Imagining the Unimaginable... Final Draft

3. Human nature: Who participates in genocide, and why? What does the commonality of genocide lead you to believe about humanity?

        The "official" definition of genocide is "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”. People who participate in genocide generally believe that those they are exterminating are the cause of major problems and/or evil. They generally believe in a certain racial group because of their "difference" between them and the rest.
          There were variety of genocides; a well known genocide would be the Holocaust, or "Shoah" ,or "Final Solution" to the Jewish. The Holocaust was one where approximately 6 million Jews were innocently involved during the World War II. However, apart from the Jewish, there were also other groups, including ethnic Poles, Romani, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other political and religious opponents. Including the groups, the total number of Holocaust victims would be ^{between 11 million to 17 million people.}

          During Hitler's control, the Jewish were sent to concentration camps, stripped of what they owned. The system grew to include about 100 camps divided into two types: concentration camps for slave labor in nearby factories and death camps for the extermination of the 'different' groups (Jews, the mentally retarded, homosexuals, etc.).Many people were torn from families, tortured, and lived in fear. Children who were born in camps or were too young were sent to the burning pits upon arrival. This also included any elderly or people with health issues. Other than the SS men who control the camps, people die because of being experimented using drugs, had unnecessary operations on spines, organs, etc. Josef Mengele was known for his 'work' on children, especially twins. He supervised an operation by which two Gypsy children were sewn together to create Siamese twins. Some children’s hands were infected where veins were resected. He often injected chemicals in their eyes in an attempt to change their eye color. Mengele performed experimental surgeries without using anesthesia--- transfusions of blood from one twin to another, injected lethal germs, sex change operations, removal of organs and limbs, incestuous impregnations, etc. Due to his cruel actions, he was nicknamed "Angel of Death". However, the rest of the people died from gas chambers. The gassing process was 'simple' -some hot air was pumped in from the ceiling, then crystals of Cyclon were showered down on the people, and in the hot wet air they rapidly evaporated. In anything from two to ten minutes 200-250 people were dead.

           In "Night, the author, Elie Wiesel describes his vivid memory of when he and his family were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, which then became a center of the largest amount of Jewish deaths. In the first three chapters, he described his daily life in his childhood before when before a sudden change happens to him. So far, there were some descriptions of upon his arrival to the camp, there was a "fire"--- a black thick fire that held the smell of burnt flesh. Before long, separated from his mother and sisters, Wiesel describes of his daily routine within camp, his worries for his survival for the day. From what it was heard, if people thought that the beginning was sad, it will continue on a spiral of death...

          The commonality of genocide in history is appalling and this leads into the fact that humanity is corrupt. They are corrupt by their own insecurity and fear of being worst than the first class. If genocide was ever needed for humanity, then what has become of it just for the survival for the rest of us? Simply by killing off the evil for the sake of humanity does not mean this is for the good. No matter what, even though there is peace, there will always be violence. Genocides are just showing us that humans are cruel to kill for the sake of the so called "good" when it was really not necessary.