Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

means and coordinating the process of deporting and transporting Jews to ghettos, labor
camps and, ultimately, to the Nazi death camps situated in Poland. As policy is a response
to a perceived administrative challenge, Eichmann threw himself into his work with
enthusiasm and efficiency. He saw himself as an effective administrator, dealing with a
major policy issue that had been entrusted for resolution to his care. That it involved the
murder of millions of people was of little concern; the important thing for him, in his
bureaucratic capacity, was to deal with the task assigned to him. Desk killers have typically
addressed their tasks in a vein similar to Eichmann, regardless of their national or
ideological background. They have been detached, deliberate, speedy, and highly focused
on meeting their objectives, without succumbing to the temptation of human morality
that might deflect their attention. It is because of their detachment that desk killers often
fail to see the criminal nature of their work—but it is that work that facilitates modern
genocide—the more so in highly developed states. In fact, it could be said that the more
modern a society, the greater the reliance on desk killers in planning and carrying out
policies of genocide.
Despotic Genocide. Despotic genocide, a category coined by sociologist and genocide
scholar Helen Fein (b. 1934), constitutes a situation where the perpetrators annihilate
those groups it considers to be opposed to its power and in opposition to its policies and
goals. The Soviet Union’s genocide of its people falls under this category (Fein, 1990,
p. 86).
Despotism. A style of government in which an individual leader or small political
clique rules with unlimited power over the whole population, who are reduced to little
more than personal possessions, vassals, or slaves. Traditionally, despots held royal status,
and thus often passed their authority from one generation to the next; royal despots were
therefore an accepted part of Western tradition right down to the dawn of the democratic
age at the end of the eighteenth century. Given the onset and advance of democracy after
this, the arbitrary nature of despotic rule, particularly as it was understood to have
occurred in non-Western societies, came to be associated with tyranny, or the cruel exercise
of absolute rule. In such manner, some early Asian despots—for example, Genghis
Khan (c. 1167–1227) and Amir Timur, or Tamerlane (1336–1405)—came to be recognized
as models of brutal, bloodthirsty, and tyrannical despots.
Destruction Process of the Jews by the Nazis. In The Destruction of the European Jews,
historian Raul Hilberg (b. 1926) argues that while the destruction process of the Jews may
seem as if it was monolithic and/or impenetrable, it, in fact, “unfolded in a definite pattern.
. . . The steps of the destruction process were introduced in the following order: At
first, the concept of Jew was defined; then the expropriatory operations were inaugurated;
third, the Jews were concentrated in ghettos; finally, the decision was made to annihilate
European Jewry” (Hilberg, 1985, p. 53).
Developmental Genocide. Developmental genocide constitutes a situation in which
the perpetrators push indigenous people off their land and/or systematically kill the members
of the group for purposes of colonization or extraction of riches (e.g., wood, minerals,
oils) from the land.
Diary of Anne Frank. Along with Elie Wiesel’s (b. 1928) Night, the Diary of Anne Frank
is the most internationally well-known and well-received book, addressing the reality of
the Holocaust (or, Shoah) from the viewpoint of a young person’s trauma. Born in 1929
in Germany, Anne Frank and her family—mother, father, and sister—went into hiding
DIARY OF ANNE FRANK
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