The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story

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Genocides are an unforgettable part of a country’s history and unfortunately the universe has a bad name for repeating it. In history, there have been many genocides, some worse than the others. However, a couple have hit the bullseye, when it comes to being the worst genocides known to man. The Holocaust, mainly along with the Armenian genocide has caught the attention of people all over the world for various reasons. The author of “The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story”, Diane Ackerman captured the reality of the Holocaust in her book based on mainly the diaries of Antonina Zabinski. “The Zookeeper 's Wife: A War Story recounts how the Warsaw Zoo was mostly destroyed by bombing and shares how the Zabinskis used the empty zoo to hide and shelter Jews to save them from the Nazis ' attempted extermination” ("Diane Ackerman"). Genocides mostly seem to occur due to the hatred felt towards a particular ethnic group which results in the devastating aftermath. The Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide occurred during the era when human rights still weren’t introduced universally, as it became official after the dreadful World War II and so the targeted people suffered in the hands of cruel leaders. It is believed that Hitler was inspired by the Armenian Genocide (which was the first known genocide of the 20th century which happened to go unnoticed) as a blueprint for the Holocaust in order to purify the race by executing not only the jews but also the physically or mentally handicapped and many others for various reasons. In order for the generations to be “perfect”. However, many countries and notable individuals came to the rescue. While other countries tried to help in the Armenian Genocide, most distress calls were met with either silence or were told to stay out of it, by the government and the authorities. Both the genocides started with the oppressors blaming a certain ethnic group for the problems going on in a country and so viewing them as traitors which were considered to be false accusations. “Racism played a key role in defining the victims of Nazi persecution, and it became lethal when it was mixed with German nationalism, folk concepts of blood and soil that helped define insiders and outsiders, issues of degeneracy, fear of chaos and outside enemies, a world war, and the application of modern scientific and medical technologies to mass killing” (“Holocaust”, 103), according to the “Encyclopedia of Race and Racism”. Similarly, in ”The Case of the Armenian Genocide” by Robert Krikorian, it is mentioned that, Theocracy not …show more content…
However, the Holocaust occurred on a larger scale as compared to the Armenian Genocide mostly because of the larger population and geographical area where all the events of the Holocaust transpired. The Holocaust also gained more attention as the loss was of 6 million Jews, whereas for the Armenian Genocide, the exact number of lives lost still remains unknown as many of the reports vary widely due to the lack of proper paperwork filled out during the unfortunate events. While many perpetrators were punished for the crimes they committed during the Holocaust, several countries even today refuse to acknowledge the occurrence of the Armenian Genocide as a result many walked free. However, due to these terrorizing events, the Ottoman Empire

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