Holocaust and History of the World

Holocaust and Remembrance

Ignoring Occupation condemns and opposes in the strongest way possible all holocaust deniers, racists, neo-Nazis and disbelievers who deny that the holocaust ever happened, downplays its significance in Jewish and world history or outright praises Nazism, Hitler and apologists for this crime against humanity and mass murder. No suffering is unique or the epitome of or serve as a justification to another people's suffering, oppression and occupation. The Holocaust is regarded as most well known and documented genocide of the twentieth century, survivors, soldiers who liberated the concentration camps and even Hitler's government all kept records the most detail writings aside from the survivors' testimonies, Yad Vashem and Holocaust museums in U.S. and Israel came from German archives after Second World War. Among the gruesome records are the numbers of people killed, property destroyed and burned by Nazi supporters in neighboring countries & local populations. Stolen clothes and jeweleries were taken from concentration camp prisoners who died by camp officials and kapos (Jews who served as barrack commanders to their fellow prisoners) than given to German civilians who lived near and further away from camps, in other countries and neighboring cities. The horrors of the camps stayed with the soldiers, civilians and survivors ever since.

Often forgotten are the stories and deaths of millions of non Jewish holocaus victims at camps such as Auschwitz, Treblinka, Dachau, Jasenovac in Yugoslavia in which 700,00 Serbs, Roma and children were murdered by Croatian Fascists Utashe Government under Ante Pavelić. Poles, Gypsies (Roma), catholics Germans, Russians and war prisoners of various nationalities who have been remember through numerous movies on Prison escapes.

Another forgotten people are the Afro Germans who found themselves in a paradox, Nazis weren't sure how to classify them and they weren't targeted for mass killings to the extent of other groups but were still effected by the Nuremberg racial laws. Many were forcefully sterilized, sometimes unknowningly and had to live underground to escape being further persecuted by the Nazis. Afro German were treated as odd men out in Germany even before the Nazis came to power. Under the Weimar Republic, Afro Germans faced discrimination, otherness and their parents' marriages weren't recognized. They were dubbed Rhineland bastards for being the children of German women and African French soldiers when France occupied German Rhineland during World War I. Some were also migrant soldiers from the French Army who stayed on Germany. There were also African diplomats, workers and authors who would later be caught in the Nazis' dragnet of racial laws, ethnic cleansing and sent to concentration camps including Afro Germans, African American and mixed French soldiers who were captured. Than remember that Germany had also lost its colonies of Tanzania and Togo and colonial policy of divide and rule in the colonies and the mainland greatly affected Afro Germans.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, film, photographs, records and testimonies of camps and Nazis systemic killings of anyone who did not fit Nazism's definition of an master race even children were not spared. Upon liberating the camps many Soviet, American, Canadian soldiers and other resistance groups were shocked to find that many German, Polish, French and other local civilians who nearby or around the corner from the camps denied the camps' more sinister existence the camps were simply designated forced labor camps by the Nazi government or simply said they did not know what was happening or believed such places exists though they could smell the stench and burning human beings in ovens as Nazi sought to destroy any evidence of their crimes. The horrors of the camps stayed with the soldiers, civilians and survivors ever since.  

 

Norman Finkelstein on the Holocaust Industry

Renowned Professor and long time analyst of Israel Palestinian conflicts and Middle East, Norman Finkelstein recounts his own parents' experience with the Holocaust and how the survivors originally sought to forget the painful memories and move on from the horrific tragedy to live normal lives. Until June 6, 1967 or the Six Day War, the Holocaust and Israel played a minimal and at times non existent role in American Jewish life and the same goes for the Jewish diaspora. It was after the Six Day War when Israel defeated Nasser and Arab armies, that the the Spartan Jew was created and the mythos surrounding the Holocaust would become the focal point of World War II history and its own special studies. As Finkelstein grew up in 1960s, he attests to how the Holocaust transformed from a footnoted war tragedy not to spoken about by survivors to becoming a major historical event often overshadowing other WWII tragedies and creating a uniqueness around Jewish suffering. Since the Six Day war, the numerous movies, tv series, documentaries, books and artwork on the holocaust continue to be churned out yearly and the Holocaust has been used by Israel to stop any criticism of its treatment and violations of Palestinian rights as well as other Israeli minorities. Israel constantly cites the holocaust as the raison detre for its survival as a state.

The Armenian Genocide was the first state sponsored systemic extermination of a minority group by a brutal regime beginning in 1915-1922. Making it one of the first genocides of the 20th century. It was carried out by the Ottoman Empire under the nationalistic and increasingly xenophobic Young Turks Regime of Talat Pasha against its own Armenian minority living in what was then considered Historical Armenia in Eastern Turkey. Today Eastern Turkey is a Kurdish majority area. Many irreplaceable Armenian manuscripts, artwork, ancient churches, monasteries and schools were also destroyed by Ottoman soldiers to erase the Armenians' cultural history and contributions in Anatolia. From the Armenian Genocide it is said Hitler and Nazi government copied the Ottoman's use of transporting Armenians from their homes using cattle cars which were later used to cram and transport Jews, Roma, Russians and anyone else marked for death by the Nazi Regime both before and during World War II. Transporting men, women and children by box car was also used in Russia under Stalin to transport Chechen people and other people of the Caucus Mountains considered enemies within and threats to the state. Most of the transported people were sent to Siberia or the Soviet gulags in Russia's Far east. Similar to the Armenians in World War I, the Holocaust took place while the world was preoccupied by World War II, fascism, Nazism and weakening of colonial empires. Many major media radio stations and newspaper later in 1945 tried to deny knowledge of knowing that Holocaust was taking place throughout the decades of Hitler's regime though the Final Solution, Reich stag Fire, demonizing minority groups and Brown shirts SS burning books that were banned by as Hitler's regime came power including renowned, classic, ancient and historical books by prominent intellectuals and critics of Nazism were reported by mainstream newspapers and radio at the time. The Ottoman government attacked various Armenian intellectuals first to get rid of any strength building community leaders who could've protected and sheltered the women and children. Kristalnacht where thousands upon thousands of Jewish businesses, shops, buildings and homes were destroyed, reports of executions of political prisoners, handicapped, many dissidents and intellectuals who fled to U.S., Canada and South America for refuge and safety were all published by the same newspapers around the world and relayed through newsreels. Still today people denied without shame or remorse that Holocaust ever occurred. Ignoring Occupation wants to say that Holocaust and many proceeding holocausts after it Cambodia, Vietnam, Rwanda, etc were and are not false, exaggerated or it happened along with many gruesome genocides since including the current war in Gaza that now has claimed 900 lives. Syria and Iraq are continuously witnessing the physical as well as the cultural destruction of their citizens and countries. Thousands of Syrians have been killed in the last two years while millions of Iraqis have lived and fled from violence that has transformed Iraq into a literal hell on Earth. Living a country or region you have known all your life is difficult and unforgiving.

Ma'afa: African Holocaust

To even non-political Africans, African Americans and Caribbeans, slavery and colonialism and 500 years of suffering both produced since 16th century (Europe's Age of exploration) on Africans across the world is considered a Holocaust and to a lesser extent a genocide named Maafa. In Swahili Maafa means great turbulence or tragedy. The Maafa (African Holocaust in English) did not just include consequences of slavery and colonialism nor was it just a coincidental event in world history occurring during 500 year rise and growth of Western Europe into a powerful hegemony according to mainstream society. The Maafa included dehumanization and Othering of black people (first in West Africa in 16th century and later extended to rest of Africa including East and North Africa) by Kings and Queen from 16th-19th centuries and later Western governments via media ie newspapers, especially popular culture stereotypes depicting Africa as a dark continent, Africans as theCurse of Ham cruel using Christianity and biblical teachings to justify slavery and colonialism, freed slaves as "enemies within" living in mainstream American society, despite freedoms Africans were viewed as inferior and subhumans by scientific racism and social Darwinism and in modern times African American and African Diaspora men not only as prisoners and dangerous criminals but as threats to themselves and society at large. Given long history of dehumanization (that continues in pop culture across West today) Othering and dehumanization helped to ease the guilt of Western governments, businesses and ordinary people who benefited, profited and committed crimes during Maafa (racism, colonialism and massacres read farther below), throw away any empathy towards Africans (during and after). Public outrage was either slow in ending Maafa or came too late. Importantly, the Maafa has literally broken cultural, social, political, historical and spiritual identity between Mainland Africa and African diaspora. African Americans have been the most disconnected people from their ancestral roots.

Disconnected, tangled and reconnected roots

Regardless of a globalized and interconnected world that we live in today, most people belong to an ancient history and culture, important historically significant, cultural and sacred place, have deep connections to their own indigenous cultures that are older than Western culture and feel their own identity is unique and protected. While the African diaspora in Latin America, Europe and Caribbean have reconnected with mainland Africa through preserved cultural practices, religious movements and spirituality, self education and awareness about rich diversity of African culture, traditions, history and music supporting governments and cultural identity projects between Africa and diaspora, African Americans still remain disconnected. For 500 years, American slave masters and holders (from 17th-20th centuries) succeeded in literally destroying any connection to Africa, to their own individual identity or their diaspora cousins African Americans had in order to keep slaves working, making the American economy wealthy at the expense of human beings, men, women and children, denying freedom and discouraging self determination though many freed African American slaves formed seperate cities in deep South and North. Two of the most well known and first self sufficient African American cities created before 20th century are Eatonville, Florida and though a neighborhood and not a city is Harlem in New York. The fears of independence and successful slave revolt similar to Haiti that ended in Haitians becoming the first black independent ruled country in 1804. In a cruel historic fate, the Maafa occurred in Western countries that praised and supported Democracy, applauding revolutions for self determination in Americas against Spain under the banner of freedom and Rights of Men, quoting the writings and readings of Hobbes, Locke and championing the humanism and Western European Enlightenment that had brought Europe out of the Dark Age, etc without seeing the sad irony in Maafa's far reaching consequences for Africans across the world.

It can't be the H word if perpetrators are Europeans and victims are Africans

Finally it has allowed Western countries to deny that Maafa is equivalent to a Holocaust on the same scale as the Jewish Holocaust. The historical significance of the Maafa continues to haunt Black America, Caribbean and mainland Africa to this day. Despite historical evidence of horrors, massacres and crimes committed during Maafa, there is no justice for descendants of slaves whose ancestors were not only enslaved but endured unspeakable acts of violence and indifference from mainstream Western society towards their suffering. There has been no resounding official apology from all Western countries who were involved in the Maafa. There has been no reparations as of yet or a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in U.S. or Europe or Nuremberg Trial (that would be a controversy) to examining the uncomfortable truths of Maafa (holocaust) that is often overlooked in most history textbooks. There has been no reparations even though compensation has been given to Japanese Americans for internment of their grandparents and parents during World War II, remembrance and teachings of the Jewish Holocaust is mentioned daily and taught in school, there is acknowledgment for the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and there has even been minimal recognition of the Armenian Genocide during World War I. Yet when speaking about Maafa (whose name alone can not be mentioned because of "controversy") and its significance, African diaspora, mainland Africa and African Americans are told to forget about it, not bring up old wounds although the wounds have become deep and turned into scars. Perhaps its because the perpetrators of the Maafa was Western governments and not dehumanized, others in non-Western countries maybe why calling Maafa (African Holocaust) what is has been a difficult.

Namibian Genocide and Second Reich Full film uncut 

Unknown facts not found in history books: Victims of colonial atrocities speak from the grave

Before words such as "Genocide" and "Holocaust" became part of mainstream society vocabulary, massacres and attempted genocides were already being committed by colonial authorities in Namibia and Congo in early 1900s. Propelled by racist ideology and science (paralleling Nazi Germany and other Western European nations' notion of superiority) that placed African peoples regardless of cultural history or their location in the continent at the bottom of humanity, German colonial administration of the Second Reich dislocated indigenous Namibians from their ancestral homelands and created the world's first concentration camps in Kalahari Desert in Namibia in 1904 (before World War I, before Hitler's Rise and Jewish Holocaust). The Herero people of Namibia were rounded up and sent to Shark Island Death Camp on the direct orders of Lother van Throtha, the colonial administator and military general ruGerman Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm ruling over Namibia. The use of concentration camps was meant to stop Herero People from rightfully revolting against the colonialist government in control of their homeland and discourage future resistance movements and uprisings by Namibian people in general. This dark history and precursor to identical historical events some thirty years later inside Europe against European Jews has been buried in the back and sands of history for over a century unknown to mainstream society. Even the British set up concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War to imprison Afrikaner men, women and children. The origin of word concentration camp in English comes from British camps during Boer War not Nazi Germany. In Congo, King Leopold of Belgium turned the entire country into his own personal territory using forced labor to build Belgium's wealth and architecture at the expense of millions of Congolese who were literally worked to death chopping rubber trees (at the time Congo's largest exports) and had their arms and legs chopped off not by fellow countrymen but by Europeans. Once again we see this history echoed today in Congo with rebel forces and innocent Congolese involved in a natural resource driven war began in 1960 after independence. As history has it, journalists knew these atrocities were occurring and in some cases particularly Armenian Genocide became eye witnesses to events taking place but did not connect all the historical events together to serve as a warning to future generations to learn from atrocious horrors of racism, dehumanization and discrimination. All of the above events occurred either side by side or overlapped one another.

Why No Reparations for descendants and survivors of Maafa?

A young share cropper tending the land

As with every victim whose survived war, massacres and persecutions, they have been rightly compensated for their horrors by their persecutors or governments who replaced them. The Japanese Americans who were placed in internment camps by the state and Jews who suffered, survived the holocaust and even the French forced Haiti who gained its independence in 1804 to pay reparations which eventually bankrupted the country. Africans and the Diaspora has yet to be reparated for their tribulations and abuses suffered by them throughout slavery, bondage and imprisonment not only in the Americas but also in Europe and elsewhere. Following the end of American Civil War from 1860-1865, African Americans were promised forty acres and mule as one step towards economic independence in the reconstruction Era South and North. The promise was never fulfilled. Instead, freed and newly freed Africans experience Jim Crow segregation and discrimination in daily life across society. Jim Crow was blatant in the South and subtle in the North but in both regions, attempts were made by to limit economic and social mobility for the African American women, children and men. Some African Americans became share croppers tending to small plots of land while others migrated to the North. Known as the Great Migration, in 1920s over hundred thousand people made the trek by foot, train and car out of the Jim Crow South towards the Northern cities and states of Chicago, Boston, Canada, New York, Pennsylvania, California, Texas, New Jersey, among other places in the Midwest and West. It was one of the United States' large internal migrations that greatly changed the demographics, politics and societies of the cities and states African Americans arrived in.

Reparations agreement between Germany and Israel

500 Years Later

The history of slavery, colonialism and racism through past to the present. Directed, narrated and told from the viewpoint of African diaspora, it takes the viewer on a human journey of African history ie African culture, languages and heritage to the slave trade and holocaust denying. In spite of history, Africa and her children are working to overcome racism's social, cultural and historical crimes through unity, economic development, connecting the African diaspora with Mainland Africa, self education and knowledge.

Aparthied Did Not Die, A film by John Pilger

Apartheid Did Not Die from John Pilger on Vimeo.
Apartheid the institutionalized system of politically and culturally seperating the peoples of South Africa based on ethnic origins and skin color. Apartheid system officially came into affect in 1948 by the then White minority ruled political system and government. Africans, Asians and Europeans living in South Africa have been held down by laws which regarded society as divided into biologically different races of humanity backed by social darwinism and pseudoscience. Apartheid was tied to the economy of South Africa built upon heavy income and wealth inequality seen in the comfortable lives whites lived and the large bantustans indigenous Africans lived in across the country. The inequality remained even in large cities such as Johannesburg (Jo'burg), Capetown, Durban, Preteroia, and regions as KwaZulu-Natal, so forth. Most if not all of the country's wealth from industry to manufacturing, mining, services and real estate was held by whites (Afrikaners, Europeans) and foreign investors and multinationals from United States, Britain, Zimbabwe (than known as Rhodesia named after Cecil Rhodes) the origins of the Marikana Massacre of workers based at the Loninium Platinium Mining company can be found in the Apartheid economic system which purposely disenfranchised indigenous Africans and other non European South Africans ie Malays and Indians who lived in a buffer zone but were equally apart from gaining full access to the wealth or moving up the social leader. Apartheid still exist in South Africa today in the economics and benefits from resources still dominated by white Afrikaner minority alongside subtle racism in society. On the heels of this is continual push by multinationals for South Africa's resources, access to its markets and waterways and the control of economic policies by the likes of IMF and World Bank with their outdated structural adjustment programs.

">Will Iraq Ever recover from the War: Chris Hedges    

Fears of Genocide in Central African Republic

As the violence carried out by both Seleka and Anti Balaka rebels continues, France and many other neighboring countries as well as Western countries have feared that a genocide might be occuring against Central African Muslims. Anti-Balaka rebels and their supporters are carrying out revenge attacks against their Muslim countrymen following the Overthrow of Francois Bozize and Seleka rebels attacks against Christian Central Africans in Bangui and cross the country. As a result, the Anti-Balaka rebels came into being to protect mainly Christian supporters and countrymen against Seleka rebel forces not trusting the national government to stop in to protect both Christians and Muslims. Now that the Anti-Balaka have the upperhand in the violence and war for the time being, Muslim Central Africans have bore the brunt of the rebel forces.

Rwanda Genocide

Recognized across the continent and the world as one of the most brutal genocides of the lae 20th century, Rwanda's killing fields left some 800,000+ Tutsis and Hutus dead over a 100 day period in which the interhamwe rebel forces and later Rwandan Patriotic Front fought their way across the tiny mountainous country. Battling each other for political domination in the capital Kigali, both groups were responsible for hundreds if not thousands of Rwandans' deaths regardless of their ethnicity. More than a million Rwandans were forced to flee to neighboring countries in DR Congo, Uganda, Kenya and other nations. It is worth noting that the African Union was nearly absent from intervening in Rwanda or at the forefront of providing a peacekeeping force or mediation team. The UN, the West and France have received the most criticism for not intervening into the killings reached a crescendo. Western countries used America's failure to successfully intervene in Somalia's then early Civil War as a pretext for never intervening in any African conflict no matter how urgent or life threatening the conflict is for ordinary people. However, America and its allies have since broken their Somalia excuse with the creation of Africom, NATO bombing of Libya, supplying weapons to South Sudanese rebels, Rwandan and Ugandan military in DR Congo. When the fighting finally ended, millions of Rwandans were either displaced internally or lived in refugee camps outside their country's borders. Many were equally traumatized by the horrors they managed to survive or witnessed. Even now, reliving or retelling the individual stories of victims and perpetrators is painful for many Rwandans even the younger generation who is removed from the events from 20 years. Some wanted criminals have fled to France who have provided them security during and in the aftermath of events. Rwanda's holocaust occurred around the same time Bosnia's Civil War was waning to an end. European countries and UN were more focused on putting a lid on Bosnian civil war though their intervention also came at the wrong time. Sarajevo and the rest of Bosnia was destroyed by the time the war officially ended in Bosnia's partition in 1995. Currently, France has started trials for wanted criminals within the country. The origins of Rwandan genocide can be found in Belgium's rule over Rwanda. Belgian colonial officials used an identity card system emphasizing Hutu and Tutsi ethnic identity that included racializing Tutsis as superior and more European (even measuring skulls and eyes reminiscing of Nazis) while casting Hutus as incapable of governance and blocking them from high office and marginalizing them. This led to a nation wide strike by Hutus in 1959. The highly ethnicized animosity played on both peoples' perceived differences and feelings of injustice which continued long after Rwanda gained independence in 1962. The death of Rwanda and Burundian presidents in a helicopter crash the previous wek before the start of the killings was the final cataclyst.

Tuez les Tous! Genocide in Rwanda: history, origins and role of media

PBS Frontline on Rwandan Genocide

Secret History of How Cuba ended Apartheid 

It is no secret that Cuba and its people (in the form of military support and troops) played a crucial role in several liberation struggles in Africa ie Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe among other countries. Nelson Mandela had good relationships with Fidel Castro and other revolutionary leaders such as Maumar Gaddhafi, Hugo Chavez and his other counterparts around the world. Cuba not only spoke of liberation from colonialism and imperialism and to a lesser extent neoliberialism but also practiced it across Latin America and Africa giving help to other nations struggling to break free of neocolonialism. Today, Cuba has continued to help other nations in the form of providing medical aid by exporting doctors to its neighbors and providing medical training and education for doctors, nurses and medical staff from around the world.

The Last Domino

The documentary recalls the rise and fall of South African Apartheid regime's military forces and foreign interventions along its borders in Nambia, intervention in Angola Civil War, Mozambique and other border wars across Southern Africa

The Death of Apartheid: The Whites Last Stand

The story of Eugene Terreblanche, a staunchnly right wing and stubborn political activist who attempted to halt the 1994 Elections that brough the first non Apartheid Democratic government to power in South Africa under Nelson Mandel and the African National Congress. Terreblanche's Neo Nazi party's tactics and symbolism fell on deaf ears as apartheid's collapse gave way to the changing times in South Africa.

Crimes of generations: Indigenous peoples and disappearance (almost) of Black Australia

Runoko Rashidi: Aboriginal Holocaust in Tasmania

The First Australians fight back John Pilger

Aborgines Exclusion Policy laws

Slavery in the Arab countries 

As with Europe, Roman and Ottoman Empires, the Arab/Islamic empires (Ummayads, Caliphate, etc) relied on slavery for building up a strong standing army, security guards and domestic work. Unlike slavery in the West, slavery in Middle East and North Africa was not meant to entirely destroy and breaking down a human being. Slaves weren't tied to a particular skin color, slaves in the region came from Europe and Asia in addition to other African regions. Respect and dignity for African slaves differed. Coincidentally, African men in the Ottoman Empire guarded the harem and women's quarters in Sultan's palaces and offices. Slavery still exists in the world today including the Middle East and North Africa. Migrant workers from Southeast Asia are treated as lesser human beings often working and living in slavery like conditions in awe inspiring cities such as Dubai, Doha, Qatar's capital, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Persian countries and occasionally Yemen. Today millions of migrants from Southeast Asia, Africa and other regions arrive in the Persian Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Oman seeking better economic and financial opportunities that are limited or non existent in their home countries. Many job seekers migrate legally through employment agencies at home before traveling to their new jobs abroad. Parallel to the overseas professional workers illegal migrants have also crossed into the Persian gulf countries for employment opportunities . Recently, Fifa and the other human rights organizations have rightfully condemned the harsh treatment of migrant workers by their Qatari employers working on World Cup construction sites. Workers are sometimes given few breaks, live in cramped and hot living quarters that transform into boiling containers due to the 30+ C heat throughout the year even during Winter. Workers have often had their passports are confiscated by their employers for unexplained reasons and are not allowed to receive their passports for unknown period of time. Female migrant workers from Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Indonesia, India and Pakistan have also followed their male counterparts seeking financial independence and a way to provide for themselves or families and communities. Female workers become Au Pairs or maids for wealthy families in Dubai or Doha and other Persian Gulf cities and few as healthcare providers. The Au Pairs working  in numerous families' homes face abuse at the hands of their employers ranging from physical and sexual abuses to racist assaults and taunts while providing childcare for their employers. Both migrant men and women who are thousands of miles from home and families can feel isolated or like long term strangers even though they have lived in the cities and countries who they are employed for a decade. The Persian Gulf governments have done little to ease the migrants' suffering or tribulations despite the outcry from international human rights organizations, local migrant rights councils, civil society or outcry from the governments of migrants' home countries.

Arab Occupation of North Africa

The Process of Islamizaction of Egypt
The Arab Invasions: First Islamic Empire 
Egypt the Arab Conquest

Armenian Genocide

Considered the 20th century's first modern and sadly forgotten genocide lasted from 1915-1920. The date chosen and commemorated is April 24th. The Ottoman Government headed by Talat Pasha, had been harassing and persecuting Armenians (since the 1890s) living in Eastern Turkey than known as Historical Armenia or Armenian tableland. Although mass media was still limited, American, German and other European diplomats did record Ottoman government's force removal of Armenians. One witness to the forced marches of Armenians was American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Henry Morgenthau. American newspapers followed the genocide then known as the Armenian massacres. Some of the first humanitarian organizations in US was created to sponsor and support the survivors and children who found refuge across the Middle East. The Ottomans' methods of ethnic cleansing of Armenians from cities, towns and villages across Eastern Turkey predated Hitler by twenty years and Bosnian war by almost eighty. The methods used to terrorize the Armenians are eerily similar to methods adapted by Gestapo and Nazi regime's security police: The Ottoman utilized box car transportation, massacring intellectuals and able body men, cultural destruction and loss of property, led women, children and elderly on forced marches across the desert towards the sea, a tactic that was used by German soldiers under the Second Reich in Namibia in 1890s, destroying a centuries old culture, dehumanizing Armenian people as enemy threats and rape and abuse of women and children. The war that nearly wiped an entire people off the face of the Earth. Out of 2 million Armenians some 1.5 million were killed by Pasha's government under the shadow of World War I. Thousands of Armenian children became orphans and trekked across Turkey to the safety of Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and even further to Western Europe and United States. After the end of World War I, Armenians who were displaced by the genocide and now found themselves not allowed to reneter the nearly created Turkish Republic after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, returned to Armenia only to live under Soviet rule where memories and stories of genocide were suppressed by the Soviet authorities. The survivors of the genocide and their descendants are still mourning. They have not received justice in a formal recognition, reparations or an apology by Turkey nor have the original culprits from the government down to the soldiers were fully placed on trial. 

Where are my People? 

The film tells the story of the Armenian nation from its birth some 2000 years ago to the 1915 genocide and its aftermath. 

PBS Special-Armenian Genocide

Aghbet: Armenian Genocide In English Politics and unending mourning of Turkey and Armenia's relationship in relation to the genocide

Racism in Europe and United States: How racism and dehumanization led to murder

War against the Weak: America's campaign to create a Master Race 

The Horrifying American roots of Nazi Eugenics

Ethnic Cleansing and Conflict in USA

The United States is not immune to ethnic cleansing, genocide and conflict regardless of what the government and larger society presents to the rest of the world. The US has succeeded in sugar coating and hiding ethnic cleansing and ethnic conflict from the eyes of its own citizens and the world by writing it out of the textbooks, media and preaching exceptionalism in its national mythology. An accusing finger has always been pointed and wagged at the rest of the world (see state terrorism in Pundits and Geopolitics) for untold atrocities and murders committed by both dictatorial and so called Democratic governments in the past and present. Nevertheless the true story of genocide and ethnic cleansing in America and empire building abroad has been recorded and exposed in books and independent media. Schools and mainstream media are still hesitant to teach the bloody side of American exceptionalism. Caught up in ethnic cleansing and state sanctioned exclusion from society from past to present are the Indigenous Americans, African Americans, Chinese (1800s), Japanese (during World War II). Targeted assassinations of left wing and revolutionary groups also spurred conflicts and riots within the US. Brutal persecution of religious minorities through church burning, lynchings and propaganda continued into the mid 20th century. Economic sanctions and sabotage is the quickest way to destroy a society and people. Perhaps the most successful economic sabotage of an ethnic minority by the American state occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921. In 1920s during (Jim Crow and apartheid dubbed segregation but with the same elements as South African Apartheid) Tulsa was home to Black Wall Street, a economically stable and self sustaining neighborhood built by wealth of African Americans that was bombed to the ground by the white town police and state. African Americans owned their own banks, insurance companies, bus lines, businesses, schools, hospitals and wealth and finances. There was no need to rely on the larger white society surrounding the neighborhood for the residents' well being. Afraid of competition from African Americans which is regarded as the one of the principals of capitalist system and rising political power by African Americans, white Americans in Tulsa rioted and attacked Black Wall Street with mobs, guns and the world's first airplane bombings of civilian targets. The continual racism by the state and institutions that spurs the deaths of ethnic groups and prisoners or that sends hundreds of thousands of people of color to solitary confinement, death row or lifetime imprisonment or economic sanctions that crushes nations abroad. Exceptionalism does not excuse or erases past and present atrocities.

Banished: Ethnic Cleansing of African Americans in US

American Empire: Ethnic cleansing from America to Iraq, Afghanistan, etc

Mass Murder: Ethnic Cleansing American Style-Iraq

Memories of the Camps

In 1945, British & American allied troops recorded and filmed the survivors of Holocaust and Nazi death/concentration camps as they were liberated in the immediate aftermath of allied march on Germany soon after Hitler's death. The uncensored documentary was deemed too grisly and gruesome for public broadcast at the time. British soldiers took the original footage and stored it into Imperial War Museum in London. In 1983, the original film was restored and broadcast for the first time to the general public by PBS. Its images are still uncensored and serve as a testament and witness to the horrifying consequences of inhumanity to men through the two dangerous isms of 20th century: nationalism & racism.

Dear World

Dear World: a small history on antisemitism (mostly in Europe) in which the world is condemned for not trying to stop the holocaust in which six million Jews, Roma, Russians, Poles, handicapped, etc a total of 12 million people were murdered in concentration camps, executions and bombings by Nazi Germany while all of Europe turned a blind eye towards the systemic killings committed in the name of racism and racial purity under Hitler's horrifying regime from 1933-1945. This video is seen through the eyes of the Kahanist Movement.

Palestine, Gaza and Holocaust

From 1948 onwards, many Palestinians, Arabs, Iranians and Muslims have often asked why the Palestinians must pay for the Western world's holocaust guilt. Questions abound as to why was Israel established on top of Palestine, when Palestinians and Arab World played no part in Holocaust, did not aid Hitler despite many Israeli officials and historians saying that the grand Mufti of Jerusalem met with him, Arab countries did not build concentration camps for their Jewish communities nor deported them outside the country? And how could Arab countries take part in the war independently when they themselves were under British, French and European colonialism that limited self determination and crushed any form of resistance to colonial rule? Many media pundits, right wing politicians and die hard Zionists and Israeli government supporters continously say, "Arabs, Ahmedinjad or Palestinians are trying to wipe Israel off the map!" They justify Israel's disproportional use of force in occupied Palestine, Lebanon and once upon a time Egypt under Nassar as an act of self defense. Many leaders across the Arab World, Iran and other Muslim countries have been compared to Hitler and World War II, "a second holocaust" by Arab countries against Israel and New Antisemitism (for anyone who calls themselves an anti-Zionist including Jews) is used as the mantra by politicians, pundits and Israel lobby to silence any criticism of Israeli policies in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere that would be condemned, heavily scrutinized and leaders and government tried for war crimes if Israel were any other country in the world. But because of the history of Holocaust (especially in U.S. & Europe)that many children and adults learn about, discuss, visit holocaust musuem and are reminded to never forget, that any criticism of Israeli government not Israeli people or Jews is seen as automatic antisemitism even when Jewish groups see criticizing Israel as justified and necessary to promote human rights for Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc and work toward peace in Middle East.
Israel's supporters are trying to deny the crimes against humanity and war in Gaza by saying that the civilians dying are members of Hamas, that the organization started the war by firing rockets at Sderot & other Israeli cities, civilians brought it upon themselves and Palestinians are using propaganda as a way to garner sympathy. The claims are not true. Gaza is a small area 25 kilometers wide, one of the world's densely populated places and also has a young population 50% of all Gazans are under the age of 17. Bombing a small territory or any size for that matter, full of children, women and elderly who have nothing to do with the politics of Hamas nor who care nothing for politics in the first place is by any definition of International Law, Nuremberg Trials (which occurred in the immediate aftermath of Holocaust in 1945 to trial Nazi officials and supporters for their crimes) and human conscious a war crime regardless of what justification is used for bombing mostly civilian infrastructure across Gaza. As Israeli officials, U.S. media have said the Jewish state is trying to defend itself from Hamas rocket fire. Many critics of Hamas and Israel's continual bombardment of Gaza have said the inaccurate homemade rockets from Hamas and other groups often miss the target and have to date only killed 10 Israelis in Sderot, Ashkelon and Ashdod compared to 1,400 Palestinians. While many people have taken to protest for Gaza and Palestinians across the world and four corners of Earth, Western governments and media remain uncritical of Israel, its use of disproportionate and horrendous force to silence Hamas rockets while punishing the people of Gaza. Many Palestinians and their supporters see silence from International community particularly the diplomats as complicity with Israeli war policy. The history of antisemitism and West's long holocaust guilt at not halting it has made Since 1967 war, many supporters of Israel have warned of a second holocaust against Israel coming from neighboring Arab countries. Critics such as Professor Norman Finklestein, Noam Chomsky, Rashid Khalidi, Tariq Ramadan, Uri Aveney, etc have detested the use of holocaust as a way to silence criticism of Israeli policies towards Palestinians, its neighbors and charging anyone who questions the 41 year old occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism.Raphael Lemkin
20th century world renown lawyer who invented the name genocide after studying and researching the Armenian Massacres and was the prime drafter of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Holocaust, Palestine & Israel: Revision, Denial & Myth
Responsibility for Holocaust
International Response to Holocaust
Role of International Community in Rwandan Genocide
Sh'erit ha-Pletah: Surviving Remnant IDPs & DPs before Israel's creation
Aftermath of Holocaust Wikipedia
The Will to Live, Time Magazine on DPs in post war Europe

Face sheet on Armenian genocide