Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

MOUVEMENT DÉMOCRATIQUE RÉPUBLICAIN
result of colonization, is comparable with the other indigenous peoples during the nineteenth
century, particularly the Pallawah of Tasmania and the Beothuks of Newfoundland.
Mortal Storm, The. A major Hollywood motion picture made in 1940. The Mortal
Storm, based on a novel of the same name by British author Phyllis Bottome (1884–1963),
was directed by Frank Borzage (1893–1962), and starred Margaret Sullavan (1911–1960),
James Stewart (1908–1997), and Robert Young (1907–1998). The focus of the film rests
on the character of Martin Breitner (played by Stewart), a German who refuses to support
Nazism. He falls in love with a Jewish woman named Freya Roth (played by Sullavan), to
the condemnation of those around him in the small university town in the Bavarian Alps
where the movie is set. Basically, The Mortal Storm shows how the Nazi ascent to power
overturns the peace of the town, and its depiction of its subject is a commanding indictment
of Nazism—indeed, one of the few effective anti-Nazi statements made by Hollywood
prior to the entry of the United States into World War II in December 1941. (The
other film to stand out, in this regard, was Charlie Chaplin’s [1889–1977] The Great Dictator
[1940], though it was a satirical comedy, far removed from the drama of The Mortal
Storm.) Yet even here, the filmmakers stopped short of realistic condemnation: Germany is
not mentioned by name in the movie (other than a single reference at the very beginning),
nor is the word Nazi. The designation Jew, to describe the very people being persecuted, is
not heard at any point in The Mortal Storm. It is implied that Freya Roth is Jewish, but only
the term non-Aryan is employed. The movie was a success critically and commercially but
was proscribed in Germany. The Nazi government, having threatened MGM studios not to
proceed with making the film, banned all MGM movies after the release of The Mortal Storm;
this ban was not lifted until after World War II.
Moscow Declaration (Formally Entitled “Declaration of the Four Nations on
Security”). An Allied statement signed on October 30, 1943 (and issued on November 1,
1943), by the governments of Britain, the USSR, and the United States. The Moscow
Declaration was a warning to the authorities in Nazi Germany that those responsible
for, or participating in, atrocities, massacres, or executions would, upon being apprehended,
be returned for trial to the countries in which they had committed their
crimes.
The Declaration was a highly influential document in the development of the international
law of war, as it placed the punishment of crimes committed in wartime as a war
aim. It was not, however, a Declaration made specifically in order to punish those responsible
for the mass murder of European Jewry by the Nazis and their collaborators, nor did
it refer to the racial base that underlay many of the crimes in question.
The Declaration was the basis for the Four-Power Agreement of August 8, 1945
(consisting of the earlier three powers, plus France), by which the International Military
Tribunal was to be established to try alleged war criminals at Nuremberg, and was the
declared principle in law upon which the Tribunal asserted its legitimacy.
Mouvement Démocratique Républicain (MDR) (French, Democratic Republican
Movement). A Rwandan political party with a pro-Hutu bias. First established at the time
of Rwanda’s transition to democracy in the last days of Belgian colonial rule in 1959, the
party was initially referred to as the MDR-Parmehutu. It was the major party when
Rwanda became a republic in 1962, but was abolished along with other political parties
after a coup d’état saw the imposition of military rule by President Juvenal Habyarimana
(1937–1994) in 1975.
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