Differences And Similarities Between The Holocaust And Armenian Genocide

Throughout history, it has been shown that naturally, human beings can be evil and are competent of committing atrocious and disreputable crimes against other human beings. The United Nations has a law that is supposed to protect human rights; however, these rights have been violated in the past, and are still unfortunately, on occasion, contravened today. These human rights cover a wide assortment of topics and come in a number of forms. Many of these rights have been abused and today are studied deeply in history, such as sexual abuse against women, basic discrimination, or the commitment of hate crimes. Regrettably, there have been many lives lost due to infringements of these human rights, and in some horrific cases, these counts of numerous
deaths have been classified as genocide. Two very well known genocides in history are the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. These horrific incidents stemmed from government and individual intentions to destroy the lives of many and change and eliminate cultures to acquire power and prestige. Holocausts are a horrific way of eliminating cultures to prove your own culture more superior. In 1915, during the Armenian Genocide, and during WWII for the period of the Holocaust, the Armenians and the Jews were nearly wiped out due to the ignorance and racist beliefs of superiority by dictators. These Holocausts not only changed history but also changed how and where these people lived and survived.
With a loss of at least 14 million lives between the two unpleasant incidents, the Holocaust and Armenian Genocide have many similarities and differences between them.
During the Holocaust, Germany had just recently come into Nazi control under facist dictator, Adolf Hitler. In 1933, Hitler was elected as Chancellor of Germany, and he almost immediately began anti-Semitic Laws aimed to eliminate Jews' rights. Hitler had specific features that he felt made someone into a “perfect human.” He called these people the “Master Race.” He believed that the Aryan Races symbolized a superior and “pure race.” A perfect member of the Master Race was referred to as a “Super Man.” Anybody not of pure, Aryan descent was considered a “Sub-Human.” Hitler attempted to create living space for Aryans, also known as Lebensraum. As a minority, Jews were a perfect target for Hitler’s raid on non-pure people. He also targeted others in Belarus, Croatia, Estonia, France, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Ukraine, and the USSR for extermination to expand territory available for Germany. His government, the Third Reich, began scouting Germany for non-pure citizens, and also selectively bred humans and created laws against marriages between pure and non-pure people trying to create perfect families. They began to sterilize these non-pure people, in turn creating the massacre of what has been known as the Holocaust. The Holocaust ended after the Germans had surrendered to the Allied Forces, and this
was also the end to World War II.
The Holocaust killed over 11 million people, 6 million of those victims being Jewish.
Other deaths included those of the Roma (Gypsies), disabled, and Slavs (Poles, Russians, others). They also killed people because of political, ideological, and behavorial reasons such as one being a Communist, Socialist, Jehovah’s Witness, or a homosexual. Hitler’s reasoning for the massacre of all these people was very selfish. He only wished for a “perfect society” to compare to other places so he could be the best, however his actions did nothing but hurt him and his
country.

Some would argue that the Armenian Genocide was very similar to the Holocaust while others would disagree and declare that with only a few similarities, the two are quite different. In the vein of the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide had a result of over 2 million deaths due to the belief of a superior race or ethnicity. A nationalist reform group known as the “Young Turks” also deported many Armenians away from the Ottoman Empire. The Young Turks had glorified Turk peasantry while the government had stigmatized the Christian Armenians as infidels, or non-believers. Anti-Armenian expositions had been held by Islamic extremists throughout the region to show their hatred for the Armenians. All of these protests and outlook towards the Armenians turned them into pariahs (outcasts). The mass persecution of Armenian citizens was a regular occurrence and would not be looked upon strangely if seen in public. If an Armenian were not killed, they would often be scapegoated, or sent away, for causing problems in the Ottoman Empire. Although there are many good, kind-hearted people in the world, there are also many cold-hearted people to contradict them. Some of these people are well known figures in history, and are known for their wrongdoings. Humans are born with natural rights, and even today, these rights are still broken and in the past the infringement of these rights has led to the unnecessary deaths of many innocent people. Violation of these rights, leading to the massacre of many was shown in the Holocaust and in the Armenian Genocide, which were very similar and different in many ways.