Compare And Contrast Pol Pot And The Holocaust

In the 20th century, over 5 billion people died. Can you guess how many of them died from a genocide? 262 million people. That is equal to 5% of all of the deaths in the 20th century. The instigators of these genocides torture their captives to death, starve them, and overwork them. Adolf Hitler of the Holocaust and Pol Pot of the Cambodian genocide are prime examples. The Cambodian genocide and the Holocaust were both unforgettable time periods of the world, however, these events differ in intended goal, how he genocides started, and what happened afterwards.

The Holocaust is probably one of the most brutal genocides in history, and Adolf Hitler was a huge part of why the Holocaust was so bad. His intentions were brutal. He wanted to decimate

anyone who was not of the German- Aryan race, and make the world Judenfrei. This plan all started after the first world war, when he was in jail. During Hitler's time in jail he had set up a plan to become the Chancellor, take over Germany, and then start the Holocaust. After he got out of jail he used propaganda to influence people that he was the right man for the job. Germany needed a good leader and they didn’t know better than to elect anyone who would ‘step up.’ He got elected, and started his uprising. Almost no one knew what Hitler's true intentions were until 1943. After 6 million Jewish deaths and 11 million in total, on April 30th, 1945, Hitler killed himself and in May the Nazis surrendered in the hands of the Allies. After the war the Allies set up court to convict all surviving Nazis. On May 23, Heinrich Himmler followed Hitler and suicided. The Holocaust was a very complicated process that had to start from the ground up. There were many details that had to be just right, and one flaw would mean the downfall of the Nazis.

The Cambodian Genocide had an odd intended goal.

Pol Pot wanted everything in perfect detail. According to BBC, he wanted Cambodia to be money free, religion free, education free, no healthcare, and no foreign languages. However, Pol Pot did not want to kill everyone. He wanted to murder the middle class, and religious people. Mytholoke.edu said he wanted Cambodia to become an agrarian utopia, or a place where “impure people” were eliminated. Impure to Pol Pot would mean killing middle class people, and religious people. He would make schools obsolete. The genocide started in 1962 when Pol Pot became leader of Communist Party of Kampuchea, where he started planning undercover to take over Cambodia. In 1970, when then leader Norodom Sihanouk was out on vacation, Pol Pot came in with Khmer Rouge. After the U.S. tried to eliminate Norodom Sihanouk, but failed, he joined up with the Khmer Rouge. After 4 years of civil war, Pol Pot successfully took over Cambodia. During that time he overworked, starved and killed millions of middle class people. After the 4 year leadership of Khmer Rouge, Vietnam took over and pushed Khmer Rouge out of the country. Pol Pot and the rest of the surviving Khmer Rouge fled to Thailand, where they fought many mini wars with the Cambodian government. However, in the beginning of the 90s, power was lost and Pol Pot had to abandon. In 1997 he was put under house arrest and then died by heart attack before a trial could happen. Khmer Rouge were very

ruthless and had very specific wants. They wanted the peasant life to return forever, and for basic necessities today to be gone.

The Cambodian Genocide and the Holocaust were very sad times that shouldn’t have happened in the first place and should not happen again.

Their impacts on the world were very severe and are still being felt today. The Cambodian Genocide was very influential on how Cambodia is today. It seems as if that Cambodia is very poor, and still have so much building to do. On CNN it says that Cambodia is an impoverished country, and one of Asia’s poorest. They also said that after the war every young person only knew how to kill and had no way in knowing how to rebuild and restart the country. Even today these people struggle. BY the same coin, The Holocaust was one of the worst genocides to ever happen. People that were even a little related to Hitler or a Nazi have very low self esteem, as if it was them that caused all of it. And Jewish people are feeling the worse of the consequences. Their race was torn apart and nothing can ever happen to change it. The Jewish people were treated so terribly. The people that have died in the genocides are not the only people feeling the pain and consequences. People now are suffering from poverty. Sadness that one of their parents was involved in such a genocide. The Jewish people of now feel less than others even though they aren’t. These times aren’t just sad, they are traumatizing and have effects on people for

life.

The Cambodian Genocide and the Holocaust were both terrible times of the past and we must overcome, but not everything was the same. The final intentions were different, as well as the start of them, and the aftermath of them. As human beings people must always be aware of potential danger, and know that it can come from anywhere. Genocides are still happening today. There has been a genocide happening in Syria over the past 5 years. Refugees have been fleeing the country and they are still flowing out. We must be strong and not let genocides get as big as they were in the past, and even now. They shouldn’t be happening. Especially not to the resilient people that we have become.