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The year 2004 includes several major
anniversaries, including:
- the 200th anniversary of
the Risdon Cove Massacre in Tasmania (May 3, 1804);
- the 100th anniversary of Herero Genocide
in Namibia (October 2, 1904);
- the 60th anniversaries
of multiple 1944 events:
Chechen
Deportation Day (Feb. 23, 1944), the
Destruction
of Hungarian Jews (May 16 to July 7, 1944), and
Roma-Sinti Auschwitz Day (Aug. 2, 1944); -
the 25th anniversary of the Fall
of the Khmer Rouge (January 7, 1979);
- the 20th anniversary
of the
Genocidal Massacre of Sikhs in New Delhi; (Oct.
31- Nov 10, 1984); and
- the 10th anniversary of the
Genocide in Rwanda (April 7 to July 4, 1994). January
January 7, 2004 -
Fall of Phnom Pehn - the
25th anniversary of the fall
of the Khmer Rouge regime in Phnom Penh to the Vietnamese Army ending the
genocidal regime. (See
April 17) January
12 - Genocide Prevention Day. On January 12, 1951 the
Genocide Convention came
into force after the first 20 ratifications. Later in January 1951 Raphael
Lemkin (1900-1959) "Father of Genocide Convention", was nominated
for the Nobel Peace Prize.(See December
9) January 27 - Holocaust Remembrance
Day marking the anniversary of the liberation
of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Some of the Commemorations of January 27th include: Denmark's
"Auschwitz-dag
2004: Tilskuer eller redningsmand?" (also: www.27-1.dk),
Estonia's Holokausti
päeva, Finland's Holocaustin
Muistopäivän, Germany's "Tag
des Gedenkens an die Opfer Des Nationalsozialismus begangen" (Day of
Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism), Italy's Giorno
della Memoria, Norway's Holocaustdagen,
Poland's "59 lat temu wyzwolono
KL Auschwitz" (KL Auschwitz Liberated 58 Years Ago) , Sweden's Förintelsens
minnesdag, United Kingdom's "Holocaust
Memorial Day 2004. The 60th anniversary
will be in 2005 February
February 23, 2004- 60th anniversary of Chechen Deportation
Day marking the mass
deportation by the USSR of the entire Chechen people from their homeland
in Caucasus region to Central Asia on February 23, 1944. Stalin's NKVD perpetrators
used the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Soviet "Red Army Day"
to deceive the Chechens into assembling for deportation from Chechnya. Dictator
Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) conducted other genocidal deportations during World
War II as collective punishment against the Balkars (4/44), Crimean
Tatars (5/44), Ingushi, Karachai 10/43), Kalmyks (12/43), Meshhetians (11/44)
and the Volga Germans (7/41). Prior to the German invasion
he also conducted large-scale deportations of Koreans (1937), Poles, Estonians,
Latvians and Lithuanians. Also before the war, in August 1937 large scale purge
of 14,000 people in the Chechen-Ingush republic was conducted. In
1956 in a speech denouncing Stalin's "cult of personality" his successor
Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) denounced some but not all of Stalin's mass deportations.
At that time Chechens were allowed to return to their homeland. Many Chechen leaders
today were born and raised during the years of exile. In
2002, the Russian Government restored the Feb. 23rd Red Army Day holiday under
the new name 'Defenders of the Fatherland Day'. (See also November
27) February
25 - Día Nacional de la Dignidad de las Víctimas
de la Violencia (National day of Dignity of the Victims of the Violence )
On this day in 1999, the Commission for Historical Clarification
(CEH) presented it's report, Guatemala, Memory of Silence finding acts
of genocide were committed between during 1981 and 1982 in four regions of Guatemala.
A Summary
of the report in English can be read online . The full Spanish version is
also online Comisión para Esclarecimiento Histórico (CEH). Note
especially the section "Capítulo II: Volumen 3 - GENOCIDIO"
Also read on this website: Resources
on Genocide in Guatemala and News
Monitor on Guatemala 2001-2004 February
28 - Genocidal Massacre in Gujarat 2002: Two years ago on February
28, 2002 an orchestrated genocidal massacre
of Muslims began in Ahmedabad, India and quickly spread through India's western
state of Gujarat The violence began one day after the February 27, 2002 burning
of 59 Hindu Ker Sevak pilgrims at the Godhra train station. The anti-Muslim
violence was carried out by proponents the exclusionary ideology Hindutva
and was conducted with the apparent support of BJP Party leader, Narendra Modi,
Chief Minister for the State Of Gujarat. On March 3, as the the killings continued
and Muslim deaths reached the hundreds, Modi said, "Every action has an equal
and opposite reaction." An estimated 2000 person were killed, another 2,500 are
missing and large numbers of women and girls were raped. Modi was reelected in
December 2002. Bibliography
on 2002 Anti-Muslim Violence in Gujarat
| News
Monitor for India from 2002 March
March 16 - Anniversary
of the Halabja Massacre of Iraqi Kurds with chemical weapons by former
Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq (March 16, 1988).
The Halabja Massacre occurred during a series of eight Anfal
Campaigns targeting Kurds from Feb 23. to Sept. 6, 1988. March
25 - Genocide in East
Pakistan On this day in 1971 the Yahya
Khan (1917-1980) launched "Operation Search Light" against the Bengali people,
after the Awami League won a majority in the December 1970 elections. A ten-month
genocide and liberation war began ending on Dec. 16 following an intervention
by the Indian Army. East Pakistan became Bangladesh. April
April 7, 2004 - International
Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda marking the tenth anniversary
of the 100-day Rwandan genocide. On December 23, 2003 the UN General Assembly
approved a resolution recognizing the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda
and designating April 7, 2004 as an "International
Day of Reflection." Remember Rwanda Ten years
ago, for 100 days from April 7 to July 17, 1994, over 800,000 people were murdered
in Rwanda. The UN General Assembly designated
April 7, 2004 as an "International
Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda" (link to special UN
website in 6 languages). See the extensive Resources
on Genocide in Rwanda on this website, including links to recent books, reports,
research, film, survivor testimonies and websites. Also
see Remembering Rwanda
and http://www.rwanda10.org/
April
16, 2004 - Hungary's Holocaust Remembrance Day marking the 60th anniversary
of April 16, 1944 when the Munkács ghetto was established. (Április
16-án, holokauszt-emléknap). (see May 16)
April 17 -
Khmer Rouge 'Killing Fields' begin
- After defeating the US-backed Lon Nol regime, the
Khmer Rouge immediately expelled the entire population of the capital city Phnom
Pehn and began policies which resulted in
the genocides of Cham Muslims, Ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese and the mass killing
of many ethnic Cambodians The 30th anniversary will be in 2005
((see January 7)
April 18-19 - Yom
HaShoah marking 27 Nisan
(April 19, 1943) commemorated in Israel,
the United States
and around the world. April 19, 1943 was the beginning of the
Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising when about
750 ghetto fighters held heavily- armed German police troops for nearly
a month to May 16, 1943. Begins in evening and continues the next day.
April 25 - Jasenovac Remembrance
Day. On April 22, 1945 prisoners in the Jasenovac Concentration Camp held
a mass breakout in which a few managed to escape. Jasenovac was run by the Nazi-allied
Croatian Ustaša regime and held Serbian, Jewish, Roma and Muslim prisoners. .
The breakout is remembered every year on the Sunday closest to April 22. April
24, 1915 Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day marking the the
onset of the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey (April 24. 1915). The 90th
anniversary will be in 2005
May
May 3, 2004 - 200th Anniversary
of the Risdon Cove Massacre on May 3, 1804, the first British massacre
of Tasmanian Aborigines. Later in 1830 Governor George Arthur (1784-1854)
organized a "Black Line" in a effort to systematically clear Tasmania
of surviving indigenous. By 1835 all Tasmanians were relocated to Flinders Island,
where most died within a few years. May 16, 2004
marks the 60th
anniversary of the deportation
of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. Following 'selection' most
new arrivals were sent directly to the gas chambers. Trains continued to arrive
daily until July 7, 1944.. Four-fifths of the Hungarian Jewish community perished
in 1944-1945. Under pressure the Hungarian government halted deportations in July.
In October when they resumed, a rescue effort by Raoul Wallenberg and other saved
tens of thousands, through the use of safe houses and schutzbriefe (safe
conduct passes). May 18, 2004 The 60th
anniversary of the Soviet Deportation of Crimean Tatars of "Kara
Gun" (Black Day = May 18). Called the "Surgun" (mass deportation,
exile) and by survivors, nearly half (46%) of 180,000 persons deported to "Special
Settlement Camps" in Uzbekistan, Siberia, and the Urals perished. See also www.surgun.org
in Turkish. May 28, 1830
- On this day the Indian Removal Act was passed by the US Congress at the
urging of President Andrew Jackson (1767–1845), leading to the "Trial
of Tears" in which the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole
Nations were expelled from their eastern homelands. The law "extinguish[ed]
the Indian claim" to lands east of the Mississippi River in "exchange"
for western lands which would "revert to the United States, if the Indians
become extinct, or abandon the same." The law was passed two years after
a Cherokee boy sold a gold nugget (gahlonega - "Yellow Money") to
a white settler. Soon a Gold Rush began onto Cherokee lands, leading to Congressional
action in 1830. The Cherokee Nation successfully challenged Georgia state laws
passed after the Removal Act to the US Supreme Court. In an 1832 decision, Chief
Justice John Marshall upheld Cherokee sovereignty. Nevertheless, President Jackson
defied the Court, saying the Court "cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its
mandate." Horace Greeley later quoted him saying ,"Marshall has made his
decision: now let him enforce it!" Meanwhile the State of Georgia passed a law
segregating whites and Indians and held a land lottery to distribute 18,500 parcels
of land to white settlers. The US federal government negotiated the false "Treaty
of New Echota" with a breakaway Cherokee group and built a branch of the
US Mint at Dahlonega, Georgia to make gold coins. In May 1838, General Winfield
Scott (1786-1866) conducted a mass roundup into 14 "removal
forts" where Cherokee were interned under harsh conditions for five months.
In October 1838, 7,000 soldiers started a five-month 2,200 mile forced relocation
of 16,000 Cherokee people. The journey was later called called the Nunna
daul Tsuny ("Trail Where They Cried").
Army private John
G. Burnett describes people "loaded like cattle or sheep into six hundred
and forty-five wagons." About one-in-four of the Cherokees
died in the removal forts, during the journey, or in the first year in Indian
Territory (now Oklahoma). The 175th anniversary
of the Indian Removal Act will be in 2005. May
27 - Five years ago on May 27, 1999, Yugoslav President Slobadan Milosevic
was indicted by International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) at the Hague. In the midst Serbia's enormous mass
expulsion of Albanians Kosovars from Kosovo and the NATO Bombing campaign,
the ICTY announced war crimes indictments against President Milosevic and four
other top Serb officials. Milosevic was the first Head of State indicted
by an international court. June
June 3 is
Mabo Day in
Australia, commemorating the six to one verdict
on June 3, 1992 by the High Court of Australia in Mabo v State of Queensland.
The decision overturned the 200-year-old legal doctrine of terra nullius
(land belonging to no one), specifically upholding Mabo's claim
that Murray Islanders held "Native Title" to three islands on the eastern
fringe of the Torres Strait (between Australia and Papua New Guinea). Edward
Koiki Mabo (1936 - 1992) along with plaintiffs Sam Passi, Father Dave
Passi, James Rice and Celuia Mapo Salee launched the case in 1982. Mabo, however,
died of cancer on January 21, 1992. The terra nullius concept was applied
by Governor Arthur Phillip (1738-1814) when he established a colony at Sydney
Cove on Jan. 26, 1788. In the 18th century, English common law allowed for the
legal settlement of "uninhabited or barbarous country." This legal doctrine justified
settlers in dispossessing the indigenous or aboriginal population leading to their
partial destruction. June 12-18 marks the
anniversary of the 1938 "Gypsy Clean-Up Week" ( 'Zigeuneraufrämungswoche'
) when about 1,000 German
and Austrian Roma and Sinti were deported to concentration camps at Buchenwald,
Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Lichtenburg (a camp for women in Saxony). This event
lead what survivors call the Porrajmos ('devouring') the Nazi genocide
of Roma-Sinti people during World War II (see August 2) July
July
4 - Latvia's Holocaust Remembrance Day (July 4,
1941, Rumbula Forest )
July 11-16 Srebrenica
Massacre in Bosnia (July 11-16, 1995). Established as a
"safe area" in the Spring of 1993,
Srebrenica became the site of Europe's worst massacre since World War Two in which
more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed. In July 2003 the Bosnian
Serb government announced it would donate one million euros to the foundation
maintaining the Potocari/Srebrenica Memorial and Cemetery for the victims
of the Srebrenica massacre. The cemetery opened on September 20, 2003 with the
burial of 107 victims alongside 882 already laid to rest at the cemetery.
July 16 - France's Holocaust Remembrance Day,
the
roundup of Jews at the "Vel' d'Hiv" in Paris before deportation to
Auschwitz (July 16, 1942). July 17 - World
Day of International Justice Marks the 6th anniversary of the approval
in 1998 by a United Nations conference of the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court (ICC). The Treaty, provided for
a permanent International
Criminal Court for prosecuting genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes,
entered into force on July 1, 2002 (List of ratifications). After two meetings of the
Assembly of State Parties, the court came into existence in 2003.
The first bench of 18
Judges was sworn in in March 2003 and a prosecutor in June 2003. For
updated information, see www.iccnow.org.
July 23, 2004 - 60th Anniversary of the Liberation
of Majdanek (Maidanek)
On this day in 1944 the Soviet Red Army liberated the second largest Nazi Vernichtungslager
(Extermination Camp) located in southeast Poland near Lublin It was at Majdanek
that soldiers and news reporters first encountered cans of Zyklon B (prussic acid),
mounds of ashes and signs reading "bad und disinfektion" The
BBC and other western news bureaus dismissed news stories filed their own reporters
as unconfirmed "horror stories". Only 8 months later in April 1945,
when Buchenwald, Belsen, and Dachau were liberated by US and British soldiers,
would the English-speaking world fully acknowledge the overwhelming proof of Nazi
Germany's genocidal policies. Only the Auschwitz Death Camp was larger than Majdnek.
The other 3 of the 5 Nazi death camps in Poland had been dismantled in 1943: Belzec
in March, Sobibor after the October 14 prisoner uprising and Treblinka in November.
August
August 2, 2004 the 60th anniversary of Roma-Sinti Auschwitz
Day, marking the 1944 "liquidation" to the gas chambers of the Roma
and Sinti inmates of the Auschwitz's Zigeunerlager (“Gypsy Family Camp”).
See also June 12-18. August 2, 2001 The
First Genocide Conviction at the Hague. On this day Bosnian Serb General-Major
Radislav Krstic was found guilty by the
ICTY of genocide in the Srebrencia Massacre (See July 11)
and sentenced to 46 years in prison. "
On April 19,
2004 in the Case the Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic, the Appeals
Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia (The Hague, Netherlands) unanimously found that
"genocide was committed in Srebrenica in 1995." Previously on August 2, 2001 the
ICTY found former Bosnian Serb General-Major Radislav Krstic guilty of
genocide in the Srebrencia
Massacre (July 11-16, 1995) and sentenced him to 46 years in prison. Established
as a "safe area"in the Spring of 1993,
in 1995 Srebrenica became the site of Europe's worst massacre since World War
Two with more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys were killed. Krstic carried out the
genocidal massacre on orders from former Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and General
Ratko Mladic, both of whom remain at large. Krstic's defense lawyers appealed
his verdict, claiming the numbers of men and boys killed were "too insignificant"
to be called genocide. On April 19, 2004 presiding appeals judge, Theodor Meron
(USA), and four others - Fausto Pocar (Italy), Mohamed Shahabuddeen (Guyana),
Mehmet Güney (Turkey) and Wolfgang Schomburg (Germany) - upheld
the genocide verdict. The ruling established the important legal precedent that
a massacre targeting a "substantial part" of a population group, even
when targeting only one sex, could be called genocide. Judge Meron wrote: "They
stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young,
of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically
killed them solely on the basis of their identity". In Krstic's case, however,
the judges, found that while implementing the orders, he lacked genocidal intent
and was guilty only of "aiding and abetting genocide", a lesser crime not included
in his original indictment. Therefore the appeals judges reduced Krstic's prison
sentence from 46 to 35 years. [ Read
the text on theICTY website ] ICTY
Appeals Chamber: "Genocide
was committed in Srebrenica in 1995" In
the Case the Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic, on April 19, 2004 the
Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (The Hague, Netherlands) unanimously found
that "genocide was committed in Srebrenica in 1995." Previously on August 2, 2001
the ICTY found former Bosnian Serb General-Major Radislav Krstic guilty
of genocide in the Srebrencia
Massacre (July 11-16, 1995) and sentenced him to 46 years in prison. Established
as a "safe area"in the Spring of 1993,
in 1995 Srebrenica became the site of Europe's worst massacre since World War
Two with more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys were killed. Krstic carried out the
genocidal massacre on orders from former Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and General
Ratko Mladic, both of whom remain at large. Krstic's defense lawyers appealed
his verdict, claiming the numbers of men and boys killed were "too insignificant"
to be called genocide. On April 19, 2004 presiding appeals judge, Theodor Meron
(USA), and four others - Fausto Pocar (Italy), Mohamed Shahabuddeen (Guyana),
Mehmet Güney (Turkey) and Wolfgang Schomburg (Germany) - upheld
the genocide verdict. The ruling established the important legal precedent that
a massacre targeting a "substantial part" of a population group, even
when targeting only one sex, could be called genocide. Judge Meron wrote: "They
stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young,
of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically
killed them solely on the basis of their identity". In Krstic's case, however,
the judges, found that while implementing the orders, he lacked genocidal intent
and was guilty only of "aiding and abetting genocide", a lesser crime not included
in his original indictment. Therefore the appeals judges reduced Krstic's prison
sentence from 46 to 35 years. [ Read
the text on theICTY website ] August 4, 2004
100th Anniversary of Battle of Waterberg, in German Southwest Africa
(see Oct. 2) August 30 - East Timor referendum
and massacre. The year 2004 marks the 5th anniversary of the mass
violence in East Timor following the August 30 referendum on independence. An
estimated 1400 people were killed and almost a third of East Timor's population
was displaced The violence was stopped by the UN-approved
deployment of an Australian international
peacekeeping force (September 6, 1999). September
September 2, 1998 - First Genocide Conviction at
Arusha. (ICTR) The first ever conviction by an International Court for the
crime of genocide occurred on this day in 1998 when Jean-Paul Akayesu, former
bourgmestre (mayor) of Taba, was found guilty of nine out of the 15 counts
on which he was charged. In particular Akayesu was found guilty of inciting genocide
by leading and addressing a public gathering in Taba on April 19, 1994. Additionally
the Court found him guilty of inciting sexual violence and
rape, which they judged to be an "integral" part of the "destruction of the
Tutsi ethnic group." This portion of the judgment set a new precedent by connecting
rape and sexual violence to the crime of genocide. For his nine convictions Akayesu
was sentenced on October 2, 1998 to several terms of imprisonment ranging from
10 years to life. September 9 - Slovakia's Holocaust
Remembrance Day marking the day September 9, 1941 when the Slovakia enacted
the ''Zidovsky Kodex' (anti-Jewish code). Ruled by Monsignor Josef Tiso
(1887-1947), Slovakia cooperated with Germany in the deportation of Jews. In April
1944 two Slovak Jews, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler escaped from Auschwitz and
wrote the first detailed report on the death camp, which reached the West in June
1944. September 12, 2004 Thirtieth Anniversary
of the seizure of power in Ethiopia by the Derg (Committee) led by
Mengistu Haile-Mariam, which held power until May 28, 1991. The Derg perpetrated
a massive deadly campaign of 'Red Terror' against political enemies in the 1970s
and later engaged in a policy of forced resettlement in 1984 moving over 500,000
people of selected ethnic groups from the "famine affected areas" in the north
to the "uninhabited virgin areas" in the southwest. Approximately 100,000 of those
resettled died during the trip or in the resettlement camps, which were run like
prisons. According to a 1986 report by the relief organization Medecins Sans
Frontiers: "There can be no doubt that resettlement is the biggest killer
in Ethiopia, not famine."In May 2004 Ethiopia's ambassador to Zimbabwe, Duna
Mufti, repeated the longstanding requent that Zimababwe extradite ousted Ethiopian
dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. Sept. 23 - Lithuania's
Holocaust Remembrance Day (Zydu
genocido diena), Liquidation of the Vilna ghetto to Ponar,
September 23, 1943)
September 29 - Babi Yar,
Ukraine, Babi
Yar Memorial near Kyiv (September 29, 1941). . October
October 2, 2004 Herero Genocide Remembrance Day. This
year marks the the 100th anniversary of the German
destruction of the Herero people in Namibia (October 2, 1904). Also commemorated
is the beginning of the Herero uprising in January 1904 and the Battle of Waterberg
in August 1904. October 31, 2004 marks the
the 20th anniversary of the week of orchestrated mass
killing in New Delhi of Sikhs following
the October 31 assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. [ See
bibliography.] October 21, 2004
marks the 2nd anniversary of the Sudan Peace Act (H.R. 5531),signed into law on
Oct.
21, 2002 by US President George W. Bush. The law was advocated by a remarkably
broad-based coalition of conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats, human rights,
religious freedom, labor, anti-slavery and other non-governmental organizations.
The Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives on October 7, 2002 by a vote
of 359-8 and by the Senate two days later by unanimous consent. Included in the
Act was a provision for investigating the Sudan government's role in the genocidal
deaths of more than 2 million civilians in the south during an ongoing civil war
since 1983. Text of Sudan
Peace Act [8 page PDF file] October
30, 2004 Thirtieth anniversary of
Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repressions
in Russia. In 1974 the political prisoners of Mordovian and Perm camps and as
well as Vladimirsky prison proclaimed October 30th as Political Prisoners Day
in the Soviet Union marking the day with protests and hunger strikes. On October
18, 1991 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, receiving the report of the Commission
for Rehabilitation of the Victims of Political Repressions headed by Alexander
Yakovlev, declared the day an annual day of Remembrance. In the past decade and
a half the day has been marked by gatherings at the Solovetsky Kamen
(Solovetsky Stone) Memorial in Lubyanka Square in Moscow as well as events at
the the Perm-36 Memorial Museum of the History
of Political Repression of Totalitarianism, Russia's first Gulag museum. The
Memorial Stone, sometimes called the mourning stone, come from the Solovetsky
Islands, the site of the Soviet Union's first concentration camp (1923-1939).
November
November 9 - Kristallnacht
("the Night of Broken Glass") in Nazi Germany (November 9 & 10, 1938)
an orchestrated pogrom by storm troopers all over the German Reich (including
Austria) resulted in the murder of 91 persons, the destruction and burning of
nearly a thousand synagogues, the vandalism of Jewish cemeteries. The
smashing of the plate glass (Kristallglas) shop windows of Jewish-owned
stores gave the day it's name. German officials later calculated that 7,500
Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed. This massive nationwide
pogrom was instigated, with Hitler's approval, by Nazi Propaganda Minister
Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) after the death on November 9 of German diplomat Ernst
vom Rath, shot in Paris two days before by Herschel
Grynszpan, a Jewish teenager whose parents had been expelled along with 17,000
other Polish Jews from the Reich. Nazis throughout Germany were already assembled
on November 9 for the holiday known as Blutzeuge Tag (blood oath day),
in memory of the failed Munich 'Beer Hall' putsch of 1923. During and after the
violence about 30,000 Jewish males were arrested and sent to concentration camps,
where brutal conditions caused an estimated that 2,000-2,500 additional deaths.
At a conference on November 13, 1938 Hermann Goering (1893-1946) and others decided
to force German Jews to pay the costs of the pogrom, imposing an "atonement" fee
on Jews of 1 billion Reichsmarks (about $400 million). In the 10 months between
Kristallnacht and the invasion of Poland, more than 115,000 Jews emigrated
from Germany. German Emigration regulations forbid Jews from taking their property,
resulting in an international crisis of impoverished refugees which most countries
refused to receive. November 15 - Genocide - A
New Word. The day November 15, 2004 marks the 60th anniversary of the
publication of the 1944 book Axis
Rule in Occupied Europe by Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959). This book was the
first place where the word "genocide" appeared in print. Raphael Lemkin
coined the new word "genocide" in 1943 both as a continuation of his 1933
Madrid proposal and as part of his analysis of German occupation policies
in Europe. November
23, 1944 - 60th anniversary of Allied troops entering
the Natzweiler-Struthof
Concentration Camp southwest of Strasbourg, France. No prisoners or corpses
remained in the camp, but soldiers found a disinfectation unit, an autopsy room,
a gas chamber, an incinerator room with equipment intended for the burning of
human bodies and a large pile of human hair. Originally a work camp, the camp
also became the site of the mass killing of Jews, Roma-Sinti, and captured Resistance
fighters from Holland, Belgium, and France. This was the first camp found by advancing
Western Armies, but did not have the impact in the news media of the liberation
of camps in Germany in April 1945, such as Dachau and Buchenwald where soldiers
found emaciated survivors and corpses. November
27 - Holodomor Day- the Ukrainian Famine/Genocide Remembrance
Day. The Ukrainian Government and ethnic Ukrainians in North America have
designated the last Saturday in November for remembrance of the artificial famine
(Holodomor) in Soviet Ukraine which peaked in 1933. December December
9 - Genocide Convention Day . On Dec. 9, 1948 the Genocide
Convention was unanimously approved by the third UN General Assembly
meeting in Paris. The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights was approved the following day, Dec. 10, 1948,
celebrated as Human Rights Day. December
13 - Nanjing Massacre ( "The
Rape of Nanking") This day in 1937 began a 6 week long genocidal
massacre and mass rape by the Japanese Imperial
Army in
the Chinese capital city. Similar massacres occurred throughout this campaign,
before and after December 13.
The
year 2005 includes several major anniversaries, including:
-
the 175th anniversary of May 28, 1830 the
day when the US Congress passed the Indian Removal Act leading to the forced
relocation of eastern several Indian Nations in the "Trial of Tears."
- the 90th anniversary of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day
marking the the onset of the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey
(April 24, 1915).
- the 60th anniversaries of liberation of Auschwitz
(Jan. 27, 1945), and in April the anniversaries of the liberation of the Belson,
Buchenwald and Dachau. - the 60th Anniversary of
the publication of the Nuremberg Indictment, the first public document to
use the new word 'genocide'. (October 18, 1945)
- the 30th anniversary of the Fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge
(April 17, 1975). - the 30th anniversary of
the Indonesian Invasion of Timor Leste (East Timor). The Indonesian military
occupied the country for next 23 years of until Sept 1999.
- the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica
Massacre (July
11-16, 1995).
Prevent Genocide International
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