The Holocaust: The Ten Stages Of Genocide

The event of the Holocaust was one of the biggest act of genocide recorded. With an estimate of about 6 million jews killed in the hands of their persecutors, the Nazis. Many people around the world considered the Holocaust the event to end all future genocides, unfortunately, that is a false statement. There are still genocides that happened after the Holocaust such as the Bosnian war which resulted in the death of 8,373 people due to ethnic cleansing. This genocide occurred 62 years after the Holocaust. An article called “The Ten Stages of Genocide” gives a good overview of all the steps a genocide has. There is a total of ten steps in a genocide, those steps are classification, symbolization, discrimination, dehumanization, organization,

The main goal of the genocide was to restore the old Cambodia and eliminate all technology, luxuries, and order in Cambodia. This was the Khmer Rouge idea of a utopia when they overtook the government, along with Pot Pal, and were in control of Cambodia. When this started they cleared out cities and moved the people to labor camps where they were abused and then starved. No matter of a person's social class, they were up for torture and execution, but the Khmer Rouge mainly targeted teachers, doctors, artist, monks, and the rich. It is estimated that about 1.7 to 2 million Cambodians were killed under the Khmer Rouge control. While Khmer Rouge was in control they also abolished schools, free markets, religious practices, and private properties. The schools and government properties were turned into prisons and camps. The main causes of death were illness, age, and

According to “The Ten Stages of Genocide” it states in the eighth step labeled “Persecution” that “Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity… Sometimes they are even segregated into ghettos, deported into concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved. Genocidal massacres begin” (Stanton). Pot Pal and the Khmer Rouge set up camps and prisons for the Cambodians to stay at, they were called “killing fields” and hundreds of them were scattered all over the Cambodia. The “killing fields” are similar to the concentration camps of the Holocaust, because people were sent to theses camps if they needed to be executed or tortured. “The killing fields were sites set up all over the country where the Khmer Rouge took people to be killed once they could no longer work, had “confessed” to their alleged crimes, or simply just were not seen as being useful anymore. It is estimated that over one million people were killed at these sites and were buried in mass graves” (The Cambodian Genocide). The “killing floors” acted as a final destination for the Khmer Rouge to send the people they think deserve to be exterminated.

The next step that a genocide follows is the “extermination” step. This is the main reason why a genocide is considered a genocide. The hundreds of thousands of lives that are taken away by one