9.3c Genocide
Genocide is the systematic destruction of people based on their group membership with the goal of eliminating the entire group. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2024), genocide can take several forms:
- “Killing members of the group
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Table 9.2 provides information about several genocides. Forced removal and “voluntary” displacement often precedes genocide. The periods in Table 9.2 may include the period of restrictions leading up to the genocide (the Holocaust) or just the precise time the genocide was carried out (Srebrenica).
Table 9.2
Selected Genocides
| Genocide | Period | Perpetrators | Victims | Number Killed |
| European colonization of the Americas | 1492 – 1600 | European colonizers and their descendants | Indigenous people in the Americas | 56 million |
| The Holocaust | 1933-1945 | Nazi Party | Jews | Six million (2/3 of European Jews) |
| Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge | 1975 – 1979 | Khmer Rouge | Ethnic minorities and intellectuals (e.g., doctors, teachers) | Two million |
| Rwandan Genocide | 1994 | Hutu | Tutsi | 500,000 to 1 million |
| Srebrenica | July 1995 (during the Bosnian War, 1992-1995) | Bosnian Serbs | Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) | 8,000 |
Note: Scholars estimate that 60.5 million people lived in the Americas when Columbus arrived in 1492, followed by a population decline of 90% due to warfare, enslavement, and disease (Koch et al., 2019). Data for European colonization of the Americas is based on Koch, A., Brierley, C., Maslin, M. M., & Lewis, S. L. (2019). Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492. Quarternary Science Reviews 207, 13-36. Copyright 2019 by Koch, Brierley, Maslin, & Lewis. Data for the Holocaust, Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, Rwandan genocide, and Srebrenica from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (2022). Country case studies. https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries. Copyright 2022 by the United States Holocaust Museum.