Art and Genocide

This paper explores the relationship between art and the Armenian Genocide, and how art can be used as evidence for the traumatic past of the Armenian people that was a result of these catastrophic events.

This article discusses the creative making of boxes as a cross-cultural art therapy intervention in Kigali, Rwanda, with survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide

How do educators use a variety of forms of representation to teach the complexities of genocide? What were the experiences of student-participants and participant-educators engaged in this curriculum? What types of meaning can be gleaned about genocide education by employing a variety of forms of representation? What meanings can students demonstrate about genocide by using a variety of forms of representation?

Lesson Plans

These lesson plans explore how propaganda and hate speech were used by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Lessons encourage critical thinking about the effects of propaganda on people and society.

Focusing on three individual artworks, Elsby demonstrates how exploring the artistic aspects of each painting, together with the context in which they were created and the questions they raise, combine to deepen our understanding of the Holocaust as a human event.

The Spanish colonizers of Guatemala believed they were superior to the Mayan Indians. They excluded them from rule. From 1960 to 1996, a civil war raged in Guatemala between the government and communist inspired rebels. The government labeled Mayan Indians as communist supporters. The army used the war as an excuse to slaughter the Mayans. It committed over 626 massacres and murdered over 200,000 Mayans. Most were civilians. Many were women and children.

From 1975 through 1978, the Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodian) regime led a communist revolution in Cambodia. They wanted to turn the country into “a classless society” of peasant farmers. Led by Pol Pot, they targeted Cambodians they considered enemies of the revolution. 1.5 to 3 million people were murdered or died from starvation.

Bosnia, part of former Yugoslavia, is ethnically and religiously diverse. In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb Army, led by General Ratko Mladic, seized a small town called Srebrenica. The town was mainly inhabited by Muslims. Males from age 7 to 70 were bused to surrounding forests and murdered. Women and children were forced to leave town. The massacre lasted 5 days. 8,372 bodies have been identified in mass graves.

Radical religious groups seek to create a world under their religious domination. They use force and terror to achieve these goals. Genocidal terrorism intends large scale destruction, mass murder, and the targeting of specific victim groups. No matter how few victims, if genocidal intent is present, it is genocide under provisions of the Genocide Convention.

Chairman Mao Zedong, leader of China, wanted his country to lead the communist world. He attempted to transform China from an agricultural to industrial nation. Called the Great Leap Forward, his plan was a total failure. Between 1958 and 1962, at least 38 million Chinese died from starvation, forced labor, and execution.

Racist Belgian colonial rulers thought Tutsis were superior to Hutus. They gave Tutsis preference in education, priesthood, business, and government positions. The 85% Hutu majority resented domination by the 15% Tutsi minority. At independence in 1962, Hutus took power. The Rwandan Genocide in 1994 lasted 100 days. Hutu Power extremists led the Hutus to murder 800,000 Tutsis and a few Hutu moderates. The United Nations withdrew a peacekeeping force of 2,500 troops, ignoring the commander’s requests for reinforcements. The world watched as genocide destroyed Rwandan society.

The Holodomor refers to the forced famine of Ukrainians in 1932 1933 by the Soviet Union. Soviet leaders, Joseph Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov, wanted to destroy Ukrainian nationalism. They hoped to enrich the Soviet Union at the Ukrainians expense. Millions of people died from starvation. Millions more were murdered by shootings, imprisonment, torture, slave labor, and disease.

For Texas settlers, land was the goal. American Indians stood in the way of that goal. Many Texan leaders wanted Indians removed from the state. Only a few, like Sam Houston, argued for peaceful coexistence.

British settlers first arrived in Tasmania in 1803. Soldiers, convicts, and free colonists were sent to claim the island and establish a penal colony. These settlers considered the people already living there, aboriginal Tasmanians, to be “savages” with no claim to the land. Tasmanians fought the settlers who then decided they needed to be exterminated. The settlers wiped out almost every Tasmanian between 1803 and 1847. Truganini , the last aboriginal Tasmanian, died in 1876.

From 1915 to 1918, the Ottoman imperial government directed the genocide of the Armenians in Anatolia (present day Turkey). The Muslim Ottomans considered Christians, particularly the Armenians, to be secret allies of their enemy, Russia. In an effort to eliminate the Armenians, they tortured, starved, and methodically massacred them. The remaining Armenians were sent on death marches or packed in train cars to die of hunger and thirst in the Syrian desert. The Ottomans murdered 1.5 million Armenians.