examples – 16 – Cultural Genocide Practices in Western Europe

Cultural Genocide Practices in Western Europe

A closer look at a photo:

During the German occupation of eastern France’s steel-producing region in 1941, children were taken from their families to Germany under Hitler for “re-education” in the city of Gotha in Thuringia.

“We were supposed to stay for just one year,” she told me, “but then we stayed for two years. I was only 8 years old. You don’t just give up your children! Why did they do that?” the elderly child recounts to me.

The abduction and deportation of children from one group to another, writes the lawyer and founder of the Genocide Convention, Rafael Lemkin, is a technique of genocide.

„This type of genocidal practise appeared to be one of the cruelest. It tended to interrupt the cultural continuity of a group. It destroyed the spirit, while it kept the body alive.“ Rafael Lemkin – The founder of the Genocide Convention in his autobiography, *Totally Unofficial*.

Photo on the right: If you look more closely, you can see the dark circles under the children’s eyes and their sad expressions as they force a smile in the photographs taken in Gotha in 1941–1942. They were wearing starched white blouses under plaid dresses, straw hats tied under the chin with ribbons, and black patent leather shoes. The Ohrdruf concentration camp was only 20 km away.