Genocide

Today, while studying I ran across a map of various places where genocide and atrocities have taken place. I was astonished, it was a map of the world and a little over twenty places were marked with little red sculls and the death toll beside it. Each place had numbers ranging from 3 thousand to 20 million deaths. Personally, I was only really familiar with two of them. The Nazi extermination of Jews and Non-Arian Peoples during the Holocaust(12,000,000 in 1939-1945) and the genocide in
Rwanda(800,000 in 1994).

These are some of the sites that were shown on the map:

Iraq 1980-1999 (600,000 through ethnic cleansing and germ warfare)

USSR 1924-1987(20,000,000 through forced famine, ethnic cleansing, and political purges)

Nigeria 1967-1970 (1,000,000)

Turkey 1915-1918 (1,500,000 Armenians in Turkey)

Congo 1900-1908 (3,000,000)

Millions of people died: murdered, starved, raped and gassed. For what? Who is one group or dictator, to decide who is worthy of living? Why did no one stop them? Were there so many people, who agreed that a whole ethnic group should die to cleanse a nation? I don't understand.

Stefanie and I visited the Museum of Tolerance this weekend, I have been there twice: cried both times. So much pain, inflicted on these people who are just as valuable as the Germans who decided they were not.

Thoughts: mostly of grief for those who perished and fear for those who will have to answer to the God who created the people they chose to destroy.