by David Katz

Created on: November 19, 2008   Last Updated: March 03, 2012

"Is Holocaust history repeating itself with the genocide occurring in Darfur, Sudan?"

I enjoyed a privileged Jewish education at a private school in Johannesburg. The Holocaust formed an important part of the schools curriculum. The Holocaust is indeed central to many Jews sense of identification.

The question posed "Is Holocaust history repeating itself with the genocide occurring in Darfur, Sudan" needs careful analysis. One has been invited to agree or disagree with this statement. At first glance I am tempted to agree that genocide in any form is a barbaric act that can not be rated as we would do with entries to the Grammys. I would not like to be the judge as to whether the slaughter of the Tutsis at the hands of the Hutus carries any less abhorrence than those atrocities committed against the Armenians or Bosnian Serbs. I feel uncomfortable scoring various instances of genocide and somehow applying a set of criteria to them to determine which is the worst or the milder form of genocide.

Throughout History man has endeavored to rid himself of whole groups of "competitors" Genocide is not a new concept afflicting the 20th century. The bible openly talks of genocide under the instruction of non other than God himself, who nonchalantly instructed the children of Israel to destroy various inhabitants of the Promised Land. With genocide firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian literature it is small wonder that genocide is a lot more common than one would like.

Darfur has the potential to mimic holocaust history. The more astute of you will have noticed that I have written holocaust in this instance with a small "h". There is unfortunately a distinction with the one with the big "H". The Jews have claimed that one as their own. Jews claim that their genocide is different from all the others that have occurred prior or subsequent to that perpetrated by the Nazis. When one uses the word Holocaust in conjures up a unique Jewish experience.

Do the Jews have any right to claim that their experience is different from that suffered all over the world by other persecuted minorities? What makes the Holocaust distinct? There are many unique aspects of the Nazi attempt to rid Europe of its Jewish inhabitants. I however believe that there are two aspects of this tragedy that make it unique in the History of humanity.

The first distinction is the scale of operations centered and orchestrated around killing factories. Never in history have so many humans died in such a small space.

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