Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU
28
Upon analysis of the data collected by its Commission of Inquiry (COI), the UN declared,
in late January 2005, that it had found ample evidence of crimes against humanity but not
genocide (though, it said, the collection and analysis of additional evidence could possibly
result in the finding of genocide). Subsequently, the UN referred the matter to the
International Criminal Court (ICC), which then began its own investigation with an eye
toward prosecuting the alleged perpetrators.
Two genocide scholars (Dr. Eric Markusen [1946–2007] and Dr. Samuel Totten
[b. 1949–]) served as members of the ADP, along with a host of lawyers (including a prosecutor
with the U.S. Justice Department), high-ranking police investigators from Canada,
Great Britain , and the United States, and humanitarian specialists. Totten and Markusen
edited a book, Genocide in Darfur: Investigating Atrocities in the Sudan (New York: Routledge,
2006), that provides a description, discussion, and analysis of the ADP, its findings,
and the ramifications of the latter.
Auschwitz-Birkenau. In 1940 SS Chief Heinrich Himmler ordered the establishment
of what would later become the largest extermination site under Nazi hegemony, thirtyseven
miles west of Krakow in southern Poland. Auschwitz I, primarily for Polish political
prisoners, already held almost 11,000 prisoners by 1941 when Auschwitz II, or Birkenau,
was constructed less than two miles away. Birkenau held the primary instruments of
extermination, the gas chambers, and, ultimately, realized the murders of the majority of
Jews, Poles, Roma, and others, not only due to gassings but also due to so-called medical
experiments, starvation, torture, beatings, and so on. Close to 1.5 million Jews, the primary
victims, including children, met their deaths there, as well as almost 16,000 Soviet
POWs; between 200,000 and 500,000 Roma (definitive figures are difficult to ascertain);
and as many as 2 million others, including Poles, “asocials,” and political dissidents.
Auschwitz III, or Monowitz (Polish Monowice) was used to demarcate a number of additional
camps throughout the area; it was mainly a slave-labor operation, which, in 1943,
began producing large quantities of synthetic rubber (German Buna) under the auspices
of the German industrial conglomerate I. G. Farben, as well as other products. In 1944 an
unsuccessful uprising-rebellion took place which saw both the destruction of one of the
gas chambers and crematoria and the deaths of the leaders of the rebellion and a number
of the other participants. Toward the end of that same year, Himmler ordered the dismantling
of both Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II. On January 27, 1945, representatives of
the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated those still alive.
Australia, Genocide in. The situation concerning the Aborigines of mainland Australia
during the time of colonial settlement by Britain poses a number of questions relative to
genocide. The most important of these is also the most straightforward: did the destruction
of Aboriginal society in the century following the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 constitute
genocide? For some, the answer is an unequivocal yes; for others, the answer is
nowhere near as obvious. There was no definite state-initiated plan of mass extermination;
indeed, it was frequently the case that colonial governments tried to maintain
Aboriginal security in the face of settler and pastoralist encroachments and meted out
punishments (even hangings) of those found guilty of the murder of Aborigines. Despite
this, there were immense and very intensive periods of killing in the bush, accompanied
by enormous population losses as a result of disease and starvation. The result saw the
effective destruction of Aboriginal society by European settlement during the nineteenth
century. Where genocide is concerned, however, this must be understood against two