Estimates of the number of people who perished
under the Khmer Rouge vary tremendously, even within the present
Cambodian government. A figure of three million deaths between 1975
and 1979 was given by the Vietnamese-sponsored Phnom Penh regime, the
People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK). Father Ponchaud suggested 2.3
million; the Yale Cambodian Genocide Project estimated 1.7 million;
Amnesty International estimated 1.4 million; and the United States
Department of State, 1.2 million. Khieu Samphan and Pol Pot cited
figures of 1 million and 800,000, respectively
Tragedy in Chechnia: Today, 12 years later, is there anyone who
mourns the more than 30% of the total Chechen population who perished
in the last two wars? Who cares today about the hundreds of thousands
of Chechen refugees who fled wherever they could from the Chechen
killing-field, only to find themselves in unbearably miserable
conditions, with no hope of being treated as decent human beings?
The Rwandan Genocide: The slaughter of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis
and moderate Hutus, mostly carried out by two extremist Hutu militia
groups, the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi, during a period of 100
days from April 6th through mid-July 1994.
Slaughter in Yugoslavia: Each nation (Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats)
reported many casualties in the three-sided conflict, in which the
Bosniaks reported the highest number of deaths and casualties.
However, the only case officially ruled by the U.N. Hague tribunal as
genocide was the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. At the end of the war
approximately 102,000 people had been killed according to the ICTY
and more than 2 million people fled their homes (including over 1
million to neighboring nations and the west)
There is more
Over twenty million Russian deaths in WWII.
The thousands who died and millions who were displaced during the
great divide in the sub continent – the partition of the subcontinent
into India and Pakistan.
Hundreds of thousands dead in the troubled region of Kashmir at the
hand of terrorists and Government Forces of India and Pakistan.
These are part and parcel of our heritage – correction our human
heritage and conscience. But when the word holocaust is mentioned
what image crosses your mind? Which of the holocausts mentioned above
comes to your mind?
Let me admit I am probably like the majority of folks here. This word
reminds me of the Jewish holocaust more than the other horrible
travesties.
How did that happen? Was it all of those movies? Books? Constant
references in the media? Who is triggering this guilt in me? By
maintaining our silence on all the holocausts perpetrated by us on
some of us are we not culpable?
I am not an anti-Semite. But I certainly could be anti-Human if I
remained silent any longer and not point out our fallacy.
Also on Desicritcs
love words and people who are in awe of them. words are the sole
arbiter and the final survivor. what else is there to state?
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