10 Lesser Known Massacres
Published on August 20, 2008 - 226 Comments
[WARNING: This list contains images that may disturb some readers.] All too often the evil of man has shown its face to the world in the form of mass murders and slaughter. This list contains ten of the lesser known massacres. The fact that 10 lesser known massacres can be found is a sad indictment of what our powerful leaders can do when left unchecked.
The St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy in French) was a wave of Catholic mob violence against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants), during the French Wars of Religion. Traditionally believed to have been instigated by Catherine de’ Medici, the mother of King Charles IX, the massacre took place six days after the wedding of the king’s sister to the Protestant Henry of Navarre. This was an occasion for which many of the most wealthy and prominent Huguenots had gathered in largely Catholic Paris. Events began two days after the attempted assassination of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, a Huguenot military leader. Starting on 24 August 1572 (the feast of Bartholomew the Apostle) with the murder of Coligny, the massacres spread throughout Paris, and later to other cities and the countryside, lasting for several months. The exact number of fatalities is not known, but it has been estimated that over 2000 Huguenots were killed in Paris and over 3000 in the French provinces.
This poem of Abu Ishaq, written in Al-Andalus, Granada in 1066, was considered to be largely instrumental in sparking this massacre. It contains the following lines:
Do not consider it a breach of faith to kill them, the breach of faith would be to let them carry on.
They have violated our covenant with them, so how can you be held guilty against the violators?
How can they have any pact when we are obscure and they are prominent?
Now we are humble, beside them, as if we were wrong and they were right!
On December 30, 1066 (9 Tevet 4827), a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, which was at that time in al-Andalus, assassinated Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred most of the Jewish population of the city. More than 1,500 Jewish families, numbering 4,000 persons, fell in one day. The image above shows a Jew reading the torah in Al-Andalus.
Batak massacre refers to the massacre of Bulgarians in Batak by Ottoman troops in 1876, at the beginning of the April Uprising. The number of victims varies from 3,000 to 5,000 according to different sources. On 30 April 1876, 8,000 Turkish soldiers, mainly Bashi-bazouk, led by Ahmet Aga Barun surrounded the city. After a first battle, the men from Batak decided to negotiate with Ahmet Aga. He promised them the withdrawal of his troops, under the condition of their disarmament. After the rebels had laid down their weapons, the Bashi-bazouk attacked the defenseless population. The majority of the victims were beheaded.
The Massacre of Thessaloniki was a retaliatory action by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I in 390 against the inhabitants of the Greek city of Thessaloniki, who had risen in revolt. The cause of the uprising was the order to arrest a popular wagon driver for trying to seduce and have sex with a servant of the emperor (Butherich).
The wagon driver was locked up in prison, but the citizens of Thessaloniki demanded his release. Butherich was murdered in the following turmoil, and so the Emperor intervened and ordered executions. However, the command was too little too late, and in the hippodrome in Thessaloniki angry Gothic troops massacred 7,000 people - the number is probably exaggerated, but gives a sense of the scale of the massacre. This incident aroused the wrath of the Bishop of Milan, Ambrose, and the church urged the emperor to repentance.
The Srebrenica Massacre, also known as Srebrenica Genocide, was the July 1995 killing of an estimated 8,000 Bosniak men, including at least 500 children in the region of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina by units of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladic during the Bosnian War. In addition to the VRS, a paramilitary unit from Serbia known as the Scorpions participated in the massacre.
So far, more than 5,600 victims of genocide have been identified through DNA analysis. Prior to the genocide, the United Nations had declared Srebrenica a UN protected “safe area”, but that did not prevent the massacre, even though 400 armed Dutch peacekeepers were present at the time. After reviewing a comprehensive report, the Dutch government resigned over this matter in 2002.
The Massacre of Elphinstone’s Army was a victory of Afghan forces led by Akbar Khan, the son of Dost Mohammad Khan, over a combined British and Indian force led by William Elphinstone in January 1842. After the British and Indian troops captured Kabul in 1839, an Afghan uprising forced the occupying garrison out of the city. The British army, consisting of 4,500 troops and 12,000 working personnel or camp-followers, left Kabul on January 6, 1842.
They attempted to reach the British garrison at Jalalabad, 90 miles away, but were immediately harassed by Afghan forces. The last remnants were eventually annihilated near Gandamak on January 13. Only one man, the assistant surgeon William Brydon, survived and managed to reach Jalalabad.
The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre, was a mass execution of Polish military officers, policemen and civilian prisoners of war ordered by Soviet authorities on March 5, 1940. The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000, with the most commonly cited number of 21,768. The victims were murdered in the Katyn forest in Russia, the Kalinin (Tver) and Kharkiv prisons and elsewhere. About 8,000 were officers taken prisoner during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, the rest being Poles arrested for allegedly being “intelligence agents, gendarmes, spies, saboteurs, landowners, factory owners, lawyers, priests, and officials.”
Since Poland’s conscription system required every non-exempted university graduate to become a reserve officer,the Soviets were able to round up much of the Polish intelligentsia, and the Jewish, Ukrainian, Georgian and Belarusian intelligentsia of Polish citizenship.
Babi Yar is a ravine in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. In the course of two days, September 29 and 30, 1941, a special team of German Nazi SS supported by other German units, local collaborators and Ukrainian police murdered 33,771 Jewish civilians. The Babi Yar massacre is considered to be the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust.
The massacre of prisoners refers to a series of mass executions committed by the Soviet NKVD against prisoners in Poland, the Baltic states, and parts of the Soviet Union from which the Red Army was withdrawing after the German invasion in 1941. The overall death toll is estimated at around 100,000, including more than 10,000 in Western Ukraine.
The Nanking Massacre, commonly known as the Rape of Nanking, was an infamous war crime committed by the Japanese military in Nanjing (Nanking), then the capital of the Republic of China, after it fell to the Imperial Japanese Army on December 13, 1937. The duration of the massacre is not clearly defined, although the violence lasted well into the next six weeks, until early February 1938.
During the occupation of Nanking, the Japanese army committed numerous atrocities, such as rape, looting, arson and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians. Although the executions began under the pretext of eliminating Chinese soldiers disguised as civilians, it is claimed that a large number of innocent men were intentionally misidentified as enemy combatants and executed as the massacre gathered momentum. A large number of women and children were also killed, as rape and murder became more widespread.
According to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, estimates made at a later date indicate that the total number of civilians and prisoners of war murdered in Nanking and its vicinity during the first six weeks of the Japanese occupation was over 200,000. That these estimates are not exaggerated is borne out by the fact that burial societies and other organizations have counted more than 155,000 buried bodies.
This article is licensed under the GFDL because it contains quotations from Wikipedia.
Contributor: abhishek
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1. girllll - August 21st, 2008 at 3:03 am
Christ, it scares me that I didnt know any of these.
2. Davern - August 21st, 2008 at 3:16 am
Very appropriate introduction.
3. Mullaccio - August 21st, 2008 at 3:17 am
I’m surprised how many of these atrocities were committed in the last 150 years. Humans are a screwed up species. May General Ratko Mladic burn in hell!
4. Donna - August 21st, 2008 at 3:17 am
Hope everyone involved in commiting these atrocious crimes against humanity are languishing in the depths of hell.
5. Tempyra - August 21st, 2008 at 3:26 am
I’m kinda glad I’d already heard about most of these - otherwise there would be another 10 massacres throughout the world’s history
6. Tempyra - August 21st, 2008 at 3:28 am
Good work on this list abhishek!
7. sharlu - August 21st, 2008 at 3:35 am
yikes . . makes me sad to think they were all done by fellow humans
8. notas - August 21st, 2008 at 3:58 am
terrible stuff
9. thematic - August 21st, 2008 at 4:18 am
Humans are a horrible species, makes me ashamed. Enough said.
10. Iain - August 21st, 2008 at 4:21 am
Absolutely no problems with the list - just the title is misleading. These are actually some of the better known massacres in history. The fact that most people are not aware of them is perhaps where it gets scary.
11. Saint Splattergut - August 21st, 2008 at 4:23 am
Why’s the Nanking massacre on the list? :/
12. ohrmets - August 21st, 2008 at 4:41 am
The Rape of Nanking and Srebrenica are two very well known massacres. Maybe you could have found a couple other lesser-known ones to take their place?
13. ylekiot - August 21st, 2008 at 5:01 am
Having seen several of the mass graves throughout Bosnia including Srebrenica, I have a unique view of what man kind really is. No one is truly safe anywhere. May god have mercy on our souls.
14. Nikola - August 21st, 2008 at 5:21 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.....ation_camp
I’m a Croat but i don’t know why people usually forget war crimes Ustashe commited.
15. warrrreagl - August 21st, 2008 at 5:26 am
The Rape of Nanking is only recently being thought of as a “lesser known” massacre because the Japanese are doing everything in their power to deny it and rewrite the history books.
16. Randall - August 21st, 2008 at 5:31 am
ohrmets:
For that matter, the St. Bartholomew Massacre is very well known as well. I’d think Katyn would be considered well-known too, really.
But this is a good list–well done… it’d be nice if we could say we’ve simply run out of massacres to list… wouldn’t it?
17. cparker - August 21st, 2008 at 5:33 am
This makes my soul drop. I wanna throw up. Great list though, off to read Dr. Suess or something after this.
18. Jack Deth - August 21st, 2008 at 5:35 am
It is so sad to see that the people who walk alongside you could carry out such acts. Normal people must have participated in these horrors, how on Earth did they justify it to themselves?
19. pankhudi - August 21st, 2008 at 5:35 am
Had heard of ‘Nanking Massacre’ only. How can people be so cruel! Killing felow humans in the name of country/religion. Shame on mankind. May all these tormentors burn in hell!
20. Randall - August 21st, 2008 at 5:36 am
warrrreagl:
Good point. Very good point.
I’m sorry to say this is the problem I still have with the Japanese, polite and very nice people though they seem to be today… whereas the Germans, for the most part, have confessed their actions during the Nazi era, and show genuine shame for it (one would think), the Japanese have not been so ready to accept guilt for the things they did during the period of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. There has continued to be, in Japan, a strong tug of war between traditional nationalists who deny and rewrite history, and those who accept the truth and want to confront it. Unfortunately for a long time now it’s looked like the nationalists have been winning.
21. rushfan - August 21st, 2008 at 5:36 am
Great list. I too had heard of most of these, but I think it’s always good to honor the dead by discussing these horrific events. Former US Ambasador to the UN Richard Holbrook was just on NPR discussing Srebrenica the other morning. These are all great tragedies.
22. pankhudi - August 21st, 2008 at 5:36 am
Abhishek: Good work
23. Egg - August 21st, 2008 at 5:48 am
I keep thinking most of the numbers have to be exaggerated. It would be like walking downtown Toronto on a Saturday and then having everyone walking around drop dead; that would be less than the body count for most of these. It blows my mind that things like that could be taken so far. It doesn’t make me ashamed to be human though, we all have cabin fever and it takes just a bit for us to really snap.
24. Ghidoran - August 21st, 2008 at 5:51 am
The picture for no.1 is sad
25. Patrona - August 21st, 2008 at 6:05 am
no israel???
26. Randall - August 21st, 2008 at 6:29 am
I don’t know about *you,* Egg, but when *I* snap, I clench my fists and slam doors. I don’t take a scimitar or a Mauser and butcher the neighbors.
Of course, there *is* something to this business of people losing it and going out of control–but that’s bloodlust, so called. What spurs people to kill in the first place–or rather, what makes killing on this scale possible, is de-humanization. When we dehumanize and devalue fellow human beings, we can reach a stage in our minds when a switch clicks, and they no longer *are* human to us, but instead are mere things, or animals.
This happens more often than we think. We’re used to reading these stories of massacres and atrocities and thinking to ourselves, “oh good lord… HOW?” But we shouldn’t fail to remember that this very same thing happens in wartime. And psychologically we aren’t even aware of it, sometimes. We view the opposition as “the enemy” and gradually they cease to be human beings–they’re demonized and dehumanized until they are just… things. To quote Herman Wouk in “The Caine Mutiny,” (if I can recall this quote correctly) when Wouk is describing the thought processes of the young Ensign on board the Caine, he says that “he had come to view the Japanese as an invasion of some kind of army of ants.”
This is a common refrain in wartime (take a look at the essays and histories of Paul Fussell for more lumination on this subject). There is another WWII memoirist who describes the feelings of his comrades fighting in the horrific island warfare in the Pacific, and how they viewed the Japanese as a species of “pest,” that needed to be exterminated. And make no mistake that the Japanese viewed Americans, British, Australians, Dutch, Chinese, and Filipinos the same way. This explains, in part, the atrocities committed against Allied prisoners by the Japanese, of course, and explains how American soldiers, in turn, viewed slaughtering Japanese soldiers without a second thought as no more an issue than we would think when we step on an anthill. Naturally, this same mode of thought occurred in the European war as well, though of course racial differences can help cement dehumanizing attitudes more quickly and deeply. In fact “differences” of any kind can help in this–language, religion, etc. Race, being a quick visual cue, of course, is quickest of all.
We see this today, with how we, in the West, are now viewing Arabs, for instance…
Anyway, seeing this, recognizing it, helps one understand how war itself is an atrocity–that it isn’t the atrocities that occur IN war that make it bad–but rather it is WAR that causes the atrocities.
Same goes for massacres like this. The only difference is that it isn’t nations (in most of these cases) attacking nations, but simply groups of people attacking other groups of people. But the causes and mechanisms are exactly the same.
If we want to stop this kind of thing, we need to fight the human impulse to dehumanize and devalue our fellow men and women, no matter who they are.
27. Catsy - August 21st, 2008 at 6:39 am
Armenian genocide by the Turkish?
28. Rosa - August 21st, 2008 at 6:46 am
Wow.. I consider myself pretty massacre-savvy, but I only knew like 4 of these…
Great list! I learned something today.
29. dischuker - August 21st, 2008 at 6:53 am
jack deth: #16 the attitude we need to take is not that other people could carry such acts, but that you and i could carry out such acts.
“there, but for the grace of God, go i” - john bradford
30. psychosurfer - August 21st, 2008 at 6:53 am
How about this jewel?
http://www.answers.com/topic/w.....e-alliance
90% of the male population!!!
Shame on us.
31. ylekiot - August 21st, 2008 at 7:05 am
Well spoken Randall I don’t agree with all of your post “war itself is an atrocity”, 9 & 10 were not wars. That said the end is a gem.
32. Randall - August 21st, 2008 at 7:13 am
ylekiot:
Thank you. But what I meant was that the *mindset* that makes war the atrocity it is is the same mindset that makes massacres possible. I pointed out that not all of these massacres didn’t occur in wartime, but that doesn’t matter. The point is that war or no, these issue from the same frame of mind that make war the brutal and horrific thing it is.
33. kadirhan - August 21st, 2008 at 7:22 am
“Armenian genocide by the Turkish?”
How can I explain this situation ? I’m living in İstanbul / Turkiye… I have a lot of Armenian friends and I love them very very much. You know what ? Even they accept that there is no genocide ! But all of us accept that, “yeah, very very bad things happened, like busting villages, carnages and horrible conflicts.. Russians provaketed Armenians, Turks protected their homeland hard ”
How many Armenians died ?
A lot of…
Maybe thousands….
But not 1.5 million ! In 1915 the population of Armenians were not 1 million…
There are a lot things to say… But please not take sides… Please do not look from one side…
If you want to learn something…
http://www.armeniangenocidedebate.com
34. Christine - August 21st, 2008 at 7:22 am
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BY THE TURKS! SHOULD DEFINITLY BE ON THIS!!
35. rushfan - August 21st, 2008 at 7:25 am
A massacre is not the same as a genocide, people.
36. rushfan - August 21st, 2008 at 7:29 am
Well, I guess they’re pretty much the same, but generally genocide is on a much larger scale.
37. ylekiot - August 21st, 2008 at 7:29 am
After rereading you post I must apologise.
38. MzFly - August 21st, 2008 at 7:34 am
I think the “mindset” we see in cases like this is simply massive scale insanity. Fear and Paranoia are diseases and they are unfortunately highly contagious.
I do think that taking ownership of atrocities, such as this is a large part of changing those “mindsets”. Once that has been done, however, forgiveness rests on the shoulders of the victims and thier families. Forgiveness is just as important as the sincerest apology.
39. Catsy - August 21st, 2008 at 7:37 am
@ kadirhan
I’m not trying to say that it absolutely happened. I have no way of proving anything, but the debate is out there as your link shows.
40. Randall - August 21st, 2008 at 7:40 am
kadirhan:
Ohhhhh, kadirhan… if my ex-girlfriend, who was half-Armenian, (and of an intelligence that makes *me* look like Baby Huey) were here now… you wouldn’t get out of this web site without being battered to pieces.
And I myself am part Greek, kadirhan, so I wouldn’t feel at all bad to have her go at you.
From the great sage, Cecil Adams:
“The story of the Armenian extermination has filled books and resists easy summary. Suffice it to say that successive Ottoman and Turkish governments using the machinery of state organized a campaign of ethnic cleansing in which hundreds of thousands of Armenian men, women, and children were shot, beheaded, burned alive, or otherwise done away with. Thousands more succumbed to starvation or disease, and still more were driven into exile.
What had the Armenians done to deserve all this? Not much–their main offense was to be a Christian minority in a crumbling Islamic empire. Like another much-persecuted Middle Eastern ethnic group whose sufferings are better known, the Armenians had an ancient language and culture plus a reputation for clannishness and a knack for finance, and they became the target of a similar type of unreasoning bigotry.
A massacre of 15,000 to 25,000 Armenians in 1909 set the table for the main event during World War I. Blaming the supposedly disloyal Christian minority for an early defeat by the Russians, the Turkish government starting in 1915 rounded up Armenians throughout the country, murdered vast numbers outright and deported the rest, with many dying on forced marches or in refugee camps. The brutal work was carried out by an elaborate bureaucracy that some historians consider a model for the extermination program of the Nazis. Add in a couple of additional massacres in the early 1920s and the Armenian death toll for 1915-1922 totals a million to a million and a half.”
So don’t give me your Turkish revisionism and history re-writing, kadirhan. Sorry, but it won’t wash, not by a damn site.
41. Cedestra - August 21st, 2008 at 7:51 am
It’s so mind-numbingly sad to see these, especially, as pointed out, that many on this list occurred recently in history. You’d think by now we’d become civilized enough to forgo the senseless slaughter of thousands of people in one fell swoop.
Did I read #2 correctly? They killed prisoners? Like, Holocaust survivors? People who had been beaten and starved literally almost to death, they killed those people? Sick- sick, sick sick.
Randall- I suspect much of that sentiment has to do with the Japanese tenant of “united we stand, divided we fall”- that strong sense of teamwork over individuality.
42. Randall - August 21st, 2008 at 8:02 am
Cedestra:
“Did I read #2 correctly? They killed prisoners? Like, Holocaust survivors?”
Not quite. These were the prisoners of the Soviet forces and the NKVD (the predecessor of the KGB) who had been rounded up by the Russians when they’d invaded Poland in concert with Nazi Germany in 1939. We must remember that at that time, Hitler and Stalin were allies, and the two countries had partitioned Poland between them. That poor nation, therefore, had to suffer the horrors of being hacked apart by TWO totalitarian monsters.
As the Nazis were rounding up Polish prisoners from not only the military but the intelligentsia, so were the Russians doing the same in Eastern Poland. As part of this campaign, the Russians had simultaneously invaded the Baltic states as part of their own expansionism program. Thus the Russians had their own concentration camps (though not as methodical as those of the Nazis) in Eastern Poland and elsewhere… and when Hitler turned on Stalin and invaded eastern Poland and Russia, in 1940, the Russians pulled back, slaughtering their own prisoners as they left. This is the massacre referred to here.
“I suspect much of that sentiment has to do with the Japanese tenant of “united we stand, divided we fall”- that strong sense of teamwork over individuality.”
Some, but we must never discount ourselves from that same kind of mindset simply because we’re more individualistic. Their were atrocities going on on *both* sides during WWII, as there are in ALL wars. It is the dehumanization and demonization of the enemy that makes this possible.
43. JayArr - August 21st, 2008 at 8:07 am
Oh man, you should have seen the bass massacre of 1989! We landed 137 bass in less than 4 hours - oh boy, what a fish fry we had!!
44. JayArr - August 21st, 2008 at 8:22 am
On the serious note, numbers 10, 6, 3 and 2 are well-known to me. Enough on this depressing topic…
45. stevenh - August 21st, 2008 at 8:33 am
Randall,
thank you for your excellent reply to kadirhan.
just the thought of there being a ‘debate’ on the question of what to call the Turks killing untold Armenians (’masacre vs genocide’) is sickening.
abhishek:
good list. not sure about the ‘lesser known’ part, but is guess thats a relative term.
46. segue - August 21st, 2008 at 8:35 am
Fantastic work on the list, abhishek.
Probably because I’ve been a history buff since grammar school, I was aware of all of these massacres, but being aware does not take away one iota of shock and sadness.
One important thing to keep in mind is that all of these atrocities were carried out in a crowd. That crowd was, for whichever reason, was in a state of frenzy.
**This in no way excuses the behavior, it only set’s a stage.**
No normal human being, on his own, can act in this fashion. Put him in a group, give that group a “cause”, fire them up with crazed rhetoric, and you have created a killing machine.
In war, a similar, but slightly different mechanism is at work, because the danger to life, family and property is real. That explains the defensive actions, including killing of invaders. What it doesn’t explain is taking that defense far beyond winning ones safety to decimating ones fallen enemy.
Humans are an odd bunch.
47. Cedestra - August 21st, 2008 at 8:38 am
Randall: Ah, thanks for the clarification. Doesn’t make it any better, but I would have felt more sickened had my original presumption been true.
In the second part, I was referring to the fact that the Germans have owned up to their share of the war, but the Japanese refuse to (or most refuse to). I meant that they don’t want to because they want to show a solidarity and admitting fault would be weakening that.
48. icarusfoundyou - August 21st, 2008 at 8:52 am
ah a nice jolly list to cheer me up
49. Randall - August 21st, 2008 at 8:56 am
Cedestra:
re: your take on the Japanese:
Maybe, yes… at any rate, the Japanese seem unwilling to come to terms with themselves, as a people.
50. bry the creep - August 21st, 2008 at 9:00 am
i got a 10″ cheesesteak for lunch yesterday. I massacred that thing. i think guns ‘n roses cover of knockin’ on heavens door was a real massacre.
51. GraceM - August 21st, 2008 at 9:01 am
When I saw the title of this list my first impulse was to delete. And fast. But reason prevailed and I read it. Most of these I was aware of, some are new to me. It’s probably wrong to say that this is a great list - the subject precludes its greatness - but it is a necessary one. Well done. Thank you.
52. pwnstar - August 21st, 2008 at 9:17 am
What about the Argentinian self war? The estimate of those killed (most after being horribly tortured) were about 30,000.
53. Deziner - August 21st, 2008 at 9:30 am
Although the events of this list are beyond horrific,they are only an infinitesimal fraction of the suffering of humans that the Earth has born witness to. Warfare, tyranny, natural disaster, pandemic and epidemic illness, starvation, and all of the secondary death from these calamities. And then, the despair of the survivors…
This list has brought a wave of echoes ringing in my ears and mind. I can only resolve myself to hope for the future.
Thank-you??
54. Peter Gerbolka - August 21st, 2008 at 9:49 am
I find the silence deafening on the genocides committed on
the Ukrainian people by the regime of the Russian/Soviet
empire. Just in the 20th century alone tens of millions of
innocent Ukrainian souls were savagely murdered, tortured, and sent to gulags to die horribly. The Holodomor(genocide by
hunger) in 1932-1933 eliminated 7-10 millions Ukrainians. During World War II, at least six(6) million Ukrainians lost their lives. Also millions of Ukrainians died during the soviet pruges during the 1920’s and 1930’s. To ignore and even dismiss these genocides is truly a crime against humanity!
55. YogiBarrister - August 21st, 2008 at 10:18 am
Segue #46, good point about mob mentality. I’ve never felt comfortable in a crowd, even amongst people who are on my side. For example, I love sports, but don’t understand the irrational passion that fans(short for fanatics) feel for a particular outcome. I’m a lone wolf, or more accurately, a bonobo living in a chimpanzee world. BTW humans are an odd bunch all right, but did you know that chimps kill each other at a much higher rate? About 10% I believe, die from unnatural causes. Cain is a direct descendant from killer chimps, LONG LIVE THE BONOBOS!
56. Blogball - August 21st, 2008 at 10:23 am
This is a sobering list and makes me count my blessings.
The words “lesser known” is of course subjective according to where you live, what your ancestry is and how mush you know about history. One person’s lesser known massacre is another person’s greatest known massacre. I think abhishek was going for “lesser known” for the majority of people around the world and did a good job with it.
57. Sheldon Roy - August 21st, 2008 at 10:46 am
i think there needs to be another one of these lists. Even I know a few others.
58. goof_ball - August 21st, 2008 at 11:48 am
interesting list. kinda sad though
59. sdggrant - August 21st, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Sadly, i knew of all these massacres
sad stuff.
I think the massacre of the Armenians at the hands of the Turks shoulid have an honorable mention. Some say a million armenians were slaughtered and yet the turks deny it, even with shitlods of evidence under their noses.
If you live down in the Los Angeles area thousands of Armenians stage a protest at the Turkish embassy every year, I went there one year with an armenian friend.
60. Blacknimbus - August 21st, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I might have included the Mountain Meadows Massacre. It certainly qualifies as ‘lesser known’. And it’s an interesting and shocking bit of history as well.
61. sdggrant - August 21st, 2008 at 12:09 pm
So kadirhan, your defense of the Armenian genocide is that it was “OK” because only thousands died, and not millions. You are a sick, sick pig.
62. Brickhouse - August 21st, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I am so interested in things like this (not the actual deaths but more the human psyche). Thank you for this list.
63. Anon - August 21st, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Yogibarrister, (55),
“Segue #46, good point about mob mentality. I’ve never felt comfortable in a crowd, even amongst people who are on my side. For example, I love sports, but don’t understand the irrational passion that fans(short for fanatics) feel for a particular outcome. I’m a lone wolf, or more accurately, a bonobo living in a chimpanzee world. BTW humans are an odd bunch all right, but did you know that chimps kill each other at a much higher rate? About 10% I believe, die from unnatural causes. Cain is a direct descendant from killer chimps, LONG LIVE THE BONOBOS!”
We seem to be two eggs out of the same nest (or basket). If it weren’t for the fact that two’s a crowd, we might even get together! I nearly always feel an internal barrier going up when I’m in the presence of surrendering individual rational self-control to the mindless collective mentality. There have been some extremely rare times of provocation, such as at soccer matches after an absolutely atrocious referee decision, that I’ve caved in and added my voice to the eldritch blood-howls. Then, just for a moment, I too have experienced that terrifying mob elation and sense of invincibility; and it has scared the living shit out of me.
The great naturalist Ed (E. O.) Wilson has pointed out that compared with the rest of nature which is organised into societies, humans are amazingly *tame*. As ants (his field) we would be at constant non-stop global warfare, nation-to-nation. Without doubt, given our current technology, we would recently have gone extinct to nuclear MAD. He asks us to try to imagine ourselves as millions of chimps setting up, maintaining and running a vast and overall day-by-day peaceable and co-operative metropolis such as NY.
Violence can only possibly be justified as our very, very last-ditch self-defence. I feel we need to get to the evolutionary root and inherited psychology of what it is that drives us to turn it into needless up-front outbreaks of extermination of our own kind. Chimps do indeed do the same: they may hold the key. Until we understand the cause, I fear there may be little chance of tackling the effect.
I find Africa strangely unrepresented. I don’t doubt we’re aware mindblowing massacres have happened there. But do we know on whom by who, where and when?
I know Turkey very well. I’ve had lovely Turkish friends in the past and would still now if I hadn’t stopped working there many moons ago. I also had Turkish-Cypriot friends and understand their anger at the way the world tossed them to another culture that despised them and wanted to displace them, by force if necessary. But I find the Turkish nation as a whole has a similarly aggressive-defensive mindset to that of the Japanese as described above. It took one of their German allies in WW1 to respond and recoil with horror at what was happening to the Armenians. In a crude nutshell, the Turks believed that all Armenians were Russian *fifth columnists*, which *justified removing them from the scene*. Have you seen those historic photos of rows of Armenians being mass-hanged? I have had, and still have, even more friends in many places resulting from the Armenian diaspora.
I hope and want to believe that at least the majority of my fellow Englishmen wouldn’t deny or excuse any blatant killing my nation has committed in the past in such places as Ireland, Scotland, India, Southern Africa and the Sudan. I would, though, press in ALL casesfor proper historical and a certain geographical perspective rather than cozy, self-riteous hindsight. After all, we don’t expect two sets of New Guinea head-hunters scrapping in the past to have been guided by the Geneva Convention.
64. Anon - August 21st, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Sorry about the chaotic syntax in the last paragraph
65. THEKID - August 21st, 2008 at 12:52 pm
That last one shocked me. How horrible–they’re all children in that picture.
66. Randall - August 21st, 2008 at 12:56 pm
THEKID:
You don’t know the half of it.
67. jfrater - August 21st, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Peter Gerbolka: I have certainly not ignored the genocide against the Ukranians by the Communist Russians - in fact, I ranked Stalin as the number 1 most evil man in the world (more so than Hitler) largely because of that. It surprises me that so many people think Hitler’s death toll is the largest in history - Stalin nearly doubled it!
68. jfrater - August 21st, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Blacknimbus (60): I thought of that when I first read the list. The Mountain Meadows Massacre has been included on another list - I think it was one of the Mormon lists.
69. Anon - August 21st, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I have a terrible, terrifying rider to add. A Horseman of the Apocalypse rider.
Limited massacres repel us and fill us with speechless horror, but achieve little else in the long run. Genocide, a form of extinction, actually works.
Turkey has a Kurdish problem, but not an Armenian problem, note. (Although in fact Turkey does not recognise the existence of the words ‘Kurd’ and ‘Kurdish’. The ethnic entity concerned is officially known as ‘Turkish mountain people’.)
General Rosas virtually rid Argentina of Indians (well, the *troublesome* ones, at least) by a ruthless military campaign. Those who have read ‘The Voyage of the Beagle’ will have noted Darwin’s encounter with this event. So while we in Chile have a forceful and *inconvenient* movement by our Mapuches (still counted by the million) in pursuit of what they consider to be their traditional rights, including reclaiming ancestral lands, Argentina has no more than the minutest pinprick of the same. Chile did not wipe out her native populations, they were more or less integrated, or incorporated by interbreeding into the national bloodstock.
Those are just two examples I happen to know a wee bit about.
70. Mom424 - August 21st, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Anon: Although I agree with the sentiment, I do believe a better analogy could have been used in your plea for historical and geographical perspective. New Guinea headhunters never perpetrated the type of atrocities on this list. Headhunters get a bad rap; they never objectified their enemies, nor engaged in a mob mentality.
To quote the mighty wiki -
“Anthropological writings exist on the Ilongot, Iban, Dayak, Berawan, Wana, and Mappurondo tribes. Among these groups, headhunting was usually a ritual activity rather than an act of war or feuding and involved the taking of a single head. Headhunting acted as a catalyst for the cessation of personal and collective mourning for the community’s dead. Ideas of manhood were encompassed in the practice, and the taken heads were prized.”
On second thought, maybe not such a bad analogy - it illustrates your point perfectly. Intentionally or not.
71. Anon - August 21st, 2008 at 1:39 pm
jfrater, (67),
With you all the way on Stalin. What also makes him far more chilling for me is that it was all done *for the good of mankind* (well, the downtrodden worker section of mankind). Hitler couldn’t be bothered to cover up his evil intentions. Rather he publicised them.
72. Mom424 - August 21st, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Abhishek; Thank you for the well written and informative list.
Horrifying what can happen when a group of people fail to recognize the humanity in those of differing race, religion, or culture. It saddens me that in the 21st century we have made so little progress. Darfur, Bosnia, Somalia, The Middle East. There are far too many current examples that would fit quite comfortably into this list.
And the attitude behind these types of atrocities? Far too common as well. Even in supposed free, fair, and democratic countries. When will we learn to treat people as individuals? All people, not just the ones that look and act the same as us. I fear never.
73. jfrater - August 21st, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Mom424: sadly you are probably right - I certainly don’t see any evidence in society today that would suggest we are getting better.
74. Nelia - August 21st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Very interesting, very sad list. I like the fact that you included atrocities from several different time periods. Reminds us that this is not a purely modern, or purely historical problem.
75. Vera Lynn - August 21st, 2008 at 3:14 pm
I read this list hours and hours ago. Just now able to come here and read everyone’s comments again.
This saddens me to my bones. I knew of some of these, but not 5,7,9 and I know many, many people who have been affected, devestated, and incapacitated.
I knew one boy who had seen his father beheaded in Bosnia. He did nothing but shake. Literally.
I have hundreds of stories. I could go on and on. But Im not that strong to go there. I almost feel like I should. That their stories deserve to be told. Their voices heard.
76. sanasunshine. - August 21st, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I learned about number one in school,
and our teacher was really.. interested in it.
He put together this huge slideshow of pictures on the projector.
It was horrible what they did to the people, especially the children and women.
I’ve only heard of a few of the others,
but it’s still sad that there’s SO many massacres and genocides.
77. Glowbug - August 21st, 2008 at 4:03 pm
You call the Rape of Nanking a “lesser known” massacre?! Egad, what has happened to the history instruction in schools today?!?!
It was one of the most horrific incidents of the 20th Century, made all the worse by the fact that it was commited by a civilization that prides itself (justifiably) on it’s elegance and decorum. Isn’t this taught in school any more?
78. seeker - August 21st, 2008 at 4:07 pm
What I think would be interesting is to associate each of these, and the more well known massacres, with their root ideologies, and see which have killed the most. Up top there seem to be atheistic communism, darwinist eugenics (Hitler), Islam, and perhaps lastly, the Catholics (though many conflicts in their name were political and ethnic in nature, not really church led).
79. Anon - August 21st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Mom, (70),
Quite intentionally. Thanks for saving me the explanation!
Absurd contrasts often best make a point.
80. Anon - August 21st, 2008 at 4:29 pm
seeker (but not finder), (78),
“darwinist eugenics (Hitler)”
Oh, no. Not this gobshite all over again. Jfrater: when the whole round of an argument that’s already been played out on another topic starts up again, couldn’t you just copy out the sequence from earlier and save us all? I’m sure the careful academics and scientists in LV don’t want to go through this whole bloody idiocy all over again, repeating what they’ve already set out. Surely nor do the rest wish to join in or read it for the umteenth time.
JEWS, THE CHOSEN PEOPLE. dARWINIST EUGENICS.
Well there’s some alkali for you to neutralise the acid.
81. Anon - August 21st, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Sorry about that repetitive fistful of *all over again*s, but it is.
82. seeker - August 21st, 2008 at 4:31 pm
LOL, evolutionists are so sensitive to the foibles of their creation myth
83. jfrater - August 21st, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Anon: I try to make as little extra work as possible for myself - if you know where it played out you can paste a link to it
84. Bill - August 21st, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Great list! No Dade Massacre?
85. Anderi - August 21st, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Gruesome list.
I have to say though that Nanking and Srebrenica aren’t really lesser known massacres.
I distinctly remember Srebrenica being all over the news after it was discovered and what can you say about Nanking?…
It’s one of the foremost reasons why many older Chinese despise the Japanese.
I’m also curious as to how much extra security the Japanese Olympic team has in Beijing at the moment?…
86. Vera Lynn - August 21st, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Glowbug (77)
No it’s not. Very rarely does history or “social studies” make it into the 20th century. The Holocaust is taught as a separate entity, so it skips over time.
87. Anon - August 21st, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Jfrater,
So do I. If the skunk stinks I’ll follow the obvious solution. Avoid it.
88. MPW - August 21st, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Interesting and saddening list. Everyone should learn about these.
89. Anon - August 21st, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Iran has *officially* denied that the Holocaust took place (to eliminate sympathy for Israel, and remove a reason for a Jewish homeland). Does that still hold, can anyone say?
Also, am I right in remembering that an alarming number of present-day young people, even in Europe, think it’s some kind of fiction that didn’t actually happen in real life?
90. Alicia - August 21st, 2008 at 11:33 pm
I knew about 6 of these- whoohoo AP world.
91. CRSN - August 21st, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Great list abhishek, just goes to show that we haven’t learnt through out the centuries to stop this stuff and how brutal the human species can be towards each other
I know that over in Japan, there’s a culture with in the younger generations that actually wear Nazi paraphernalia because they think its fashionable, naivety will be the death of us all if we don’t learn from these atrocities.
92. CRSN - August 21st, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Reading through some of the comments particuly #77 and #86 it seems with the education systems in a lot of countries dont cover these incidents or anything of the matter.
its sad, in hindsight, that we have the ability to be able to research these historical events on the internet to educate/entertain our minds, but everyone is so caught up with their own lives and as long as it doesnt effect them, they dont care.
For children not to be introduced to history like these massacres just because they are deemed not safe for school is crap, society has gotten too used to individuals dictating what kind of history should be taught if any, and by doing that you end up with naive world, and thats when people start denying things like the Holocuast happening, because its just an old Germanic wives tale.
93. Nejikun - August 22nd, 2008 at 12:07 am
I’d heard of Srebrenica, Babi Yar, and the rape of Nanking.
94. krchuk - August 22nd, 2008 at 12:26 am
I always tell my kids and anyone who wants to listen - it’s hard to be good, much easier to be bad, and that is our daily human struggle that we must master and overcome in order to be a higher being. What a sad and sorry lot we are and history will keep repeating itself.
95. doink - August 22nd, 2008 at 12:44 am
I can’t believe the Japanese did such a thing. We should bomb them again.
96. CRSN - August 22nd, 2008 at 12:46 am
doink - its thinking like that which created these atrocities. THINK
97. doink - August 22nd, 2008 at 1:09 am
What they did is pleasure killing. What I suggested is justice.
98. CRSN - August 22nd, 2008 at 1:18 am
An eye for an eye will make the world go blind - sound familiar.
first Pearl Harbour, then Hiroshima, not right is it?
99. doink - August 22nd, 2008 at 1:28 am
An eye for an eye will make the world go blind - sounds lame. What it would do is blind the wicked and give sight to the deserving. Oh and we apologized for Hiroshima so that makes everything better.
100. CRSN - August 22nd, 2008 at 1:41 am
obviously an unworldly kind of person, if you think it sounds lame, look up the origins, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
And in regards to the Hiroshima apology, correct, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place just like all that’s on the list.
And to blind the wicked and give sight to the deserving, what a crock of shit; that would imply that the world is full of people with multiple personalities.
101. astraya - August 22nd, 2008 at 1:49 am
I’ve come in late to this, partly because I’ve been preoccupied with unpopular movies and partly because I avoid confronting ideas. I doubt if there’s much that I can add that other people haven’t already said.
The thing that always stuns me is the sheer scale of these events. I can’t imagine 100s of thousands or millions of people, let alone dead bodies. I guess this is one aspect of this that leads to denial or reduction.
Killing on this scale is only possible once you have dehumanised or lesser-humanised or non-individualised the others. Killing “the Hun” is quite easy. Killing “Hansel and Gretel” is quite hard (unless you are a wicked witch).
Something else: I don’t know the background to many of these, but quite often the two groups had lived in anywhere between peaceful coexistence to simmering hostility, then something sparks them off.
Today is the anniversary of the Korea-Japan annexation treaty of 1910, which was basically forced on the Korean emperor. Korea also suffered under Japan, though not in the numbers as in China (simply because there aren’t as many). Koreans took on sport as a way of getting their own back at the occupiers. Koreans still love to beat Japan in anything. Intriguingly, Korea and Japan were playing today in an Olympic baseball semifinal. In the eighth, it was 2-2, then Korea broke away to win 6-2. (I hope that doesn’t trivialise what is a very dark history.)
Koreans still hate the Japanese. One discussion book had a chapter about Korea-Japan relations, and what the students said made what is left of my hair stand on end.
102. doink - August 22nd, 2008 at 1:52 am
CRSN: “that would imply that the world is full of people with multiple personalities”
Bingo.
103. k1w1taxi - August 22nd, 2008 at 2:08 am
CSRN (92)
Reading through some of the comments particuly #77 and #86 it seems with the education systems in a lot of countries don’t cover these incidents or anything of the matter.
Don’t know where you live CSRN, but here in New Zealand one of the problems with the History curriculum is that for many years it consisted of almost exclusively English History with very little NZ history taught (James Cook’s discovery voyage quite literally covered NZ history when I was at school). Eventually (about late 70’s early 80’s) the cry of why do we have to learn about the lineage of the English Monarchy or the Magna Carta when we are taught nothing about what is relevant to *US* as a country/people. Consequently the curriculum was revised to be much more NZ centric and cover our three islands and world events largely only as they affected us (Hence WW2 covers more of the North African/Italian campaigns than other larger issues regarding the War and it’s various campaigns, atrocities etc.)
I suspect this pattern of self centred history is probably quite common throughout large parts of the world. Not perhaps a good thing but apparently there is only so much time to teach everything kids need to know these days (yes there is just the smallest bit of sarcasm intended)
Cheers
Lee
104. k1w1taxi - August 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 am
doink (99)
An eye for an eye will make the world go blind - sounds lame. What it would do is blind the wicked and give sight to the deserving.
And who are the wicked and who the deserving?
Cheers
Lee
105. doink - August 22nd, 2008 at 2:20 am
k1w1taxi:
Those who initiated the crime would be the wicked. Those who do nothing but make money within the accepted system without question would be the deserving.
106. Mike Hunt - August 22nd, 2008 at 3:10 am
Holocaust included ALL ethnic and various groups killed during WW2.
For some reason the term is ONLY associated with the Jews. But Gays, Handicapped, Ukrainians, Catholics, so on are all victims of the HOLOCAUST.
More Ukrainians were killed during and immediately after WW2 than Jews. Despite the death camp statistics on Jews being revised downward the six million total is never lowered.
107. Mike Hunt - August 22nd, 2008 at 3:16 am
Now here is a ruler
“However, on July 29, 1014 at Kleidion (or Belasitsa) (present day Blagoevgrad Province), Basil II was able to corner the main Bulgarian army and force a battle while Samuil was away. He won a crushing victory and, according to later legend[13], blinded 14,000 prisoners, leaving one man in every hundred with the sight in one eye to lead his comrades home. According to the legend, the sight of this atrocity was too much even for Samuil, who blamed himself for the defeat and died less than three months later, on October 6. Although the story is probably a later invention, it did give rise to the nickname by which Basil II was known from the 12th century onwards: the ‘Bulgar-slayer’.[13]”
108. Marino - August 22nd, 2008 at 4:58 am
well … few of them …
isn’t Hiroshima and Nagasaki more than qualified for that list … and Bleiburg when english officers sent back more than 200000 peoples (defeated army and civilians in much greater number) to communists which are then killed most of them in next few weeks?
109. Dadeaux - August 22nd, 2008 at 5:25 am
If you want to learn more about the Baby Yar massacre, D.M. Thomas’s novel “The White Hotel” is well recommended. Not for the faint of heart, however!
110. Dine - August 22nd, 2008 at 5:41 am
Most of known masacres are not on the list, like :
1. Masacres French soldiers on Algerian civils and soldiers on 1960 -th
2. Masacres Italian soldiers on Libyan civilis on 1939
3. Masacres in GUERNICA by German and Franco Airplans
4. Masacres in Afganistan by USA Soldiers and Nort Troops
5. Masacres on Nort Amrerican Indians by USA Army ( from 1800 - 1900 )
6. Masacres on Muslim in Krim , and Chechenya by Stalin troop after II world war
7. Masacres by Palestinian refuges in Sabra and Shatila in Libanon by Israel force
8. Hiroshima and Nagasaki by USA AIR FORCE
9. Masacres on Aliende party member by general PINOCHE in CHILE
10. and more …….
Must be a real to get all information to give correct result.
111. rushfan - August 22nd, 2008 at 5:50 am
“Most of known masacres are not on the list”
You’re joking, right? Did you not read the list title? *Lesser* known is right there, in the title. It sorta implies “most known massacres” just might not be on the list.
112. Randall - August 22nd, 2008 at 6:42 am
astraya:
There was a Korean grad student here (actually several) that I befriended a while back… very nice kid, great sense of humor. One day we somehow got onto the topic and I mentioned that my uncle was killed in the Korean War. He became sad and seemed very sorry, and I had to convince him that it was my uncle’s own fault–he’d survived WWII from D-Day to the end of Germany, and he’d gone and re-activated his commission at the start of the Korean War, against the protests of my father, who’d said the family had done their duty for their country, (my father and two of his brothers had served in WWII) that it was time for someone else to step in. My uncle ignored him… and was killed. It wasn’t the fault of the Korean people, not even the North Koreans who killed him (or Chinese for all we know). He’d decided to risk his life again, when it wasn’t necessary to do so.
At this the Korean student asked where my uncles and father had fought in WWII, and when I mentioned that most of them had fought in the Pacific against the Japanese, there was a distinct pick-up in his mood and a gleam in his eye… and I think he said something like, “very good.”
113. urbishat - August 22nd, 2008 at 7:26 am
And for the Very first place you forgot the United States Massacre of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The most effective massacre and genocyde in the history of human civilisation.
140.000 Killed in Hiroshima in 10 seconds, and 80.000 In Nagasaki in 10 seconds.
Bravo.
114. Randall - August 22nd, 2008 at 7:37 am
urbishat:
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate military targets in the most terrible and bloody war in human history. Both cities housed military bases and installations (Hiroshima was home to a large part of the Japanese Navy and a large army group was stationed there–we killed thousands of them with the bomb). Moreover, Japanese war production was honeycombed throughout their cities “cottage industry” style, making it extremely difficult to pick out purely industrial targets from what was purely civilian.
Many MORE Japanese were killed in *conventional* bombing raids–in single nights–in Tokyo and Yokohoma, and other cities, than were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Furthermore, these bombs brought a speedy and decisive end to a war which the United States DID NOT start but was forced upon it by a Japanese sneak attack.
“Genocide” refers to the deliberate slaughter of an ENTIRE particular ethnic or religious group with the intent of doing away with that group completely. It does not in the least apply to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
WWII was, however, a war between PEOPLES, and as such the most horrible war in human history. You are belittling it and speaking childishly and ignorantly by trying to phrase ONE atrocity within it as worthy of some particular heinousness, when in fact the ENTIRE WAR itself was a gigantic atrocity and the most terrible one in all of human history.
115. JayArr - August 22nd, 2008 at 7:44 am
Randall(114) - I could not have said it better myself…
116. Anon - August 22nd, 2008 at 8:35 am
Randall, (114),
You know you have the usual support (and surely the same antagonism).
Apropos: see 80, 83 & 87.
I’m just losing too much time singing the same songs, but full of admiration for your worthy, persistent ability to defend the mature and broadminded viewpoints.
117. logar - August 22nd, 2008 at 9:13 am
114-116
Are we in the minority in this opinion? Seems like one of these people pop up at any excuse to call the bombings a massacre of innocents, a war crime, a holocaust, or whatever. I hope to God that these are not a representative sample of youth/foreign opinion on the subject. To think that some of these people would put the bombings on the same list as the rape of Nanking… Makes me sad.
118. Anon - August 22nd, 2008 at 9:42 am
logar, (117),
Slight suggested modification of your syntax:
for *pop up* sub *pop out of the woodwork*.
119. logar - August 22nd, 2008 at 9:47 am
114-116
Are we in the minority in this opinion? Seems like one of these people pop out of the woodwork at any excuse to call the bombings a massacre of innocents, a war crime, a holocaust, or whatever. I hope to God that these are not a representative sample of youth/foreign opinion on the subject. To think that some of these people would put the bombings on the same list as the rape of Nanking… Makes me sad.
120. Randall - August 22nd, 2008 at 10:12 am
logar:
I think it’s typical of people who have no experience of war, either directly or indirectly through relatives, and thus, sitting fat and happy in their privileged and rarified air, they feel free to pass judgement without caring to know the facts or experience as it is in reality. If you took these little brats and forced them into uniform (as many were in WWII) and forced them into combat against the Japanese in say, Saipan or Iwo Jima or Okinawa (I had uncles at a couple of these) so they could be witness to the horrors of it, to see their friends shot apart before their very eyes, to see heads and faces blown off, intestines spilled, hand to hand combat with an enemy that fights with insane zealotry, who booby-traps his own dead and wounded in order to maim or kill more American soldiers, or pretends to surrender so he can then blow himself up with a grenade, taking a few Americans with him…. then I *guarantee* that these brats, whoever they are, would soon lose their own humanity in due course, and begin killing Japanese with the same zeal and unbridled hatred that American soldiers and marines did in fact fall to, in those terrible days. And begin committing the atrocities which both sides committed–maiming bodies, torturing the wounded, collecting ghastly “souvenirs” from their bodies, etc. etc. AND THEN, THEN, when they’d been through this horror DAY AFTER DAY for months… feeling the terror daily of potentially losing their lives or being torn apart by the enemy–witnessing daily horrors such as corpses of both friend and foe rotting in the mud and dysentery ridden jungle pits and creeks—THEN, for them to hear that two atom bombs had been dropped on Japan, and that this had ENDED the war–and the brats would now get to LIVE, and no longer have to witness these terrible things and DO these terrible things—you can bet you ass they’d change their tune about it. There’s no question of it. None.
A thoughtful man realizes that Hiroshima and Nagasaki WERE horrors, WERE atrocities in a sense–as ALL war is atrocity and horror. But to JUDGE it as some kind of particular massacre or “genocide” the way these idiots have done–like Arek over in the other thread or this guy here–is silly and childish and naively moralistic.
But on the other hand, I sincerely hope these brats never have to learn FIRSTHAND how wrong they were. It’d be the most wonderful thing of all, if such a war never, ever happens again. I’ll trade that for their naive, blissful ignorance and self-righteous moralizing in regards to thing which they know nothing about.
121. jasenovac - August 22nd, 2008 at 10:47 am
jebao vam HITLER mater
122. Anon - August 22nd, 2008 at 11:36 am
Randall, (120)
Better and far more graphically and gut-wrenchingly put than the similar *shortie/quickie* I have just offered over on *the other thread*.
123. Anon - August 22nd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
But Randall,
I’m sure you could cite half a dozen and more anti-war films from ‘All Quiet …’ onwards where such events as you describe are portrayed sufficiently graphically and realistically for anyone with an ounce of imagination and sensitivity to be able to *feel* themselves in the same situation. They cerainly affect me that way and leave me emotionally wrung-out afterwards.
So do such reconstructions simply represent violent fiction to others here? A form of slightly more realistic video or paintball game? Or are the events in question so far removed from their own experience and imaginative capacity that they are unable empathise? If so, Heaven help the human race. Or do they deliberately resist in case their high and remote moral judgements might be challenged and fail? (Claiming that such a response is *emotional* and clouds our rational judgement. Spare me that.)
124. Amer5524 - August 22nd, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I am from bosnia same country where sebrenica happened and its so in humane i hope all the ustahe go to hell and satan sticks a needle in their eye
125. Anon - August 22nd, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I would remind visitors to this site of a shocking fact. In most advanced countries of the world legislation exists for intervention by law in cases of internal familial violence. Police have the right to enter a home and prevent anyone beating their spouse or abusing their own children, for example.
At international level we do not have an equivalent to protect minorities. There is actually no specific intervention law in the event of massacres and genocide, only retrospective judgement as crimes against humanity or war crimes. At best nations can table outraged and pious motions at the United Nations or apply sanctions, if within their power and effective. Other than that, refugees fortunate enough to escape can be accepted. Finally, given sufficient international agreement (which is never likely to be unanimous), or the independent will of individual nations, armed intervention may take place. Serious problems will often trail in the wake of that.
Offending nations resist by protesting they are *solving their own internal matters*, usually citing the victims as terrorists or some other threat to state security.
I have wondered what would have happened about Jews in Nazi Germany had WW2 been avoided. I can only conclude they would have been gassed just the same, and the world would not have been prepared to go to war over the issue. Simply look what Stalin did in the Ukraine during *peacetime*.
For my money this is one of the great challenges facing humanity. If we do not stand by and let a person beat or kill members of their own family in their own home, should the world wring its hands helplessly while states do the same or worse to countless numbers of their own often helpless citizens? What use appealing to the morality of a dictator or tyrant? If those had any sense of morality they wouldn’t be tyrants. How, too, can we ever get agreement for action between all nations of the world when every regime, however beyond the pale, is a client state or partner of others? How can we ask mothers to send their sons to die in protection of some tiny beleaguered minoity somewhere they have never heard of across the other side of the world? These are just a few of the contingent questions. Is there a solution?
126. segue - August 22nd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
These kind of horrors, and the additional horrors added by some of the posters, are exactly why, when my children were young, I didn’t leave all of their education to the schools. We talked about mans inhumanity to man. About the value of every man, no matter what his lot in life. We talked about the brutality of war, and why peace is to be treasured and kept, and why each persons life is of equal value (at that age, I didn’t get into the relative value of the most obviously evil v. the most obviously good. It’s an argument too complex for even the most intelligent and educated theologian). The obvious lesson I was teaching was moral acceptance.
It worked.
It worked for 3, now grown, people.
What would the world be like if every child were brought up to believe that everyone were just as special, just as important, just as valuable as they?
Mind-boggling, isn’t it?
Of course, that will never happen. In so many countries, the racial hatred, racial blood lust, runs so deep, and has lasted for so many generations, that the very idea is foreign to them. It saddens me more than I can say. Hate as a familial gift is a dreadful idea, but one which exists and exists with pride in many areas of the world. That innocent lives are lost aren’t part of their equation.
Hatred is *not* as much a part of the human psyche as love. Hate has to be taught. Love is natural. It’s too bad, but hate seems to be easy to teach, easy to learn.
127. Igor - August 22nd, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Thessaloniki was a Greek town?
Thessaloniki (more preciselly Salonika) was first time a part of Greece at the 2nd part of the 19th century. Not to mention that old democratic Greece has nothing to do with the new counry Greece established in the 19th century.
During the mentioned massacre Salonika was a part of the Roman empire, before that a part of the Macedonian empire. It was mostly populated with Macedonians and Jewish people, but also some Greek.
So what makes you think it was “Greek” town?
128. segue - August 22nd, 2008 at 6:54 pm
113. urbishat
And for the Very first place you forgot the United States Massacre of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
****
urbishat , what’s the name of this list?
10 Lesser Known Massacres.
How on earth do Hiroshima and Nagasaki qualify as lesser known?
Do you understand what “lesser” means? I recommend you check a dictionary, rather than appear this foolish next time.
129. jogiff - August 22nd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
110. Dine
Actually, Sabra and Shatilla was a relatively minor massacre, but that’s not my main problem with your comment. The massacre was actually committed by Lebanese Christians. They may have been allied with the IDF, but they were not part of the IDF.
130. Dine - August 22nd, 2008 at 11:00 pm
129. jogiff
Lebanese Christian armed by Ariel Sharon ( Israel General) and support by Israeli army .
Please read book “Israel Case” Roger Garaudy
( He is jewish ).
Small comment: Italian ocupation of Lybia in II WW , is’nt popular topic, but many things in that war are unknown like first use airplain to bombing civils , etc…
131. Anon - August 23rd, 2008 at 12:10 am
“Small comment: Italian ocupation of Lybia in II WW , is’nt popular topic, but many things in that war are unknown like first use airplain to bombing civils , etc…”
Wrong. In the summer of 1917, German Gotha bombers were carrying out regular raids on British towns such as London.
Much earlier, on 19 January 1915, three craft of the German Naval Airship Division had bombed towns on the east coast of England killing 4 people and injuring 16 others. Aircraft bombing of towns continued throughout most of WW1.”
The Italian airforce was notorious between the wars for dropping gas bombs on tribal villages in Abyssinia (Ethiopia).
132. Anon - August 23rd, 2008 at 12:35 am
Dine,
Read what segue wrote to urbishat. With facts so hopelessly inaccurate, one wonders why you bother to post.
If you insist on citing massacres in the Levant, you would also present a better case by being slightly less selective.
By the way, those reported as killed in my previous posting were all civilians, among the very first non-combatant fatalities of air raids. It was not unusual for over 100 civilians to be killed in one nightly raid during WW1.
133. k1w1taxi - August 23rd, 2008 at 4:22 am
doink (105)
And who decides which is which?
Cheers
Lee
134. k1w1taxi - August 23rd, 2008 at 4:49 am
Dine (110)
Beside the issues already pointed out with regards your post the other major items wrong with your killings are that they are none of them single atrocities, rather each is an agglomeration of killings each forming part of a campaign of Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing.
For example to use the one I know most about (Though by no means an expert)
5. Masacres on Nort Amrerican Indians by USA Army ( from 1800 - 1900 ). Even the total of all these separate massacres barely equals some of the larger single event massacres on the list. None of the individual Massacres such as Sand Creek, Wounded Knee, Black Kettle nor even The Trail of Tears (though you might have difficulty making a case for that as fitting the definition of a massacre) compare on a numbers killed basis with those on the list.
Cheers
Lee
135. Anon - August 23rd, 2008 at 7:00 am
Kiwitaxi,
“9. Masacres on Aliende party member by general PINOCHE in CHILE”
“a campaign of Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing.”
To take (only) the case I know best. Neither. You are perfectly correct in that the killings he mentions are essentially aggregate.
However, the one above is exemplary of those that are neither
genocide or ethnic cleansing.
It was POLITICIDE. Elimination of political opponents.
(I.e. The military mind’s failure to appreciate you do not kill an idea when you kill the people who hold it. In effect *allendism* in Chile had already proven itself unworkable: the butchery was THAT unnecessary.)
136. Macedonian - August 23rd, 2008 at 7:58 am
Where in this list will you include campaign of Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing, that greek government did in 1949 over macedonians in the country?
137. Anon - August 23rd, 2008 at 9:07 am
Lidice (WW2) should be included to keep it alive in our collective memory.
138. Randall - August 23rd, 2008 at 9:09 am
Igor:
“Thessaloniki was a Greek town?”
Thessaloniki was, if I’m not mistaken (I rarely am) founded as a Greek colony by Greeks from… was it Cos, or Lesbos? May have even been another island, I can’t recall… anyway, founded by Greeks in, I believe, the 8th century BC.
“Thessaloniki (more preciselly Salonika) was first time a part of Greece at the 2nd part of the 19th century.”
Current (or 19th century) political boundaries are meaningless here. Especially in that part of the world. Thessaloniki was Greek and always has been Greek. The mere fact that it was part of an Ottoman province or had passed from overlord to overlord over the centuries does not negate its inherent “Greekness.” It always had a heavy Greek population and is considered “Greek.”
“Not to mention that old democratic Greece has nothing to do with the new counry Greece established in the 19th century.”
Well you could argue this, but in fact it’s not quite accurate. What “old democratic Greece” do you refer to? What we call “Greece” was a collection of city-states and colonies across the Aegean and all over the Mediterranean (and the Black sea as well) until united under the Philip of Macedon. Yes, the nation-states of today are different from what the collective entities and empires of ancient times, but that’s not really relevant here.
“During the mentioned massacre Salonika was a part of the Roman empire, before that a part of the Macedonian empire. It was mostly populated with Macedonians and Jewish people, but also some Greek.”
Macedonians ARE Greeks, Igor. And again, it doesn’t matter that Salonica was “part of the Roman Empire” at the time. It was still Greek. Egypt was part of the Roman empire as well… does that mean it was no longer Egyptian? Come now. An Empire is a collection of smaller political units and kingdoms. Not a nation-state such as we have today. And even today your logic doesn’t always work, when you consider all the “nationalities” existing within nation-states in Eastern Europe and so on.
“So what makes you think it was “Greek” town?”
History, and facts.
139. Anon - August 23rd, 2008 at 9:19 am
4, Katyn massacre.
We should also recall this was for long considered a Nazi atrocity, misinformation augmented not only cynically by the Soviets themselves, but also by pro-Stalinist western intelligencia and artists, albeit with more, if blind, sincerity. I believe the great Polish director, Andrzej Wajda (’Ashes and Diamonds’, ‘Kanal’), has recently made a film on the subject.
140. Anon - August 23rd, 2008 at 9:32 am
abhishek,
My admiration for your careful attempt to keep this discussion on a broad humanitarian level by avoiding contemporary onging, controversial conflicts with the exception of one token example.
Of course it would be impossible to keep those with specific present-day axes to grind away from such a topic. So here they are, attempting to polarise opinion and detracting from an outraged yet objective and all-embracing view of man’s inhumanity to man.
141. The word - August 23rd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Randall, macedonians were never greeks and they will never be! But let’s leave that arguement aside.
I seems that nobody knows that greeks masacred around 30000 macedonians after the greek civil war (with was not a civil war at all, but a macedonian uprising). People who managed to flee at the time are still alive and living in todays Macedonia, and all over the world.
But misteriously these events are mising from world’s history. I guess that victors always write the history.
142. Anon - August 23rd, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I have long been aware of the divide between countries where significant self-criticism and soul-searching in reaction to such events in their past occurs and is *allowed*, and those where such analysis is difficult, impossible or non-existent.
The latter, of course, by official state policy and popular consent, either consider
(a) Their nation and its allies have never committed atrocities at all,
(b) Any such individually cited events didn’t happen,
(c) If so, they were justifiable revenge or legitimate acts of war or resistance to oppression, or
(d) They were too insignificant to count.
For them, these same let-outs don’t stand as acceptable responses to accusations they make against any *enemy* they consider to have committed the same actions against their own nationals or allies.
You will certainly find examples of some of these denials and one-sided attitudes in this topic. Hopefully you will also have taken note here and elsewhere of thoughtful, often pained, criticisms by others against their own countries.
This difference seems very telling to me.
143. Goran - August 23rd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Greek masacre by the Macedonian’s children and women after the World War 2
144. Marijan Nikolov _ MACEDONIA - August 23rd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Where is Genocide of Macedonians refuges from Civil War in 1948 in Greece when was killed 60000 Macedonians citizens ?
145. DanLJ - August 23rd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I woulda included the massacre at Canudos. It’s certainly significantly lesser known than a couple of the massacres on this list and it’s estimated that anywhere from 15 thousand to 30 thousand people died.
146. kiwiflyboy - August 24th, 2008 at 5:45 am
Just so’s we don’t lose sight of the fact that our worlds glorious saviour of democracy and freedom,i.e the Americans are unblemished,i have included this cowardly act during the Vietnam War.On March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam war, U.S. soldiers of Charlie Company massacred 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women, children and old men, in the village of My Lai (sometimes called Mai Lai) about 15 kms north of Quang Ngai.( And they fell into the dark,and the dark laughed and opened wide his arms and welcomed them )anon
147. slavco - August 24th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
And Greek masacre in Macedonia 1912/1913, and masacre in 1948 against Macedonians?
148. Anon - August 24th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
kiwiflyboy, (146).
“On March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam war, U.S. soldiers of Charlie Company massacred 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women, children and old men, in the village of My Lai (sometimes called Mai Lai) about 15 kms north of Quang Ngai.”
See my 142.
Further.
It is unlikely that any participant nation in any major war is free of such acts by individuals, whether or not part of its war policy. Two questions to ask. Is it part of the sanctioned war conduct of that nation? In this case no. Was it dealt with as a breach of discipline and crime by the nation concernmed. In this case yes.
Tell me for how many of these or other massacres you are able to supply those two answers.
How many of the nations involved in these massacres have themselves produced outraged books or films by their own nationals?
On my bookshelf I have a copy of ‘The Sinking of the Belgrano’. It is a fierce criticism by British journalists of an action by Britain during the Falklands war.
Would you care to cite me a few similar common exa