Most People have the mistaken belief that there has only been one holocaust. The reason for this is probably because of World War Two, and the fact that one of the holocausts that happened during that time is known as “The Holocausts”. Which makes it sound like there is was only one. The majority of holocausts throughout history are called genocide, even though a lot of genocides are also holocausts.
Genocide:
The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group.
Holocausts:
Destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or nuclear war.
The Armenian Holocaust-1.5 million deaths
It was the first ever genocide and the word was even invented because of this. Armenians were deported or murdered by a group called the Young Turks. In Constantinople hundreds of Armenian leaders were arrested just before the genocide. Women, old people and children were all victims, no one was shown mercy. Anyone who managed to escape had to do so through extreme conditions, wandering through the desert. By 1923 1.5 million Armenians wee dead, which was over half of the current population, the Young Turks were halfway to killing them all. The Turkish government denies the Holocaust, and even made it illegal to discuss the genocide. They are holocaust deniers.
Assyrian Holocaust
Over 150,000, and up to 300,000 Assyrian’s were killed in this holocausts, and it happened at the same time as the Greek, and Armenian genocides. The Assyrian’s occupying upper Mesopotamia were forced to relocate and were massacred by the Muslim Ottoman Empire, over a period of six years, 1914 – 1920. The attacks followed no standardized method, and used a variety of ways to massacre Assyrian’s. Sometimes they would go to city and kill all the Assyrian men, other times they would make them run away, and they would commit mass sexual abuse on the Assyrian women.
Greek Holocaust.
Also known as the Pontiac genocide. This was a systematic ethnic cleansing of the Christian Greeks in the Ottoman Empire. This was ordered by the Ottoman Government. They would cleanse them in many different ways, including execution, deportation, massacre, and death marches (When you force deportees to march while they are beaten and killed along the way. This massacre killed hundreds of thousands of Greeks, most of the survivors fled to Greece which increased the countries population by over 25%. This was one of the three holocausts committed by the Young Turks which resulted in 3.5 million deaths in total.
Cambodian holocaust.
From 1975 to 1979 1.5 to 3 million people died in this horrific holocaust conducted by Pol Pot. Hoping to create a new form of socialism known as agrarian socialism, inspired by Mao and Stalin. Pol Pot was as cruel to the Cambodian people as you could imagine, he tortured them, executed thousands, and forced them into labour. Thousands died from sickness and disease from malnutrition. If you complained about sickness, the authorities would simply say you are faking, and force you to keep working.
Romani Holocaust.
Everybody knows about the Jews who were unfortunately victims of the holocaust, but a lot of people aren’t aware the Romani Holocaust which took place at the same time. It’s estimated that between 220,000 and 500,000 people Roma were killed in this atrocity. At least 25% of the 1 million Roma population of Europe were killed. Roma were seen to have foreign blood which was inferior to German Blood. They were deported to concentration camps, some moved by trucks, and others forced to walk. Roma were given a black triangle on their clothes to classify them as criminals, just for being Romani.
Rwandan Holocaust
Rwanda is a small country in central Africa. The population is split onto two ethnicities, the Tutsi, and the Hutu. The Tutsi felt they were superior to the Hutu because they were taller and thinner, and treated them as such. This infuriated the Hutu and so they started to riot. 500,000 to 1 million people died in this horrific event. In 100 days the Hutu wiped out 70% of the Tutsi population, and 20% of the population of Rwanda. Rwandan militias, police, soldiers and just normal civilians took part in the massacre. Many people were angry that the UN and other first world countries didn’t step in and try to stop the massacre.
Zunghar holocaust
The Qianlong emperor ordered the massacre of the Dzungar people who were the last Nomadic Empire to pose a serious threat to 18th century China. The Dzungar leader was called Amursana.They had been at war for centuries but Qianlong managed to win in the end. He attempted to split the Dzungars into four tribes, with four separate Khans as leader. Amursana would be a Khan of one of the tribes. Amursana was not happy with this because he wanted to be the leader of all the Dzungar people. This caused him to rebel against Qianlong. This made Qianlong get completely infuriated and called for all the Dzungar people to be exterminated. 80% percent of the Dzungar population was wiped out in the war.
Ustasha Holocaust
The Ustasha were a fascist terrorist group who massacred Jews, Roma, and Serbs in the thousands. The group had 100,000 members and may have killed the same number of people. The Croatian group was founded on 7th January 1929, by Ante Pavelic. At this time the state of Croatia was an independent puppet state, controlled by the Ustasha. They set up concentration camps to massacre the Jews. The Ustasha were heavily influenced by Hitler, and Nazism. Here are even pictures of them meeting, and shaking hands online. They also captured a lot of Jews and then deported them to Nazi Germany, so they could be exterminated there.
1971 Bangladeshi Holocaust
This was part of the Bangladeshi Liberation War in East Pakistan, it’s estimated that 300,000 to 3 million people died in this war. It started with Operation Searchlight. The Pakistani army was ordered to quell a Bengali Nationalist group. They wanted to do this by killing all military, and political opposition, and taking major cities. “Kill three million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands.” President Yahya Khan. Bangladeshi was declared a new sate as a result of this. During the genocide, 200,000 Bangladeshi women were raped.
Nanking Holocaust
Also known as the Rape of Nanking, this horrific event took place during the Sino-Japanese war. During this 40,000-300,000 people died, and between 20,000 to 80,000 women were raped in the city f Nanking, China. At least one third of Nanking was destroyed by the Japanese soldiers who seemed to enjoy the war, by making games out of killing and raping women for fun. The massacre went on for six weeks, from December 13th 1937.