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The Jews, however, were not even considered human. They were seen as vermin, rats, to be “exterminated.”

The Jews were not even considered human. They were seen as vermin to be exterminated

Over the last century there have been many vicious, murderous campaigns. Each one is unique, as was the Holocaust.

Consider, for example, the Holodomor, the Ukrainian word for “to inflict death by hunger,” which is precisely what Josef Stalin did in 1932-33 in Ukraine. His primary goal was to eradicate every scintilla of Ukrainian nationalism and assert total control over all aspects of life, including dignity. At least seven million Ukrainians perished. Those who survived were terrorized into submission.

In 1975, the Khmer Rouge began its campaign of state-backed mass murder in Cambodia. Where Stalin and Hitler targeted the “other” as the enemy, the Khmer Rouge destroyed their own in a Maoist-inspired agrarian class warfare that particularly vilified and massacred city dwellers and intellectuals, which pretty much meant anyone who was borderline literate. In Pol Pot’s campaign of organized murder, torture, starvation, extreme forced labour and familial and societal disintegration, an estimated two million people are believed to have been killed — roughly a quarter of Cambodia’s population.

Over the last century there have been many vicious, murderous campaigns. Each one is unique

To generalize any genocide is to rewrite history, both factually and morally. Each one is a human tragedy, but each one is also the expression of a particular hatred.

The Nazi demonization of Jews was extreme and politically sophisticated. It began with words and laws, very civilized stuff. Step by step the general public came to accept that Jews were not only less than human, but were also responsible for all the ills plaguing humanity: disease; usury; sexual perversion; worldwide financial manipulation and domination; subversion of every standard of decency; and, of course, the subjugation of Germany by the dominant powers of the post-First World War order. The Nazis persuaded Germans that their country’s national and economic humiliation was a Jewish triumph, as the Jews, they alleged, profited directly from German misery.

Disabled people, homosexuals, communists, intellectuals, Poles, Slavs and the Roma all suffered terribly during the Nazi years. No group, however, was targeted with the fervency that the Nazis persecuted Jews, ferociously determined to annihilate every last one.

The Holocaust was a time and place when the hottest, darkest, most horrific corner of a living hell was reserved especially for Jews.

Vivian Bercovici, a lawyer and businesswoman, is a former Canadian ambassador to Israel. She currently resides in Tel Aviv.