Genocide

By Author: Henry Ford
Total Articles: 189
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The term genocide was coined by Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) in 1944 who was a polish –Jewish legal scholar. But the concept of the crime itself originated from Assyrians massacred in Iraq on 11th August 1933.
Article 2 of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;(and)forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Though genocide has been signed under the international law, it is not very clearly defined which historical events constitute genocide and which are merely criminal or inhuman behavior. Hence many accusations of genocide have mostly been controversial. Historical events have been revised, re-examined and/or ...
... distorted so as to deny historical crimes. The main aim of those people who aim to revise history is to advance a different historical view and deny many historical events that occurred. This is done by presenting known forged documents as genuine; inventing reasons for distrusting genuine documents manipulating statistics to support his/her own personal view and deliberate misinterpretation of texts. The deniers aim at writing history by minimizing, denying, assuming and ignoring essential facts.

Holocaust denial
Holocaust can be termed as the greatest atrocity that ever happened to during world war one. But there are those people who deny that it ever existed. The deniers aim at rewriting history so that the fact of Holocaust can be omitted. These are people who claim that the genocide of Jews never occurred and/or if it occurred it was not to the degree that is historically recorded. These deniers claim that the German government did not have any policy to exterminate the Jews as a people. They also reject the fact that more than five million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, and that the extermination occurred in concentration camps where homicidal gas chambers were used. They say that there were no gas chambers especially at Auschwitz-Birkenau where mainstream historians claim that over 1 million Jews were killed1. Some deniers of holocaust use the term revisionism to express their point of view. David Hogan wrote the first book denying Holocaust in 1969.2

The holocaust deniers claim that the holocaust was a myth, a make believe story that never happened. They claim it was a hoax story created by the Allies of World War 2 to demonize Germans.They claim that it was a conspiracy to advance the interests of Jews who spread this myth at the expense of other people so as to create a Jewish state in Palestine. They also base their arguments on the survivor stories which they say are unreliable because they are full of inconsistencies and errors. But what about the confessions from the Nazis? These they claim were extracted from the alleged war criminals through torture. Also on the documentary evidence found in photographs, they claim that it is not genuine and that it is fabricated and also that what the Nazis did to the Jews was in line with what the Allies did to their enemies in World War 2.

On the number of Jews exterminated, the deniers claim that 6 million is an exaggerated figure and that just about six hundred thousands people and not specifically Jews died at the hands of the Nazis. They claim that the gas chambers and the crematory ovens were used not for mass extermination but rather to disinfect clothes and burn bodies of people who had died of disease. They say that what happened to the Jewish community in Europe was an unfortunate consequence of the vicissitudes of war3 .The anti defamation league claims that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz and that Hitler had no ill intentions towards the Jews. It also claims that there is scientific evidence showing that the gas chambers did not exist and if they did, they could not have been used to kill such a large group of people. The several massacres of Jews were deliberate just like in any war but it was not carried out specifically by the Nazis but by the larger Eastern Europe. Most Jews died in concentration camps due to disease and starvation but not from homicidal gases.

But regardless of the claims, Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman conclude that there is “convergence evidence” which proves that the Holocaust happened. This evidence he writes include written documents, eyewitness testimony, Photographs and the camps themselves. The deniers have tried to refute this evidence by even presenting evidence in courts to prove that holocaust never happened. But this evidence after extensive research has shown it to be flawed, biased and falsified.(Shermer &Grobman,2002,p.33) Even as the fall of German became evident, the Nazi leaders tried to destroy all the evidence of mass extermination on realizing that they will be captured. They dug up bodies of Jews previously buried and burned them4.

Well known deniers like Harry Elmer Barnes who was one time a mainstream historian became convinced later that the allegations of holocaust were wartime propaganda to justify the involvement of United States in the Second World War in his pamphlet Revisionism and Brain washing (1962) He alleges that the atrocities of the allied were more brutal, painful and numerous than those committed by the Germans. He claims that the Germans were the victims both in 1914 and 1939 and that the holocaust was just propaganda to justify a war against Germany. He goes on to allege that the allies wanted to make Germany the scape goat for all the horrors and evils that they did (the Allies).5
There are many other historians all over the world who defect from the mainstream and support the deniers of holocaust. They have stated their reasons to believe that the holocaust never happened in books, journals and/or magazines.

Reactions to Holocaust Denial.
Many historians have refused to argue with the deniers in that they do not want to give them unwarranted legitimacy6.Others like Deborah Lipstadt try not to legitimize the deniers claims but instead try to raise awareness of their motivations and methods. she claims that the arguments will never end in that the deniers commitment is to an ideology and the findings they get are aimed at supporting this ideology, Others respond to the deniers claims by pointing out errors and inconsistencies on the arguments put forward by the deniers.
Other acts of genocide have also been vehemently denied though the historical evidence present shows that they indeed took place. Gregory H Stanton., founder of Genocide watch states that denial is the 8th stage that follows genocide and that denial is an indication of further genocidal massacres.7

The Nanking Massacre
It is also known as the Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of Nanking. Nanking was the former capital of the Republic of China and this massacre refers to a 6 week period after the Imperial Japanese Army captured this city. Many civilians were murdered and many women raped. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of civilian were killed and 20,000-80,000 women raped by the Japanese soldiers8. But the issue remains controversial and contentious in that some historical revisionists deny that it ever happened. Also some Japanese nationalists claim that the massacre was either exaggerated or fabricated for propaganda purposes. due to this controversy, there has not been good relationships between Japan and China as well as between Japan and other Asian countries e.g. South Korea and the Philipines.The controversy arises from the fact that there is no accurate and comprehensive records of the massacre.Also, there exists variance in estimates of the death toll, differences in definition of the geographical area, and the time that it occurred. in defining it by the geographical area, it can be narrowed down to only those killings which occurred in Nanking Safety Zone or broadly to those killings in the immediate environs of Nanking, or more broadly the 6 counties around Nanking.Also the time period can be the six weeks after the fall of Nanking or broadly to include killings from the time the Japanese Army entered Jiangsu province.i.e.mid November till late March 1938.

The Japanese government has acknowledged the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army but it claims the deaths were military in nature. Others claim that the deaths were accidental, isolated or justified militarily and that the exaggeration of the same is basically for purposes of political propaganda. a Japanese journalist who was with the army at the time states that the Japanese army was advancing towards Nanking rapidly due the consent among officers and men that they could loot and rape as they wished9.The most brutal and vicious of the crimes was the killing contest between two Japanese officers. This was covered as a sporting event with regular updates over a series of days10.Historian Bob Wakabayashi agreed with some Japanese scholars who claim that the story was concocted and that it had been made up by the soldiers themselves in order to raise the morale and national fighting spirit of the soldiers11.But the historicity of the event will remain disputed since in 2005, a judge in Tokyo ruled that the incident had actually taken place and that the story was not concocted.

The Japanese army on capture of Nanking started a massive raping spree. The army would search from house to house for young girls and women. Husbands or brothers who tried to resist were shot dead. The women were killed after the rape ordeal either through explicit mutilation or by stabbing a bayonet, long stick of bamboo or other objects into the vagina12. Most of the evidence of rape was in form of photographs because the Japanese soldiers would take a photo of their victim. Most of the soldiers were found with these photos after they were arrested.

Nanking Denials
The Nanking massacre was brought to the English speaking world by Iris Changs book The Rape of Nanking.the works in the book have been criticized by denialists and non denialists.It is reported by Iris that what happened at Nanking was meant to happen in that “the path of Nanking runs through the very marrow of Japanese culture.” She has repeatedly commented on the Japanese Psyche which she sees as historical product from a Japanese identity that is made of a bloody business with martial competitions, samurai ethics, and the fearsome warrior code of bushido13.

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