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Genocide Research

Use this guide to find primary and secondary sources about some genocides and possible genocide events.

Genocide Definition

Genocide:

According to the United Nations' Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide is defined as:

Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The word genocide was created by Raphäel Lemkin in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe to describe the Nazi's systematic murder of Jewish people and similar acts that had occurred historically. The word genocide is made of the Greek prefix genos, which means race or tribe, and the Latin suffix cide, meaning killing.

General Resources

Lists of Genocides