Compare and contrast

Imagine growing up a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany during the holocaust where 1.5 million children were deliberately killed. You would have probably lost your family and ended up in one of the ghettos or even worse a concentration camp. After the Holocaust the world came together and proclaimed that “never again” would they allow genocide to occur. Yet from 2003 -2005 –although it’s debated if the genocide has actually ended- in Darfur Sudan it’s estimated that some 400,000 people mostly children were systematically killed because of their ethnicity. Genocide is defined as “the systematic and deliberate destruction of people based on race, ethnicity, religion, social class or economic status.”

Although many would argue that the conflict in Darfur is not similar to the Holocaust that happened over 60 years ago in Germany I would have to disagree. Much like the Nazi’s during World War Two the Janjaweed in Sudan is military backed and is the main group doing the attacks. They have focused their attacks on people who are non-Arab. During the holocaust the Nazi’s singled out Jews, Gypsies, the mentally handicapped, and those who they felt were inferior and not a part of the ”perfect race”. In Germany the Nazis took over as the main political force with Adolf Hitler as their leader. They used this political leverage to commit what is widely known as the worst genocide in history. Between 1933 and 1939 six million Jews, gypsies and handicapped people were killed. 78% of Jews that lived there died at the hands of this genocide. They removed these people from their homes and forced them to live in ghettos housed with thousands of others. Many simply died from diesis in the Ghettos. Others were sent to concentration camps where they were either burned alive, worked to death or experimented on. Similarly in Darfur the Janjaweed is a military and government backed force allowing them to commit wide spread violence. Although the government denies any allegations of working with the Janjaweed they have provided them money on several occasions and often send the military to assist them. The President of Darfur and the man allowing the attacks to occur is Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Death toll reports are largely unknown due to the fact that no one is permitted to enter Darfur because of how bad the atrocities are. It’s estimated that 2.7 million Darfurians have been displaced from their homes and are now living in refugee camps. Much like the Ghettos in Germany hundreds of civilians die each day because of poor sanitation.

Although I do believe that these two situations are closely related one major difference is the global response to these atrocities. Ask almost anyone today if they think it was wrong of us to enter World War Two and they will most likely tell you that the United States needed to help end there holocaust. On the other hand ask someone if they think we should enter Darfur and they will have one of two responses. Response number one they have never heard of the genocide -yes it has been declared genocide- in Darfur or they will say that we don’t need to be the world police and save everyone. That is the biggest difference between these two genocides.Clearly the similarities between the 1930’s holocaust and today’s holocaust are undeniable and out weight any differences. Only time will tell if the Darfur genocide invokes a public outcry to truly say “Never again, ever again!”