Before reading the memoir "Night," by Elie Wiesel, I had never heard of the word Genocide. Now I now that it means any act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. I also learned in "Night" that genocide is associated with hatred which is something I will always remember. "Night" was about the holocaust during World War II against Jews. I will never forget the torture and pain Jews had to endure during that time. "Night" put this aspect into a more personal view which made it harder to forget. The holocaust was very similar to the Rawanda Genocide, the Japanese Internment Camps, the treatment of women in the Taliban, and the African Slave Trade even though they took place at different times and places. .
During the early 1990's, the government of Rwanda carried out a program of ethnic division, raising hatred against the Tutsi minority in the country. Just like "Night," a minority group was hated. On April 6, 1994, Hutu extremists unleashed the genocide in which perhaps 800,000 people were murdered in one hundred days. This is similar to "Night" because Jews and foreigners were brought to camps where many of them were burnt to death in crematories. There was an immense amount of killings in the Rwanda genocide which I find very hard to forget. .
The internment camps were permanent detention camps that held internees from March, 1942 until their closing in 1945 and 1946. Although the camps held captive people of many different origins, the majority of the prisoners were Japanese-Americans. The thing I will remember most of all in this genocide is how Japanese-Americans were forced to carry on their lives under such harsh and terrible conditions. I just can't believe how a human being can keep on going in life when they are being treated so badly. It strikes me how in "Night" Eliezer could survive everything that went on in the camps from, babies being shot to running 42 miles while dying of starvation.
