Mass atrocities

Genocide

Deliberate extermination of a racial or cultural group

Ethnic cleansing

the mass expulsion or killing of members of an unwanted ethnic or religious group in a society.

AntiSemitism

hostility to or prejudice against Jews.

Eugenics

the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics

social darwinism

The application of ideas about evolution and "survival of the fittest" to human societies - particularly as a justification for their imperialist expansion.

Scientific Racism

the use of scientific theories to support or validate racist attitudes or worldviews; also, to support classification of human beings into distinct biological races

Holocaust

A methodical plan orchestrated by Hitler to ensure German supremacy. It called for the elimination of Jews, non-conformists, homosexuals, non-Aryans, and mentally and physically disabled.

T4 program

(Mercy killing) state killed people with disabilities (Hitler trying to rid old people and people with a handicap/disability)

Euthenasia

Then ending of a person's suffering by killing them. Term means "easy death" in Greek.

Einsatzgruppen

Nazi strike forces that killed innocent Jews with their infamous "death squads"

Concentration Camps

prison camps used under the rule of Hitler in Nazi Germany. Conditions were inhuman, and prisoners, mostly Jewish people, were generally starved or worked to death, or killed immediately.

Extermination camps

Nazi camps equipped with gassing facilities for mass murder of Jews

Auschwitz

a Nazi concentration camp for Jews in southwestern Poland during World War II

Human rights

the basic rights to which all people are entitled as human beings

Cambodian genocide

1975-1979 attempt to form Communist peasant farming society resulted in deaths by starvation, overwork, and executions.

Pol Pot

Leader of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, who terrorized the people of Cambodia throughout the 1970's

Rwandan genocide

Beginning on April 6, 1994, Hutus began slaughtering the Tutsis in the African country of Rwanda. More than 800,000 were eventually killed.

Tutsis/Hutus

two ethnic groups living in Rwanda that participated in genocide against one another during fight for political control

Holodomor

1932 killing of 7 million poor Ukrainian peasants in Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin. Most were starved to death(Famine); Stalin threatened by Ukrainian’s cultural strength

Ukraine

one of the most devastated areas in Europe during the Second World War. It was a principal battleground on the Eastern Front and endured years of occupation, privation, and death.

Saddam Hussien

Iraqi dictator defeated by the U.S. and its allies in the Persian Gulf War. Leader of Iraq during the middle of the Cold War. Although initially supported by the U.S. to fight Iran, his invasion of Kuwait made him a prime enemy of America.

Kurds

Ethnic group that lives in parts of Iraq and Turkey. They often suffer persecution in both countries, and are currently under the protection of the United Nations in Iraq.

Bosnia/serbia

Tangle of Nationalism -- Bosnia and Serbia wanted to gain independence and not be absorbed by Austria. Russia felt powerless, its ties with Germany weakened. Serbia mad at Austria suggested open warfare instead of peace talks.

Darfur

Western section of the country of Sudan which has suffered civil war since 2003 and has had over 500,000 people killed and 21/2 million people displaced from their homes

Sudan

From the Arabic term for "land of black people," a large region of West Africa that became part of a major exchange circuit.

Rohingya

community of muslims

Final solution

Hitler's program of systematically killing the entire Jewish people