Reflection of Genocide in the 20th Century

World War II brought one of the worst cases of genocide that the world had ever seen. Adolf Hitler was determined to rid Europe of the people that he had such a vendetta and hatred for. There had previously been acts of genocide in other countries, but none on the same scale as the Holocaust. The first genocide of the 20th century occurred in Turkey when two million Armenian people who were living in Turkey got eliminated and forced out or were massacred between 1915 - 1918 ( “Armenian Genocide” ). In 1994, in the African country of Rwanda there was another terrible act of genocide by the military and militia after both of the countries Presidents had been assassinated ( “History of Rwanda” ). Genocide has been affecting Eastern countries for decades, however there is not much that is done about the tragedy going on in these countries. I believe that there is still genocide happening in the world today because there are not enough resources and plans put in place to prevent it from happening or to predict where it will spring up next.
Before the year 1944 the term to define and distinguish genocide did not exist. Polish lawyer Raphael Lamekin coined the word genocide. He joined together geno- , which is the Greek word for race or tribe, and -cide the Latin word for killing . The world noticed genocide as a national threat , due in part to Mr. Lamekin, and in 1948 the United Nations approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide ( “What is Genocide” ). Although the United Nations has set this movement in place it has really not since then done much of anything to really prevent it from happening, there is also not enough swift punishment for the crimes that are committed.
In an article on the prevention of genocide, Dr. Gregory H. Stanton stated that “In order to prevent genocide, we must first understand it. We must study and compare genocides and develop a working theory about the genocidal process.” ( Stanton, “The