Not Exactly Spartans
When the Spartans faced off with the invading armies of Middle East they died as warriors. When the Greeks of Asia Minor were forced to stand against the Ottomans they died in much the same fashion. This time however the enemy would not allow a brave last stand. This time the enemy was in a position to commit genocide.
During the summer of 1914 the Ottomans' Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa (Special Organization) began its campaign to eliminate the Greeks by enlisting all young male Greeks into forced labor details. Most would die under the conditions imposed upon them. Others would die from disease. But this was just the beginning.
Having shipped the young male Greeks into the barren countryside of Anatolia the Turks began to slaughter their captive workers. When the numbers of young male Greeks in Asia Minor began to drop at alarming rates the Ottomans began to target the rest of the Greek population.
On the 12Th of June, 1914, the Turkish army surrounded the Anatolian town of Phocaea and began butchering its Greek residents. This strategy would continue for the rest of the summer. And its methods would be perfected as the Young Turks continued to produce their propaganda.
As the summer of 1914 fell into the history books the year of 1915 would see a rise in the intensity of Turkish "white massacres" (deaths from starvation, forced labor, or poor conditions found in Ottoman concentration camps). The bloody butchering of Greeks by the Turkish Army would be stepped up as well as the spring of 1915 approached.
Over the years leading up to the Greco-Turkish War (1914-1919) the Ottomans would use concentration camps, mass rapes, deportations, mass executions, starvation, death marches, forced labor, and the razing of Greek villages to destroy Greek society in Asia Minor. The United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau witnessed the actions from 1913-1916. The things he saw led him to claim that the Turkish government was committing acts of "outrageous terrorizing, cruel torturing, driving of women into harems, debauchery of innocent girls, the sale of many of them at 80 cents each, the murdering of hundreds of thousands and the deportation to and starvation in the desert of other hundreds of thousands, [and] the destruction of hundreds of villages and many cities". He then followed by stating that the Ottoman Empire had a "scheme to annihilate the Armenian, Greek and Syrian Christians of Turkey."
By the beginning of the Greco-Turkish War around 1,500,000 Greeks had either been deported or killed. It is estimated that about half of those were killed. The beginning of the war would in effect be the Greeks' stand against the Turkish oppressors. However it is the very fact that the Greeks stood up and fought that has led to limited recognition of their genocide at the hands of the crumbling Ottoman Empire.
March 8, 2011
March 7, 2011
How Attached to Your Balls Are You? Part Two
Indiana and Eugenics
Before the Nazis started using the "science" of eugenics Hoosiers had begun perfecting it. Indiana after all was the first state in the country (or the world for that matter) to pass a eugenic bases forced sterilization law in 1907. However even before the law was passed the Hoosier state had already begun forcibly neutering its "undesirables".
Much like Hitler's Nazis, the Hoosier State used its first sterilization law to target the socially undesirable. Among the list were "confirmed criminal", "idiots", "compulsive masturbaters", "imbeciles", and "rapist". The mentally ill or handicapped were the main targets however.
And like all things eugenic, the Hoosier law was designed to weed out the "2 percent of Indianans" who were "mentally defective". In other words, those the law deemed unfit to reproduce on the grounds that they were a burden to society would be fixed. The aim was to create a state that was free of the "undue burdens" that were holding Indiana's economy and society back.
Now to be fair 22 other states would follow Indiana's lead by implementing similar laws. However Indiana stands out for the fact that it struck down the first law in 1921 only to re institute it in 1925. And the second of the Hoosier eugenic laws would last till 1974 when it was finally repealed.
In all the sterilizations would amount to 2,424 people being sterilized under the guise of Eugenic "Science". Out of those 2,424 people there would be 1,167 males sterilized and 1,257 females sterilized. Of these 1,751 had been sterilized under the ruling that they had been found "mentally deficient while the remaining 667 were found to be "mentally ill". Dr. Harry Sharp however had done several hundred forced sterilizations before the law had passed so it is difficult to say how many people had been sterilized in Indiana for certain (Dr. Sharp was a eugenic believer and was estimated to have sterilized around 800 people before the law passed in 1907).
Of the people sterilized it is believed that poor whites from Kentucky and Tennessee were targeted due to their "social backwardness" and lack of ability to adapt to a modernized world. This tendency to target the "mentally deficient" allowed followers of the "Eugenic Science" to throw a wide net around any group they deemed "deficient" due to their economic standings. After all, eugenics teaches that the poorer classes are economically lacking simply due to their genetic inefficiencies.
This part of the history of Eugenics is not really talked about much or even studied in Indiana. Once can guess why. However in 2007 a marker was erected on the east lawn of the Indiana State Library in Indianapolis Indiana to commemorate those who were forcibly sterilized under the Indiana Sterilization Act. It reads:
"By late 1800s, Indiana authorities believed criminality, mental problems, and pauperism were hereditary. Various laws were enacted based on this belief. In 1907, Governor J. Frank Hanly approved first state eugenics law making sterilization mandatory for certain individuals in state custody. Sterilizations halted 1909 by Governor Thomas R. Marshall."
Continued on the reverse side:
Indiana Supreme Court ruled 1907 law unconstitutional 1921, citing denial of due process under Fourteenth Amendment. A 1927 law provided for appeals in the courts. Approximately 2,500 people in state custody were sterilized. Governor Otis R. Bowen approved repeal of all sterilization laws 1974; by 1977, related restrictive marriage laws repealed."
The related restrictive marriage law had forbid the marriages of people deemed to be "mentally deficient", those with a "transmissible disease", or the "habitual drunkard". This too had been enacted under the influence of eugenics (naively believing that only married people have sex).
Before the Nazis started using the "science" of eugenics Hoosiers had begun perfecting it. Indiana after all was the first state in the country (or the world for that matter) to pass a eugenic bases forced sterilization law in 1907. However even before the law was passed the Hoosier state had already begun forcibly neutering its "undesirables".
Much like Hitler's Nazis, the Hoosier State used its first sterilization law to target the socially undesirable. Among the list were "confirmed criminal", "idiots", "compulsive masturbaters", "imbeciles", and "rapist". The mentally ill or handicapped were the main targets however.
And like all things eugenic, the Hoosier law was designed to weed out the "2 percent of Indianans" who were "mentally defective". In other words, those the law deemed unfit to reproduce on the grounds that they were a burden to society would be fixed. The aim was to create a state that was free of the "undue burdens" that were holding Indiana's economy and society back.
Now to be fair 22 other states would follow Indiana's lead by implementing similar laws. However Indiana stands out for the fact that it struck down the first law in 1921 only to re institute it in 1925. And the second of the Hoosier eugenic laws would last till 1974 when it was finally repealed.
In all the sterilizations would amount to 2,424 people being sterilized under the guise of Eugenic "Science". Out of those 2,424 people there would be 1,167 males sterilized and 1,257 females sterilized. Of these 1,751 had been sterilized under the ruling that they had been found "mentally deficient while the remaining 667 were found to be "mentally ill". Dr. Harry Sharp however had done several hundred forced sterilizations before the law had passed so it is difficult to say how many people had been sterilized in Indiana for certain (Dr. Sharp was a eugenic believer and was estimated to have sterilized around 800 people before the law passed in 1907).
Of the people sterilized it is believed that poor whites from Kentucky and Tennessee were targeted due to their "social backwardness" and lack of ability to adapt to a modernized world. This tendency to target the "mentally deficient" allowed followers of the "Eugenic Science" to throw a wide net around any group they deemed "deficient" due to their economic standings. After all, eugenics teaches that the poorer classes are economically lacking simply due to their genetic inefficiencies.
This part of the history of Eugenics is not really talked about much or even studied in Indiana. Once can guess why. However in 2007 a marker was erected on the east lawn of the Indiana State Library in Indianapolis Indiana to commemorate those who were forcibly sterilized under the Indiana Sterilization Act. It reads:
"By late 1800s, Indiana authorities believed criminality, mental problems, and pauperism were hereditary. Various laws were enacted based on this belief. In 1907, Governor J. Frank Hanly approved first state eugenics law making sterilization mandatory for certain individuals in state custody. Sterilizations halted 1909 by Governor Thomas R. Marshall."
Continued on the reverse side:
Indiana Supreme Court ruled 1907 law unconstitutional 1921, citing denial of due process under Fourteenth Amendment. A 1927 law provided for appeals in the courts. Approximately 2,500 people in state custody were sterilized. Governor Otis R. Bowen approved repeal of all sterilization laws 1974; by 1977, related restrictive marriage laws repealed."
The related restrictive marriage law had forbid the marriages of people deemed to be "mentally deficient", those with a "transmissible disease", or the "habitual drunkard". This too had been enacted under the influence of eugenics (naively believing that only married people have sex).
Destruction by Fire
All Consuming...
The term Holocaust refers directly to the destruction by fire. For those who went to the crematoriums in Auschwitz this name fit. For those who died in Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia the means of "destruction" was often a machine gun. And their killers, unlike in Auschwitz, were not SS guards.
When Hitler's horde rushed over the border into the former Yugoslavia they brought with them the ideals of fascism and Nazism. The government in what is now Croatia would never again be totally free from this poisonous ideology. Instead they would embrace it with a rather bizarre level of enthusiasm.
Like many countries the Nazis took control of during World War Two Croatia fell under the rule of a puppet government. Under the Nazi backed (NDH) Independent State of Croatia the Croatian people would submit to Hitler's will. Their country was now set to implement the "Final Solution".
On July 21St of 1941 Hitler gave a speech to the Croatian "government" officials. In it he gave the marching orders that would lead to a fully operational Jasenovac camps.
"The Jews are the bane of mankind. If the Jews will be allowed to do as they will, like they are permitted in their Soviet heaven, then they will fulfill their most insane plans. And thus Russia became the center to the world's illness... if for any reason, one nation would endure the existence of a single Jewish family, that family would eventually become the center of a new plot. If there are no more Jews in Europe, nothing will hold the unification of the European nations... this sort of people cannot be integrated in the social order or into an organized nation. They are parasites on the body of a healthy society, that live off of expulsion of decent people. One cannot expect them to fit into a state that requires order and discipline. There is only one thing to be done with them: To exterminate them. The state holds this right since, while precious men die on the battlefront, it would be nothing less than criminal to spare these bastards. They must be expelled, or – if they pose no threat to the public – to be imprisoned inside concentration camps and never be released." - from Hitler's speech to Slavko Kvaternik.
In August of 1941 the Croatians began to build and operate the first two camps that would form the Jasenovac concentration camp complex. These two camps, Krapje and Brocica, would be closed by November but the next three would be open and running. The final three camps Ciglana, Kozara, and Stara Gradiska would be operational till the end of the war in Europe.
The use of forced labor, starvation, exploitation of disease, daily beatings, and machine guns would drive the death toll up in Jasenovac. Their victims were always Serbs, Jews, and Roma. And the goal was always the same... extermination.
At times the camps would rely on the use of local police units, national military battalions, domobrani units, Muslim auxiliary units, and Hungarian or German Nazi support units. However it was most often, and they were always present, the Ustaška Narodna Služba (Ustaše People's Service) gestapo that served as camp guards. It was the UNS that participated in Nazi "competitions" that would encourage them to invent new methods of torture and maltreatment of the Jewish prisoners.
As with other Nazi operated camps Jasenovac guards greeted new arrivals with tattoos and Nazi camp badges. These colored clothing markers allowed camp guards to easily identify camp inmates by the shape and color of the badge. Serbs were given blue triangles, Communist were given red triangles (non-Serbian resistance fighters), Jews were given the yellow Star of David, while Roma were given no badge. By the end of the war however this practice was abandoned while tattoos remained till the end of the war.
Nearly all the prisoners who identified themselves, or were sent to Jasenovac for being identified as such, as Serbs were immediately sent to execution sites near the camps (Granik and Gradina were the most commonly used). Other prisoners however were often worked to death. Only prisoners who happened to be from valued professions were kept alive for an extended period of time (doctors, electricians, and shoemakers for example).
As far as the living conditions in Jasenovac... living was not the aim of the camps. Bodies were removed from the prisoners' living quarters at the leisure of the camp guards. Food consisted of what Nazis called "soup" but was simply hot water with a couple beans or a sliver of potato in it. A piece of bread may at times have been given to prisoners if the guards allowed it. But by the end of the war the prisoners were given what the guards called "turnip soup"... water the turnips were boiled in.
Sanitation was an issue that was once again designed to kill the prisoners. Toilets were holes that the prisoners were expected to "keep up" themselves. However the prisoners were not given tools to clean or even dig new holes. So often the "work" involved was designed to spread disease.
The water the prisoners were given was straight from the Sava river. This water was again given to the prisoners to kill them. The reason... it was contaminated with "ren" (a local horseradish). And thus the prisoners were once again drinking water that could spread disease amongst them.
Jasenovac however was a special camp in the Nazi program in one respect. In Jasenovac the camp guards helped introduce the practice of forcing its forced labor to work among the dead. This was achieved by hanging the corpses of the deceased from the rafters or along the walls of "workshops" in the camps. Then there was the lack of removing corpses from the barracks were prisoners had to sleep. All these methods helped to enforce the inherent fear of death amongst those not yet dead in the Jasenovac camps.
Jasenovac was also special to the Nazis for the simple fact that death was a reality from the first day a prisoner walked into the camp. The guards had already introduced the Nazi supervisors to the "Serb Cutter" or the srbosjek (a knife strapped to the guards wrist... used in mass beatings or new arrivals, mainly Serbs). The Croatian guards then implemented the use of gassing prisoners in "green Thomas" (vans with their exhaust being forced into the cargo compartment). The UNS would finally implement the stationary gas chambers in such a way as to rival Auschwitz.
By the end of the war these methods all combined would lead to Jasenovac being a leader in the Balkans camps. When liberated the camp had already killed 10% of all those who died in the Yugoslavia during World War Two. Nearly half of all the Serbs killed in the Balkans during World War Two died in Jasenovac. Nearly all the Jews that had lived in Yugoslavia at the beginning of the war were now dead at the hands of Jasenovac camp guards. And the entire Roma population of Yugoslavia were now deported or dead upon having been sent to Jasenovac.
As for the figures, Jasenovac led to the deaths of an estimated 52,000 to 70,000 Serbs, an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 Jews, an estimated 50,000 Roma, and an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 communist and other minority ethnic groups (Ukrainians, Romanians,Slovenes and Montenegrians).
But what makes this camp unique to me is the fact that at no time in its history was it run by the Nazi SS. It was a camp run by and operated by the Croatian people. Its goals and history cannot be ignored. And yet the history of this camp is not taught in most of our history books... let alone in the country that founded such a Hellish place of torment and death.
The term Holocaust refers directly to the destruction by fire. For those who went to the crematoriums in Auschwitz this name fit. For those who died in Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia the means of "destruction" was often a machine gun. And their killers, unlike in Auschwitz, were not SS guards.
When Hitler's horde rushed over the border into the former Yugoslavia they brought with them the ideals of fascism and Nazism. The government in what is now Croatia would never again be totally free from this poisonous ideology. Instead they would embrace it with a rather bizarre level of enthusiasm.
Like many countries the Nazis took control of during World War Two Croatia fell under the rule of a puppet government. Under the Nazi backed (NDH) Independent State of Croatia the Croatian people would submit to Hitler's will. Their country was now set to implement the "Final Solution".
On July 21St of 1941 Hitler gave a speech to the Croatian "government" officials. In it he gave the marching orders that would lead to a fully operational Jasenovac camps.
"The Jews are the bane of mankind. If the Jews will be allowed to do as they will, like they are permitted in their Soviet heaven, then they will fulfill their most insane plans. And thus Russia became the center to the world's illness... if for any reason, one nation would endure the existence of a single Jewish family, that family would eventually become the center of a new plot. If there are no more Jews in Europe, nothing will hold the unification of the European nations... this sort of people cannot be integrated in the social order or into an organized nation. They are parasites on the body of a healthy society, that live off of expulsion of decent people. One cannot expect them to fit into a state that requires order and discipline. There is only one thing to be done with them: To exterminate them. The state holds this right since, while precious men die on the battlefront, it would be nothing less than criminal to spare these bastards. They must be expelled, or – if they pose no threat to the public – to be imprisoned inside concentration camps and never be released." - from Hitler's speech to Slavko Kvaternik.
In August of 1941 the Croatians began to build and operate the first two camps that would form the Jasenovac concentration camp complex. These two camps, Krapje and Brocica, would be closed by November but the next three would be open and running. The final three camps Ciglana, Kozara, and Stara Gradiska would be operational till the end of the war in Europe.
The use of forced labor, starvation, exploitation of disease, daily beatings, and machine guns would drive the death toll up in Jasenovac. Their victims were always Serbs, Jews, and Roma. And the goal was always the same... extermination.
At times the camps would rely on the use of local police units, national military battalions, domobrani units, Muslim auxiliary units, and Hungarian or German Nazi support units. However it was most often, and they were always present, the Ustaška Narodna Služba (Ustaše People's Service) gestapo that served as camp guards. It was the UNS that participated in Nazi "competitions" that would encourage them to invent new methods of torture and maltreatment of the Jewish prisoners.
As with other Nazi operated camps Jasenovac guards greeted new arrivals with tattoos and Nazi camp badges. These colored clothing markers allowed camp guards to easily identify camp inmates by the shape and color of the badge. Serbs were given blue triangles, Communist were given red triangles (non-Serbian resistance fighters), Jews were given the yellow Star of David, while Roma were given no badge. By the end of the war however this practice was abandoned while tattoos remained till the end of the war.
Nearly all the prisoners who identified themselves, or were sent to Jasenovac for being identified as such, as Serbs were immediately sent to execution sites near the camps (Granik and Gradina were the most commonly used). Other prisoners however were often worked to death. Only prisoners who happened to be from valued professions were kept alive for an extended period of time (doctors, electricians, and shoemakers for example).
As far as the living conditions in Jasenovac... living was not the aim of the camps. Bodies were removed from the prisoners' living quarters at the leisure of the camp guards. Food consisted of what Nazis called "soup" but was simply hot water with a couple beans or a sliver of potato in it. A piece of bread may at times have been given to prisoners if the guards allowed it. But by the end of the war the prisoners were given what the guards called "turnip soup"... water the turnips were boiled in.
Sanitation was an issue that was once again designed to kill the prisoners. Toilets were holes that the prisoners were expected to "keep up" themselves. However the prisoners were not given tools to clean or even dig new holes. So often the "work" involved was designed to spread disease.
The water the prisoners were given was straight from the Sava river. This water was again given to the prisoners to kill them. The reason... it was contaminated with "ren" (a local horseradish). And thus the prisoners were once again drinking water that could spread disease amongst them.
Jasenovac however was a special camp in the Nazi program in one respect. In Jasenovac the camp guards helped introduce the practice of forcing its forced labor to work among the dead. This was achieved by hanging the corpses of the deceased from the rafters or along the walls of "workshops" in the camps. Then there was the lack of removing corpses from the barracks were prisoners had to sleep. All these methods helped to enforce the inherent fear of death amongst those not yet dead in the Jasenovac camps.
Jasenovac was also special to the Nazis for the simple fact that death was a reality from the first day a prisoner walked into the camp. The guards had already introduced the Nazi supervisors to the "Serb Cutter" or the srbosjek (a knife strapped to the guards wrist... used in mass beatings or new arrivals, mainly Serbs). The Croatian guards then implemented the use of gassing prisoners in "green Thomas" (vans with their exhaust being forced into the cargo compartment). The UNS would finally implement the stationary gas chambers in such a way as to rival Auschwitz.
By the end of the war these methods all combined would lead to Jasenovac being a leader in the Balkans camps. When liberated the camp had already killed 10% of all those who died in the Yugoslavia during World War Two. Nearly half of all the Serbs killed in the Balkans during World War Two died in Jasenovac. Nearly all the Jews that had lived in Yugoslavia at the beginning of the war were now dead at the hands of Jasenovac camp guards. And the entire Roma population of Yugoslavia were now deported or dead upon having been sent to Jasenovac.
As for the figures, Jasenovac led to the deaths of an estimated 52,000 to 70,000 Serbs, an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 Jews, an estimated 50,000 Roma, and an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 communist and other minority ethnic groups (Ukrainians, Romanians,Slovenes and Montenegrians).
But what makes this camp unique to me is the fact that at no time in its history was it run by the Nazi SS. It was a camp run by and operated by the Croatian people. Its goals and history cannot be ignored. And yet the history of this camp is not taught in most of our history books... let alone in the country that founded such a Hellish place of torment and death.
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March 4, 2011
Killing by Hunger
The Holodomor.
Joseph Stalin was the kind of dictator who saw enemies everywhere. From the rise of fascism in the west to the rise of imperialism in Japan, Stalin was surrounded by enemies. But his list of enemies in his mind didn't stop with just the outside forces. Stalin's most punished foes were those trapped in his Soviet Union.
During the forced famine, the Soviet Famine of 1932-1933, the Ukraine became one of Stalin's main targets. The commands that come down the line were orders that incited the 20Th century's first peacetime genocide.
To begin the genocide Stalin gave the order to punish the "peasant" class in the Ukraine. The order was evident from the very beginning seeing as how the famine suddenly stopped at the border between Russia and the Ukraine. Yet the leaders of the Ukraine SSR were still forced to refuse food aid and ship all food grown to their Russian leaders.
Starved Ukrainians were then often shot if they were found with food or attempting to steal food from the fields protected by Soviet soldiers. Others would by the end of the famine resort to cannibalism to survive. By the end of 1933 there would be millions dead from starvation and 2,500 people convicted for cannibalism.
Many historians have picked over the suspected reasons for the forced famine in the Ukraine. Some have even claimed that the Holodomor was not a genocide since other parts of the Soviet Union also suffered smaller famines (much smaller). As for Alder's Ledge, the famine in the Ukraine was nothing more than an attempt to subdue an imagined enemy... an enemy that Stalin had a long history of targeting, the Ukrainians themselves.
No major rebellions were yet recorded within the Soviet Union's Ukraine SSR state. The "peasant" class had done nothing to stop the "collectivization" in the Ukraine. They hadn't even impeded the tyranny that Stalin's Soviets used to bring the Ukraine in line with Russia's policies. Yet Stalin still saw his "enemy within" when he looked toward the large landmass to the west. This socialist republic after all was his "buffer" between Russia and the West.
However, despite any rational explanation for the famine... if there is any... the fact remains that it did happen. And during its nearly two year reign nearly 10 million ethnic Ukrainians would die. Their skeletal frames would simply be walking one moment and then stacked in heaps at the edge of their villages or towns the next. Men, women, and children were all the targets of Stalin's forced famine. Everything that needed food to survive were victims of the Soviets' master plan.
In the spring of 1932 the Soviets initiated their policy of starvation by beginning the exportation of all food substances from the Ukraine. The grains that had over wintered in the fields were now cut down and sent to Russia. Many fields that were now ready to plant were left barren while those planted out for the fall harvest were suddenly being patrolled by Soviet guards. The famine had begun.
As hunger sat in the Soviets began distributing Agitprop movies in the urban areas of the Ukraine to support the "cause"... to support collectivization. These movies all portrayed the peasants as greedy "rats" that were hiding wheat and potatoes while the urban workers were dieing. These videos did not however point out the fact that the rations from Moscow were now dwindling with each passing day. They were simply movies to incite class warfare and as the movies pointed out (due to a law passed in August of 1932 that stated all food was "state property") food was a weapon.
As rations in the cities suddenly came to an abrupt stop in the winter of 1932 the number of dead spiked. To force the numbers even higher the Soviets would also cut power and heat from time to time. The famine's own killing power never seemed to suffice Stalin's rage... or paranoia.
In the winter of 1932 and at the start of 1933 the Soviets began to print posters that read "To eat your own children is a barbarian act." The will to survive was now driving more and more people to unthinkable acts. This was the time period that the number of convictions for cannibalism rose the most.
To make things worse, from November of 1932 to the following December the Soviets had taken all forms of livestock to the Russian border. They had claimed that this was because the peasant class had not met their "grain quota" for the fall of 1932. In reality it was to hurry up the number of deaths by depriving the Ukrainians of any protein (it was clear that the Soviets would have taken the rats if they could).
By December of 1932 the peasants farms were put onto "blacklist" of the Soviets. This meant that if the farms could not meet their unrealistic quotas they would now be ordered to hand over 15 times the previous quota. In reality this meant that Russia wanted to take everything down to the last bread crumb.
The blacklisted farms would now become death zones. The peasants who had been portrayed as "greedy hoarders" were now the most punished. Blacklisted farms could no longer legally receive rations or trade in any manner with other farms or villagers. Blacklisting was a way to hand out death sentences.
As for the rest of the Ukraine, that same month they would all be required to hand over any grains or food sources they had on hand to meet the Russians' demands. They had been required in November to provide a third of all the Soviets grain harvest for 1932. Now they would be required to hand over anything they had left. To deny the Soviets their demands was considered treason and punishable by death.
As January approached it became clear to the Russians that the Ukrainian borders had to be sealed. Thousands of ethnic Ukrainians were fleeing all through the winter and the numbers were sure to rise as spring approached. So by the end of February 1933 an estimated 190,000 "peasants" were turned around at the borders and forced to return to their villages to die.
The main "enforcers" of the genocide however were not Soviet soldiers. Instead Stalin implemented his policy of "give me a child of 8 years old and I can make it into anything I wish". Taking the youth of the Ukraine, mainly the urban teenagers, under his wing Stalin formed his version of a Hitler Youth program.
These brainwashed enforcers were upholders of the Soviet law that stated that all food was property of the state. These youthful socialist thus fanned out across the country to find and "prosecute" all those who would dare to commit theft against their beloved "state". They did it with such enthusiasm so as to construct watch towers all around the country.
Like many gangs of young vigilantes these youth brigades didn't stop at just attacking peasants who happened to have their rations of food. Instead these brigades of rowdy teens were often known to force peasants to box one another for the children's entertainment. They would then make the peasants get on all fours and bark like dogs. Then if the peasants were lucky the youth brigades would simply kill them. Women who happened to outlive their male "comrades" were often the targets of rape by the same brigades of vigilantes.
For those who happened to survived the famine the lingering memory of hunger and cannibalism would stick for generations. In the years that have passed since the genocide's end many governments have recognized the event for what it was. Others, like Russia, still do not admit nor allow the event to be taught in their public schools. However for Ukrainians it will forever be remembered as Holodomor... killing by hunger.
Some historians claim that the death toll was only 5 million Ukrainians. The most accurate estimate puts the death toll of the Holodomor puts the number of deaths near 10 million.
Joseph Stalin was the kind of dictator who saw enemies everywhere. From the rise of fascism in the west to the rise of imperialism in Japan, Stalin was surrounded by enemies. But his list of enemies in his mind didn't stop with just the outside forces. Stalin's most punished foes were those trapped in his Soviet Union.
During the forced famine, the Soviet Famine of 1932-1933, the Ukraine became one of Stalin's main targets. The commands that come down the line were orders that incited the 20Th century's first peacetime genocide.
To begin the genocide Stalin gave the order to punish the "peasant" class in the Ukraine. The order was evident from the very beginning seeing as how the famine suddenly stopped at the border between Russia and the Ukraine. Yet the leaders of the Ukraine SSR were still forced to refuse food aid and ship all food grown to their Russian leaders.
Starved Ukrainians were then often shot if they were found with food or attempting to steal food from the fields protected by Soviet soldiers. Others would by the end of the famine resort to cannibalism to survive. By the end of 1933 there would be millions dead from starvation and 2,500 people convicted for cannibalism.
Many historians have picked over the suspected reasons for the forced famine in the Ukraine. Some have even claimed that the Holodomor was not a genocide since other parts of the Soviet Union also suffered smaller famines (much smaller). As for Alder's Ledge, the famine in the Ukraine was nothing more than an attempt to subdue an imagined enemy... an enemy that Stalin had a long history of targeting, the Ukrainians themselves.
No major rebellions were yet recorded within the Soviet Union's Ukraine SSR state. The "peasant" class had done nothing to stop the "collectivization" in the Ukraine. They hadn't even impeded the tyranny that Stalin's Soviets used to bring the Ukraine in line with Russia's policies. Yet Stalin still saw his "enemy within" when he looked toward the large landmass to the west. This socialist republic after all was his "buffer" between Russia and the West.
However, despite any rational explanation for the famine... if there is any... the fact remains that it did happen. And during its nearly two year reign nearly 10 million ethnic Ukrainians would die. Their skeletal frames would simply be walking one moment and then stacked in heaps at the edge of their villages or towns the next. Men, women, and children were all the targets of Stalin's forced famine. Everything that needed food to survive were victims of the Soviets' master plan.
In the spring of 1932 the Soviets initiated their policy of starvation by beginning the exportation of all food substances from the Ukraine. The grains that had over wintered in the fields were now cut down and sent to Russia. Many fields that were now ready to plant were left barren while those planted out for the fall harvest were suddenly being patrolled by Soviet guards. The famine had begun.
As hunger sat in the Soviets began distributing Agitprop movies in the urban areas of the Ukraine to support the "cause"... to support collectivization. These movies all portrayed the peasants as greedy "rats" that were hiding wheat and potatoes while the urban workers were dieing. These videos did not however point out the fact that the rations from Moscow were now dwindling with each passing day. They were simply movies to incite class warfare and as the movies pointed out (due to a law passed in August of 1932 that stated all food was "state property") food was a weapon.
As rations in the cities suddenly came to an abrupt stop in the winter of 1932 the number of dead spiked. To force the numbers even higher the Soviets would also cut power and heat from time to time. The famine's own killing power never seemed to suffice Stalin's rage... or paranoia.
In the winter of 1932 and at the start of 1933 the Soviets began to print posters that read "To eat your own children is a barbarian act." The will to survive was now driving more and more people to unthinkable acts. This was the time period that the number of convictions for cannibalism rose the most.
To make things worse, from November of 1932 to the following December the Soviets had taken all forms of livestock to the Russian border. They had claimed that this was because the peasant class had not met their "grain quota" for the fall of 1932. In reality it was to hurry up the number of deaths by depriving the Ukrainians of any protein (it was clear that the Soviets would have taken the rats if they could).
By December of 1932 the peasants farms were put onto "blacklist" of the Soviets. This meant that if the farms could not meet their unrealistic quotas they would now be ordered to hand over 15 times the previous quota. In reality this meant that Russia wanted to take everything down to the last bread crumb.
The blacklisted farms would now become death zones. The peasants who had been portrayed as "greedy hoarders" were now the most punished. Blacklisted farms could no longer legally receive rations or trade in any manner with other farms or villagers. Blacklisting was a way to hand out death sentences.
As for the rest of the Ukraine, that same month they would all be required to hand over any grains or food sources they had on hand to meet the Russians' demands. They had been required in November to provide a third of all the Soviets grain harvest for 1932. Now they would be required to hand over anything they had left. To deny the Soviets their demands was considered treason and punishable by death.
As January approached it became clear to the Russians that the Ukrainian borders had to be sealed. Thousands of ethnic Ukrainians were fleeing all through the winter and the numbers were sure to rise as spring approached. So by the end of February 1933 an estimated 190,000 "peasants" were turned around at the borders and forced to return to their villages to die.
The main "enforcers" of the genocide however were not Soviet soldiers. Instead Stalin implemented his policy of "give me a child of 8 years old and I can make it into anything I wish". Taking the youth of the Ukraine, mainly the urban teenagers, under his wing Stalin formed his version of a Hitler Youth program.
These brainwashed enforcers were upholders of the Soviet law that stated that all food was property of the state. These youthful socialist thus fanned out across the country to find and "prosecute" all those who would dare to commit theft against their beloved "state". They did it with such enthusiasm so as to construct watch towers all around the country.
Like many gangs of young vigilantes these youth brigades didn't stop at just attacking peasants who happened to have their rations of food. Instead these brigades of rowdy teens were often known to force peasants to box one another for the children's entertainment. They would then make the peasants get on all fours and bark like dogs. Then if the peasants were lucky the youth brigades would simply kill them. Women who happened to outlive their male "comrades" were often the targets of rape by the same brigades of vigilantes.
For those who happened to survived the famine the lingering memory of hunger and cannibalism would stick for generations. In the years that have passed since the genocide's end many governments have recognized the event for what it was. Others, like Russia, still do not admit nor allow the event to be taught in their public schools. However for Ukrainians it will forever be remembered as Holodomor... killing by hunger.
Some historians claim that the death toll was only 5 million Ukrainians. The most accurate estimate puts the death toll of the Holodomor puts the number of deaths near 10 million.
March 3, 2011
A Message To My Friends... Part Two.
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Get Out.
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Dutch are again ready to send the message to their Jewish community. This time however the far right are attempting to use the law of the land to ban Jewish practices. This would make it nearly impossible to be a dedicated Jew in Holland.
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The last time around they were simply telling the Jews to get out by telling them to leave for Israel or America. Now the Dutch Parliament is trying to outlaw the ancient and central practice of shechitah (ritual slaughter of animals for consumption). Without this practice it is impossible for the Dutch Jews to adhere to the Kosher dietary laws. And thus it impossible for dedicated Jews to live in Holland.
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This is not the first time this sort of law has come up either. In December of 2010 the European Union struck down a proposed law on the practice due to its anti Semitic qualities. That law would have forced all kosher meats to be labeled as "meat from slaughter without stunning". And it would have made it impossible for Jews to purchase their meat without being identified as being a Jew.
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Now Holland is pushing for this law so as to make it impossible for Jews in Holland to purchase their meat at all. It would also make it impossible for Muslims in Holland to purchase meat from animals slaughtered in the Islamic halal method. And for the Dutch PVV Freedom Party (an extremely far right party) this is simply an animal rights issue (the PVD Party proposed the bill, they too are considered far right).
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Non European Union countries such as Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania already ban the shechita practice. However it is also important to note that countries such as Sweden and Norway have the largest number of "nationalist" political parties in Europe. But of course we are supposed to believe that these "open minded" countries simply put these bans in place due to "animal welfare" and "animal rights" reasons. Aren't we?
-
The simple fact is that anti Semitic attacks continue to rise in numbers and frequency in Europe as the populous of these countries swing toward a 1920's style socialist agenda. This attack on the kosher dietary laws is simply a stepping stone to banning Judaism altogether. Let us not forget that even before Hitler began his "Final Solution" his government initially banned kosher practices.
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Source Documents for this Post.
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JTA, The Global News Service of the Jewish People.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/02/20/2743044/dutch-parliament-to-consider-shechita-ban-bill
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Meatinfo.co.uk
http://www.meatinfo.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/12465/Holland_moves_to_ban_non-stun_ritual_slaughter_.html
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European Jewish Press
http://www.ejpress.org/article/49164
-
Get Out.
-
-
Dutch are again ready to send the message to their Jewish community. This time however the far right are attempting to use the law of the land to ban Jewish practices. This would make it nearly impossible to be a dedicated Jew in Holland.
-
The last time around they were simply telling the Jews to get out by telling them to leave for Israel or America. Now the Dutch Parliament is trying to outlaw the ancient and central practice of shechitah (ritual slaughter of animals for consumption). Without this practice it is impossible for the Dutch Jews to adhere to the Kosher dietary laws. And thus it impossible for dedicated Jews to live in Holland.
-
This is not the first time this sort of law has come up either. In December of 2010 the European Union struck down a proposed law on the practice due to its anti Semitic qualities. That law would have forced all kosher meats to be labeled as "meat from slaughter without stunning". And it would have made it impossible for Jews to purchase their meat without being identified as being a Jew.
-
Now Holland is pushing for this law so as to make it impossible for Jews in Holland to purchase their meat at all. It would also make it impossible for Muslims in Holland to purchase meat from animals slaughtered in the Islamic halal method. And for the Dutch PVV Freedom Party (an extremely far right party) this is simply an animal rights issue (the PVD Party proposed the bill, they too are considered far right).
-
Non European Union countries such as Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania already ban the shechita practice. However it is also important to note that countries such as Sweden and Norway have the largest number of "nationalist" political parties in Europe. But of course we are supposed to believe that these "open minded" countries simply put these bans in place due to "animal welfare" and "animal rights" reasons. Aren't we?
-
The simple fact is that anti Semitic attacks continue to rise in numbers and frequency in Europe as the populous of these countries swing toward a 1920's style socialist agenda. This attack on the kosher dietary laws is simply a stepping stone to banning Judaism altogether. Let us not forget that even before Hitler began his "Final Solution" his government initially banned kosher practices.
-
-
Source Documents for this Post.
-
JTA, The Global News Service of the Jewish People.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/02/20/2743044/dutch-parliament-to-consider-shechita-ban-bill
-
Meatinfo.co.uk
http://www.meatinfo.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/12465/Holland_moves_to_ban_non-stun_ritual_slaughter_.html
-
European Jewish Press
http://www.ejpress.org/article/49164
-
The Ottomans' Other Victims
The Assyrian Genocide 1914 - 1920.
"We have cleansed the Armenians and Syriac from Azerbaijan, and we will do the same in Van." Jevdet Pasha
Suldouze, Iran; General Agha Petros leads his ragtag band of 1500 horse mounted soldiers to swiftly attack and defeat a force of 8000 Ottoman soldiers. This battle would be one of the many feathers in his cap. However it would also be one of the last successes in his campaign to free his Assyrian comrades from the routine attacks the Ottomans had submitted them to.
As the war between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies dragged on the support for the Assyrians crumbled. Russian forces were quickly called up to take positions against the Germans so as to keep the Prussians pinned down in trench warfare. British needed to do the same toward the end of World War One. And thus the forces of the Ottoman Empire amped up their relentless attacks.
To the North of Iran General Petros's battlefields in Iran were thousands of Turkish Assyrians. And in what is now modern-day Turkey the Assyrians were particularly vulnerable.
Although the Northern Assyrians had attempted to fight back against the pogroms they had already been submitted to they would never had been prepared for what would come next. The attacks on Assyrians in Turkey and Mesopotamia were stepped up at the beginning of the World War. By the time attacks on Assyrians in modern-day Iran began in earnest the Assyrians to the North were already almost completely gone.
In 1915 the "Butchers' Battalion", Kasap Taburu in Turkish, entered the Van Province with the soul mission to destroy the Assyrian villages in that region. With 8,000 soldiers the Ottomans slaughtered an estimated 20,000 Assyrian civilians. By the end of their attacks some 30 villages had been razed. (These numbers do not take into account any armed Assyrians that may have offered some resistance.)
By the end of this attack in Turkey the Ottomans had realized that the Russians had fled modern-day Iran. This allowed the Ottomans to thus move their 36Th and 37Th battalions into the Northwestern region of Iran. It was there that the Ottomans in 1915 at the village of Urmia captured 61 leading Assyrian leaders (religious and political). Demanding their ransom the Ottomans waited till the village could produce money to fund the Ottoman army's campaign against the Assyrians. When the village paid the Ottomans the Turks decided to let 20 of the captives live. The rest had their heads cut off and piked at the stairs of the Charbachsh Gate. Among the severed heads was the head of the Bishop Mar Denkha (an Assyrian church Bishop).
After the slaughter of Assyrian leaders in Urmia, the Turks moved deeper into Iranian lands. On February 25Th of 1915 the Ottoman forces invaded the Iranian villages of Gulpashan and Salamas. In Gulpashan the invaders moved so quickly that nearly the entire population of the village was massacred, leaving around 2,500 people dead. In Salamas the invaders suddenly found that the entire Assyrian population was nowhere to be found. The Persians in Salamas had hidden them in their own homes.
Breaking down the doors of every home in Salamas the Ottomans found their unarmed victims. Roping the men together, the Turks led their captives out into the fields between Khusrawa and Haftevan. It was there that the Young Turks slaughtered their Assyrian victims in a number of ways... the Turks claimed however that they were all shot in the head.
"Many Moslems tried to save their Christian neighbours and offered them shelter in their houses, but the Turkish authorities were implacable." A British Field Report from 1915.
During the winter of 1915 an estimated 4,000 Assyrians died from exposure, disease, and starvation in and around the village of Urmia. The Ottomans there refused the Assyrians the "right to society" (or the common human rights). An additional 1,000 were directly killed by Young Turk soldiers.
In early 1918 the Ottomans allowed an estimated 3,500 Assyrians to leave Turkey and reside in Khoi, Iran. Upon arrival the Young Turks in Persia had a sudden change of heart. Once the unarmed civilians were encamped the Turkish forces fell upon them in droves. The orgy of violence that followed was documented by one of the handful of survivors.
"You have undoubtedly heard of the Assyrian massacre of Khoi, but I am certain you do not know the details..." Reverend John Eshoo, a survivor, began he recollection.
He would go on to tell of how the Assyrians were rounded up and brought into small enclosures where they would be shot with rifles and revolvers. The "slaughter house" was so small that each group of new victims would have to stand upon the dead bodies of their fellow Assyrians before being shot themselves. This ritual of death would continue for hours as groups of 10 to 20 Assyrians were executed at a time.
John told of how those found in the outer areas of the village were rounded up into courtyards and kept for around eight days before being taken to slaughter. They were starved and yet remained silent even when being marched to their deaths... John states that the only words they spoke was this... "L-rd, into thy hands we commit our spirits."
For these Assyrians death would come not by the rifle but by the sword. They were taken to courtyards or fields that had been prepared for their slaughter. Like "lambs" they were slain. First the Young Turks would cut off their fingers and then their hands. Then they would stretch their victims out upon the ground and force them to look up as they cut their throats in such a manner as to prolong their deaths. The Assyrian victims were made to bleed out slowly as they gasped for air and choked on their own blood. Most were beaten while they struggled to take their next breath. Some were tossed into mass graves while still bleeding out.
As with most cases of genocide, the young women and little girls captured in this attack were forced into sexual slavery. A group of them were even raped to death at the moment of their captivity. All would be killed within days from either brutal butchering or continual gang rapes.
If it had not been for Reverend John Eshoo nobody would have ever known of the Young Turks' bloody butchering of Khoi. We would be led to believe the long held Turkish lie that this, like they claim about the Armenian Genocide, was simply a military conflict. And once again genocide would be hidden by the "fog of war".
By the end of the Assyrian Genocide a known 495,780 Assyrians were dead. A population of just over one million were suddenly no more than 250,000, many say only 100,000. So it is more likely that just around 750,000 Assyrians were killed by the Ottomans. In any case the once large minority in the region is now a very important minority in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey.
This minority in the Middle East has suffered in Iraq every since the British deported them from Iran at the end of the Genocide. In 1933 thousands of them were killed in a mass pogrom at Simele, Iran. During the unrest in 1961 the Assyrians would suffer in Iraq. And under Saddam Hussein the Assyrian community would suffer thousands more of deaths during the dictator's Al Anfal Campaign.
"We have cleansed the Armenians and Syriac from Azerbaijan, and we will do the same in Van." Jevdet Pasha
Suldouze, Iran; General Agha Petros leads his ragtag band of 1500 horse mounted soldiers to swiftly attack and defeat a force of 8000 Ottoman soldiers. This battle would be one of the many feathers in his cap. However it would also be one of the last successes in his campaign to free his Assyrian comrades from the routine attacks the Ottomans had submitted them to.
As the war between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies dragged on the support for the Assyrians crumbled. Russian forces were quickly called up to take positions against the Germans so as to keep the Prussians pinned down in trench warfare. British needed to do the same toward the end of World War One. And thus the forces of the Ottoman Empire amped up their relentless attacks.
To the North of Iran General Petros's battlefields in Iran were thousands of Turkish Assyrians. And in what is now modern-day Turkey the Assyrians were particularly vulnerable.
Although the Northern Assyrians had attempted to fight back against the pogroms they had already been submitted to they would never had been prepared for what would come next. The attacks on Assyrians in Turkey and Mesopotamia were stepped up at the beginning of the World War. By the time attacks on Assyrians in modern-day Iran began in earnest the Assyrians to the North were already almost completely gone.
In 1915 the "Butchers' Battalion", Kasap Taburu in Turkish, entered the Van Province with the soul mission to destroy the Assyrian villages in that region. With 8,000 soldiers the Ottomans slaughtered an estimated 20,000 Assyrian civilians. By the end of their attacks some 30 villages had been razed. (These numbers do not take into account any armed Assyrians that may have offered some resistance.)
By the end of this attack in Turkey the Ottomans had realized that the Russians had fled modern-day Iran. This allowed the Ottomans to thus move their 36Th and 37Th battalions into the Northwestern region of Iran. It was there that the Ottomans in 1915 at the village of Urmia captured 61 leading Assyrian leaders (religious and political). Demanding their ransom the Ottomans waited till the village could produce money to fund the Ottoman army's campaign against the Assyrians. When the village paid the Ottomans the Turks decided to let 20 of the captives live. The rest had their heads cut off and piked at the stairs of the Charbachsh Gate. Among the severed heads was the head of the Bishop Mar Denkha (an Assyrian church Bishop).
After the slaughter of Assyrian leaders in Urmia, the Turks moved deeper into Iranian lands. On February 25Th of 1915 the Ottoman forces invaded the Iranian villages of Gulpashan and Salamas. In Gulpashan the invaders moved so quickly that nearly the entire population of the village was massacred, leaving around 2,500 people dead. In Salamas the invaders suddenly found that the entire Assyrian population was nowhere to be found. The Persians in Salamas had hidden them in their own homes.
Breaking down the doors of every home in Salamas the Ottomans found their unarmed victims. Roping the men together, the Turks led their captives out into the fields between Khusrawa and Haftevan. It was there that the Young Turks slaughtered their Assyrian victims in a number of ways... the Turks claimed however that they were all shot in the head.
"Many Moslems tried to save their Christian neighbours and offered them shelter in their houses, but the Turkish authorities were implacable." A British Field Report from 1915.
During the winter of 1915 an estimated 4,000 Assyrians died from exposure, disease, and starvation in and around the village of Urmia. The Ottomans there refused the Assyrians the "right to society" (or the common human rights). An additional 1,000 were directly killed by Young Turk soldiers.
In early 1918 the Ottomans allowed an estimated 3,500 Assyrians to leave Turkey and reside in Khoi, Iran. Upon arrival the Young Turks in Persia had a sudden change of heart. Once the unarmed civilians were encamped the Turkish forces fell upon them in droves. The orgy of violence that followed was documented by one of the handful of survivors.
"You have undoubtedly heard of the Assyrian massacre of Khoi, but I am certain you do not know the details..." Reverend John Eshoo, a survivor, began he recollection.
He would go on to tell of how the Assyrians were rounded up and brought into small enclosures where they would be shot with rifles and revolvers. The "slaughter house" was so small that each group of new victims would have to stand upon the dead bodies of their fellow Assyrians before being shot themselves. This ritual of death would continue for hours as groups of 10 to 20 Assyrians were executed at a time.
John told of how those found in the outer areas of the village were rounded up into courtyards and kept for around eight days before being taken to slaughter. They were starved and yet remained silent even when being marched to their deaths... John states that the only words they spoke was this... "L-rd, into thy hands we commit our spirits."
For these Assyrians death would come not by the rifle but by the sword. They were taken to courtyards or fields that had been prepared for their slaughter. Like "lambs" they were slain. First the Young Turks would cut off their fingers and then their hands. Then they would stretch their victims out upon the ground and force them to look up as they cut their throats in such a manner as to prolong their deaths. The Assyrian victims were made to bleed out slowly as they gasped for air and choked on their own blood. Most were beaten while they struggled to take their next breath. Some were tossed into mass graves while still bleeding out.
As with most cases of genocide, the young women and little girls captured in this attack were forced into sexual slavery. A group of them were even raped to death at the moment of their captivity. All would be killed within days from either brutal butchering or continual gang rapes.
If it had not been for Reverend John Eshoo nobody would have ever known of the Young Turks' bloody butchering of Khoi. We would be led to believe the long held Turkish lie that this, like they claim about the Armenian Genocide, was simply a military conflict. And once again genocide would be hidden by the "fog of war".
By the end of the Assyrian Genocide a known 495,780 Assyrians were dead. A population of just over one million were suddenly no more than 250,000, many say only 100,000. So it is more likely that just around 750,000 Assyrians were killed by the Ottomans. In any case the once large minority in the region is now a very important minority in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey.
This minority in the Middle East has suffered in Iraq every since the British deported them from Iran at the end of the Genocide. In 1933 thousands of them were killed in a mass pogrom at Simele, Iran. During the unrest in 1961 the Assyrians would suffer in Iraq. And under Saddam Hussein the Assyrian community would suffer thousands more of deaths during the dictator's Al Anfal Campaign.
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March 2, 2011
Bloody Past
The First Genocide of the 20Th Century.
"I destroy the African tribes with streams of blood... Only following this cleansing can something new emerge, which will remain..." German General Trotha.
Many people who have studied the genocides of the 20Th century have long begun with the Armenian Genocide. It seems appropriate to start with the World War One Holocaust. Yet the first genocide of the 20Th century was actually committed by the same country that would carry out the infamous World War Two Holocaust.
In the race for supremacy in Africa Germany began its fight to subdue the tribes of Namibia in South West Africa. Its empire there was one riddled with violence. And in most cases this violence was intended not for the maintaining of peace but the expulsion of less desirable tribes.
The Herero and Namaqua were two tribes that the German government decided were less than desirable. These two tribes had a long history of being warriors and proud defenders of their territories and possessions. And those two things, land and animals, were not allowed to be kept from white German "settlers". After all, in Namibia Germany would develop the ideas that would lead to the Holocaust itself.
Lebensraum was first put into action in Namibia as German settlers pushed further and further into tribal lands. The idea behind the Nazi's most exploited of ideas was that the Father Land had a right to spread its legs so to speak. The people who happened to live on this new German land simply had to be enslaved or expelled. And the food grown here was to be used to grow Germany... not Namibia.
The starvation and lack of ability to find water for themselves and their cattle would be the straw to break the camel's back for the Herero. In 1904 the Herero decided that expulsion and starvation were no longer an option. They became a people who wanted, or actually needed, their country back.
In the battles that would follow the Herero and Namaqua quickly found themselves at the mercy of the German army. Unable to sustain their rebellion the two tribes were being taken prisoners by the thousands. Those who tried to run were forced into the arid lands at civilization's edge and denied water. The water holes they could find were often poisoned by the German army in an attempt to kill the rebels in hiding.
"I, the great general of the German soldiers, send this letter to the Hereros. The Hereros are German subjects no longer. They have killed, stolen, cut off the ears and other parts of the body of wounded soldiers, and now are too cowardly to want to fight any longer. I announce to the people that whoever hands me one of the chiefs shall receive 1,000 marks, and 5,000 marks for Samuel Maherero. The Herero nation must now leave the country. If it refuses, I shall compel it to do so with the 'long tube' (cannon). Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. I shall give the order to drive them away and fire on them. Such are my words to the Herero people." General Trotha.
General Trotha failed to mention that he had by this time already killed nearly all the Herero who had ever carried a weapon. His goal in making this declaration to the Herero was to further intimidate the starving Herero still hiding in the arid bushland. He simply was conducting the orders to remove the "undesirables" from German held territory.
The Generals own men and other Germans had already recorded his "German soldiers of good repute" brutal attacks on the said "rebels".
"I was present when the Herero were defeated in a battle in the vicinity of Waterberg. After the battle all men, women, and children who fell into German hands, wounded or otherwise, were mercilessly put to death. Then the Germans set off in pursuit of the rest, and all those found by the wayside and in the sandveld were shot down and bayoneted to death. The mass of the Herero men were unarmed and thus unable to offer resistance. They were just trying to get away with their cattle." Jan Cloete, German guide.
As for the Herero who were captured, if allowed to surrender, death would have been a better option.
The second part of the genocide of the Herero and Namaqua came when Germans employed their second most infamous idea... the Konzentrationslager, concentration camps. And the camps they built were the early models that would be seen in the beginning of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Mortality rates in these camps would begin around 45% and then quickly spike.
Shark Island was the most infamous of these camps. It was used for forced labor and later for medical experimentation. Those who died here were told that they would be turned into food for the sharks... hence the name of the camp. Those who lived were constantly reminded that they were not citizens of their own homeland. They were even more so reminded that they were not considered human to their captors.
Food in the camps was limited to uncooked rice and salt. German prison guards denied the Herero pots to cook the rice and refused to allow the prisoners to build cooking fires. As a result the prisoners slowly starved and died of dysentery. While still living they were forced to work on German chain gangs.
"There are hundreds of them, mostly women and children and a few old men ... when they fall they are sjamboked by the soldiers in charge of the gang, with full force, until they get up ... On one occasion I saw a woman carrying a child of under a year old slung at her back, and with a heavy sack of grain on her head ... she fell. The corporal sjamboked her for certainly more than four minutes and sjamboked the baby as well ... the woman struggled slowly to her feet, and went on with her load. She did not utter a sound the whole time, but the baby cried very hard." Percival Griffith.
Medical experimentation included mainly the forced sterilization, injection with small pox, typhus, and tuberculosis. Herero women who had been raped and later gave birth were forced to hand their "mulatto" children over to people like Eugen Fisher who would study them as his test subjects; all the while calling them "Rehoboth bastards" and "of lesser racial quality". The studies Fisher did upon these children were the same studies later done on the Jews and Roma.
Fisher would take his subjects away to study their eyes, the length of their noses, the width of their skulls, and the proportions of their bodies. When finished with them he would have them killed. It was at the end of his studies that Fisher decided that genocide was the only solution for "lesser racial quality" individuals. He noted, "whoever thinks thoroughly the notion of race, can not arrive at a different conclusion".
In the end the German involvement in Africa would come to a close with the beginning of World War One. Until then the Herero and Namaqua would be continually subjected to the genocidal ambitions of the German government and its settlers. It wouldn't be till nearly a hundred years later that the German government, let alone its people, would even admit that "perhaps genocide may have occurred" in Namibia.
As for the rest of the world the genocide in Namibia is somewhat forgotten. Much like other genocides this one has fallen away from our history books due to the depressing reality of what horrible things we have done to one another.
"I destroy the African tribes with streams of blood... Only following this cleansing can something new emerge, which will remain..." German General Trotha.
Many people who have studied the genocides of the 20Th century have long begun with the Armenian Genocide. It seems appropriate to start with the World War One Holocaust. Yet the first genocide of the 20Th century was actually committed by the same country that would carry out the infamous World War Two Holocaust.
In the race for supremacy in Africa Germany began its fight to subdue the tribes of Namibia in South West Africa. Its empire there was one riddled with violence. And in most cases this violence was intended not for the maintaining of peace but the expulsion of less desirable tribes.
The Herero and Namaqua were two tribes that the German government decided were less than desirable. These two tribes had a long history of being warriors and proud defenders of their territories and possessions. And those two things, land and animals, were not allowed to be kept from white German "settlers". After all, in Namibia Germany would develop the ideas that would lead to the Holocaust itself.
Lebensraum was first put into action in Namibia as German settlers pushed further and further into tribal lands. The idea behind the Nazi's most exploited of ideas was that the Father Land had a right to spread its legs so to speak. The people who happened to live on this new German land simply had to be enslaved or expelled. And the food grown here was to be used to grow Germany... not Namibia.
The starvation and lack of ability to find water for themselves and their cattle would be the straw to break the camel's back for the Herero. In 1904 the Herero decided that expulsion and starvation were no longer an option. They became a people who wanted, or actually needed, their country back.
In the battles that would follow the Herero and Namaqua quickly found themselves at the mercy of the German army. Unable to sustain their rebellion the two tribes were being taken prisoners by the thousands. Those who tried to run were forced into the arid lands at civilization's edge and denied water. The water holes they could find were often poisoned by the German army in an attempt to kill the rebels in hiding.
"I, the great general of the German soldiers, send this letter to the Hereros. The Hereros are German subjects no longer. They have killed, stolen, cut off the ears and other parts of the body of wounded soldiers, and now are too cowardly to want to fight any longer. I announce to the people that whoever hands me one of the chiefs shall receive 1,000 marks, and 5,000 marks for Samuel Maherero. The Herero nation must now leave the country. If it refuses, I shall compel it to do so with the 'long tube' (cannon). Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. I shall give the order to drive them away and fire on them. Such are my words to the Herero people." General Trotha.
General Trotha failed to mention that he had by this time already killed nearly all the Herero who had ever carried a weapon. His goal in making this declaration to the Herero was to further intimidate the starving Herero still hiding in the arid bushland. He simply was conducting the orders to remove the "undesirables" from German held territory.
The Generals own men and other Germans had already recorded his "German soldiers of good repute" brutal attacks on the said "rebels".
"I was present when the Herero were defeated in a battle in the vicinity of Waterberg. After the battle all men, women, and children who fell into German hands, wounded or otherwise, were mercilessly put to death. Then the Germans set off in pursuit of the rest, and all those found by the wayside and in the sandveld were shot down and bayoneted to death. The mass of the Herero men were unarmed and thus unable to offer resistance. They were just trying to get away with their cattle." Jan Cloete, German guide.
As for the Herero who were captured, if allowed to surrender, death would have been a better option.
The second part of the genocide of the Herero and Namaqua came when Germans employed their second most infamous idea... the Konzentrationslager, concentration camps. And the camps they built were the early models that would be seen in the beginning of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Mortality rates in these camps would begin around 45% and then quickly spike.
Shark Island was the most infamous of these camps. It was used for forced labor and later for medical experimentation. Those who died here were told that they would be turned into food for the sharks... hence the name of the camp. Those who lived were constantly reminded that they were not citizens of their own homeland. They were even more so reminded that they were not considered human to their captors.
Food in the camps was limited to uncooked rice and salt. German prison guards denied the Herero pots to cook the rice and refused to allow the prisoners to build cooking fires. As a result the prisoners slowly starved and died of dysentery. While still living they were forced to work on German chain gangs.
"There are hundreds of them, mostly women and children and a few old men ... when they fall they are sjamboked by the soldiers in charge of the gang, with full force, until they get up ... On one occasion I saw a woman carrying a child of under a year old slung at her back, and with a heavy sack of grain on her head ... she fell. The corporal sjamboked her for certainly more than four minutes and sjamboked the baby as well ... the woman struggled slowly to her feet, and went on with her load. She did not utter a sound the whole time, but the baby cried very hard." Percival Griffith.
Medical experimentation included mainly the forced sterilization, injection with small pox, typhus, and tuberculosis. Herero women who had been raped and later gave birth were forced to hand their "mulatto" children over to people like Eugen Fisher who would study them as his test subjects; all the while calling them "Rehoboth bastards" and "of lesser racial quality". The studies Fisher did upon these children were the same studies later done on the Jews and Roma.
Fisher would take his subjects away to study their eyes, the length of their noses, the width of their skulls, and the proportions of their bodies. When finished with them he would have them killed. It was at the end of his studies that Fisher decided that genocide was the only solution for "lesser racial quality" individuals. He noted, "whoever thinks thoroughly the notion of race, can not arrive at a different conclusion".
In the end the German involvement in Africa would come to a close with the beginning of World War One. Until then the Herero and Namaqua would be continually subjected to the genocidal ambitions of the German government and its settlers. It wouldn't be till nearly a hundred years later that the German government, let alone its people, would even admit that "perhaps genocide may have occurred" in Namibia.
As for the rest of the world the genocide in Namibia is somewhat forgotten. Much like other genocides this one has fallen away from our history books due to the depressing reality of what horrible things we have done to one another.
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