Does the use of the term genocide, cheapen the meaning of the Holocaust?

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No. It WAS a genocide, so the usage of the term for the Armenian situation was correct. What cheapens the term genocide is when it is flung about for lots of non-genocidal situations, just to exaggerate it.

Cher JPA

The Armenian experience was also a genocide. What does cheapen it is it's current use to describe political conflicts that have racial elements. They are the usual old history of horrors. The Holocaust was unique in that there was no political conflict between the groups. It was pure scapegoating using hatred with intend to wipe a group off out of the world. It wasn't the reactive killing of a lot of one group that's coming out of political goals. The techniques in holocaust also stand out as government law to kill & careful planning of the whole process.

From what I know of the Armenian situation, it also was pure racial killing with no political motive. It's not like the Armenians had a bit of land they wanted or something.

The Rwandan situation was awful, but not truly genocide in that the two groups had had conflict before & this was a form of payback (as gross as it was & as reactive as people got with urges to kill wantonly.) The Darfur situation of totally awful too, but again it's political in that their is goal to control government & land that ran into conflict, then got carried away.

Now I see the Holocaust cheapen constantly by liking it to the number of people killed by Stalin, & otherwise in WWII.

What's missing & different in each of these is that their wasn't a planned goal to wipe the genome (genus?) off the planet. THAT is genocide. Mass killing is not genocide. The Holocaust was a surprise because of the sheer volume, and besides the little known Armenian genocide, that concept of trying to wipe a people out of the planet just hadn't existed in the current "civilized" world before.

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"The term genocide is used to describe the mass-murder of a group of people"

That's what the definition has been used lately, but that's not what it means. That is beginning to lessen the lesson of the Holocaust. If we loss the horror, we as humans have more chance of repeating it.

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This is in Israel section so maybe you mean the claim of genocide by Arabs. This gets ridiculous considering they have one of the highest birthrates in the world, & thanks to Israeli investment in hospitals & know-how for them, a infant survival rate that is now similar to Israel's. In general PA Arab medical care entered the new age with the money & assistence of Israel. There was hope that if they were helped economically to build a good life, they'd stop placing destruction of Israel as their one big goal. It failed miserably, hence they started the intafada at Israel (it destroyed their own interwinned economny, & Israel was a risk for a while). However, to call this genocide isn't so much a cheaping, but a real attack on Jews in a hateful disrespectful way. It'd be funny for being so ridiculous if it wasn't followed by bombs from them. (Really makes you feel for the minority Arabs who just want side by side peace.)

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"German soldiers who had little choice "
Actually in later accounts the soldiers said they were never forced on threat of harm to themselves to harm anyone. There were soldiers who refused actions & were not harmed. This idea that it was not voluntary is false & the soldiers themselves said so after the war. It is likely a response to how hard it is to believe this happened.

What is less voluntary is that children were trained to be these killing machines. In the SS guards children, adolecents, were given my their parents. During training techniques were used such as giving them a puppy, then later making them kill it, as a way to desensitize them.

tobiasfunke7

I don't believe that it cheapens the meaning of the Holocaust. The term genocide is used to describe the mass-murder of a group of people. Whether those people are Jewish, Armenian, or whatever, the word still applies to all of these groups who've experienced this kind of tragedy.

ATL PJA Wyldstar

I can relate to this much being Cherokee, as we all know what happened to all the Native Americans, that was Genocide and in this case it would not diminish the meaning of the Holocaust.

I do agree with Cher that politically the term genocide is used not as it was before. The Holocause was BEYOND genocide, it was not just an attempt to kill all Jews but every other person that was ethnically inferior to "Nazis" or political enemies or spies. Hitler had an extreme hatres for Jews and used his political power to exterminate as many as he could, this was not a political cause, but he used his power to enforce his own personal agenda.

So some times Genocide and Holocause can mean the same thing but I truly believe it matters in the context it is being used.

I will star for my Jewish contacts not being Jewish.

Genocide literally means: genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Holocaust: is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, as part of a programme of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the National Socialist German Workersâ€™ Party (Nazi) regime in Germany led by Adolf Hitler.

Other groups were also persecuted and killed, including the Roma; Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war; ethnic Poles; the disabled; gay men; and political and religious opponents. Most scholars, however, define the Holocaust as a genocide of European Jewry alone,or what the Nazis called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Taking into account all the victims of Nazi persecution, the total number of victims would be between nine and 11 million.

These are the official legal definitions of each word and as you can see in the Holocaust they use the word Genocide!

At Local Machine - THEN EXPLAIN THESE I TOOK WITH MY OWN CAMERA! http://mysite.verizon.net/vze7xb7w/trave... JUST BECAUSE YOU have not seen it does not mean it did not happen Mr. Get more Education, try some TRUE education rather than Mein Kampf!

When you can see it, smell it, touch it IT IS REAL!!

@Sherry - is that better hon?

Just another Greek Guy

Mr. Stainless Steel is right.
The American Red Cross database was updated with the one from Switzerland and the total victims of judaic religion was around 270,000.
Do not believe the 4 or 6 million numbers, they are not true.
I have lost 3 relatives in Kalavrita. I am Greek Christian so I have nothing to hide.
The Jewish holocaust is not a true story.
At least that what we the Greeks believe in.

Let's deal with the Palestinians that need our support and forget those fake stories people.

HALLAL_Kippah-Girl_JPAA

The 1948 Genocide Convention specifies that genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such.

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The policies applied to persons defined as Jews in Germany, and in areas occupied by the Third Reich and its allies, during the years 1939-1945, covered all of the above, with the exception of the forcible transfer of the children of the group.

venezia

The Genocide or the Holocaust are not competitive events nor can one tragedy diminish the another.

Armenians as well as Jews were victim of a planned and perpetrated mass extermination campaign.

Shame on that lady for asserting that the Genocide cannot be compared to the Holocaust.

Chedvah

No, I don't think the use of the term genocide, cheapens the meaning of the Holocaust.
And why is the Holocaust held up to such a high degree,anyway? When there has been dozens of other groups of people who have faced extermination, as well.
The Holocaust should be remembered so that it is not repeated and so the victims and survivors aren't forgotten. And I intend to do so because some of my own family members suffered and some were killed during that time.
Either way weather you call it the Holocaust or a genocide it still does not change the fact: It is the killing of innocent people and its ugly.

In order to prevent this from happening we need to build up tolerance and understanding between all people. Maybe some day G-d willing, genocide will cease to exist.

StephenWeinstein

No. On the other hand, the implication that the Holocaust was a horrible crime only because some of the victims were Jews (6 million) and not simply because of the sheer number of total murders (11 million, including 5 million gentiles) does cheapen it. Refusing to refer to similar crimes without Jewish victims as genocides suggests that the Holocaust would have not been a genocide if only Hitler had chosen another religion to target.

If the value of a human life is determined by the religion of the human, the Nazis win. They fought for the idea that persons of one religion who killed those of another religion simply accelerating evolution, not committing murder.

Accepting this idea cheapens the Holocaust and gives the Nazis a win in principle, if not in practice.

The only alternative to the Nazi philosophy is adoption of the idea that killing off ANY ethnic group is genocide.

Ambivalent can haz Arc Light!

No, using the term genocide, when it's appropriate, does not cheapen the meaning of the Holocaust. Using the word Holocaust to describe anything where many people die DOES cheapen the meaning of Holocaust. Similarly, using the word genocide for any situation where many people die cheapens the meaning of THAT word.

EDIT: Photo Finnish, your prejudices are showing. I am very sorry that the Jewish couple did not behave well - but judging all Jews on the basis of that one couple seems quite absurd. I've met men who speak very unpleasantly to women - but I don't therefore decide that all men are unmitigated horrible people!
Local Machine, I think it might be a good idea if you just studied a little history. If you can't believe it happened because it is too horrific to be believed - well, yes, that's why we're all so concerned about it over 60 years after the event. It DID happen and there is plenty of evidence. I feel deeply for the German soldiers who had little choice - but that's got nothing to do with the people who planned, built and ran the death camps.
Stainless Steel, I don't intend to follow up your links, but if you are seriously suggesting that the 6 million figure only appeared recently, think again. This was the number I grew up with in the 1950s. There are many sources for this figure. I think you have a problem.

Stainless Steel

I think the term holocaust is derived from a Greek word, meaning total destruction.
That's a false term used by the jews that in order to manipulate the public feeling they have tampered with the Red Cross Official Archives
http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article_image.php?id=130513
This is the Official report given to us in 1980.
As you can see there are 270,000 jews gone. That's 1/1000 of the Russian or the Poland victims.

The first "commercial" holocaust Aushwitz tag was this
http://www.christianparty.net/holocaust5.gif
You can all see that it speaks of ABOUT 1.5 million victims.
Note please the "ABOUT" word. That was until 1995.

Suddenly a couple of years later the same tag was "updated" with this fake one
http://www.christianparty.net/holocaust4.gif

A year later the "final" sign was booted suited and ready to be executed as a gentile bait. Thank God I didnt bite it! LULZ !
Only because there is some kind of jew passage in the talmoud speaking of the 6mil number. Plain and simple.

Now the Armenians had 5 times more innocent victims from the Turks-Kurds so did the Greeks, but I don't see them making a big deal out of this.
These guys did not ask for all of the Gold reserves of Turkey in compensations either. Gold dont bring dead people back. Jews prefer gold instead of peace only.

Of course as you can see there is nothing fictional in my answer here.
Steel

I don't agree with your lady. The holocaust was indeed just that. An attempt to eliminate a race of people. Along with other undesirables. No trial just death because of who you are not what you've done.
I find the use of the term insulting when the skinhead Pal supporters here use it.
Every time a bomber or rocket man gets killed it's genocide against the whole race of Arabs. Of course it wasn't one it was thousands at a time.
The way the Arabs use it demeans the word and human conscience.

i don't think the holocaust was the only example of genocide, that's why it's so important to remember.
i do think that sometimes the word is overused, however.
for example, on this board, people who hate israel use it to describe something they think is happening in gaza or the west bank, and that of course is absurd.
the term is overused, but when it happens, it's important to call it out.

Sherry & Kids

Answering your question I would agree with Cher, Wyldstar, Steel and a few others.

"EXPLAIN THESE I TOOK WITH MY OWN CAMERA! http://mysite.verizon.net/vze7xb7w/trave... JUST BECAUSE YOU have not seen it does not mean it did not happen Mr. Ignorant, try some TRUE education rather than Mein Kampf!"

I would have used more like Mr Get more education personally but I too have seen Buchenwald Camp and recognize the images.

Commonly Genocide is what occured at the Holocaust to 9-11 Million people 6 of them Jews. Today the word Genocide is used often and it does not have the same impact in relation to what happened recently compared to the Holocaust, the Trail of Tears, Crusades etc. Those were true genocide attempts it is just NO one except Stalin killed as many with out any other reason than paranoi than Hitler. Not even the Roman Caesars did and many were very tyrannical.

So to those that do not believe it or say the numbers are far exaggerated than I ask you to CITE or SHOW your sources? Wyldstar at least showed personal images taken proving he was there. You cannot get more real than that, so have you ever been to any or have sources that state otherwise? I am not calling you Ignorant, just curious as to why you think this way that is all, no offence meant or intended, I just would like to know where you learned this?

LeboNEEZ TEEZ

Sup K, hows my baby doing?

I disagree too. Only because you disagree though :)

everyone d

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire was fighting against Russian armies in Eastern Anatolia, where the Armenian revolt was at its peak; and also against Armenian forces which supported the Russians. On the other hand, behind the lines it had to continue to fight against Armenian guerrillas that were burning Turkish villages and towns and attacking military convoys and reinforcements. In spite of this violence, the Ottoman Empire tried to solve the Armenian problem for months by taking local measures. Meanwhile, an operation was made against the Armenian guerillas and 2345 rebels were arrested for high treason. When it became evident that the Armenian community was also in rebellion against the state, the Ottoman Empire proceeded with the last resort of replacing only those Armenians in the region who actively participated in the rebellion. With this measure, the Ottoman Empire also intended to save the lives of the Armenians who were living in a medium of civil war because Turks started to counter-attack the Armenians who had performed bloody atrocities against Turkish communities.

Local Machine

I am sorry I do not believe in the "holocost" lady.
I think I have every right to do so.
I can't believe that the German dudes did that to the jews.
AFAIK the G Soldiers fought a fair and square war.
I am not saying that war is good. the exact opposite but I just don't believe the jew victims were more n numbers than the Czechs for instance or the Pollacks. That's all.
The Machine

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