Reaction To The Holocaust

Until the time that the United Nations was formed, various groups committed acts of genocide unchecked, resulting in millions of deaths, and the eventual formation of the UN. One of the earliest genocides within the 20th century was the Red Terror, committed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. The perpetrators believed that they were cleansing the world socially and creating a utopian society, free of the bourgeoisie (Novikova). The Red Guard was formed at the same time, and they committed these actions to fulfill their ideologically driven goals. Moreover, the Red Guard had little to no mercy, incredibly relentless in their killing, and created labor camps where hundreds of thousands of innocent middle class citizens died (Novikova). The Bolsheviks

However, the Holocaust was the first genocide that had a global response prior to the formation of the UN. The Nazis justified their actions because they truly believed their actions were correct, an ideological statement that can be compared to the ones made by the Bolsheviks (Black). Despite not having a global group of united countries, the response to the Holocaust was incredibly strong and powerful, which led to the quick disposal of the Third Reich. The UN needs to analyze the global response to the Jewish genocide, as it truly was the best reaction to ethnic cleansing. Anti-Semitic propaganda was used in order to persuade the German population into believing the Nazi ideology, a practice that can be seen today during the Syrian genocide by both sides (Black). The response to the Holocaust was seen worldwide and no genocide has received a response as strong as it. However, in recent years we have seen poor responses to genocides despite the formation of the UN and the massive amounts of resources that are poured into its fund to prevent

The Serbians attacked the Bosniak Muslims and at one point 30,000 fled to a Dutch UN Headquarters building for protection from the Serbians, where only 7000 were admitted into safety (Bardgett). The UN was formed to protect citizens from genocide and were even planning for one to occur in Bosnia, yet failed terribly. Certain bodies were not discovered for six to seven years, and the Serbian perpetrators were not put on trial until decades later when the evidence was much less emphasized (Bardgett). The Bosniaks put their lives in the hands of the UN, and the UN failed to respond in a way that saved thousands of Bosniak lives. All of these genocides, excluding Bosnia, occurred before the UN was formed and all had a lackluster global response in spite of the mass killings that were occurring. Although it may seem that the formation of the UN would help prevent genocides from occurring, recent events such as the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims convey that they are not fulfilling their