Chapter 1: Introduction

During the years 1933–1945, the Holocaust grew from a series of unjust laws and practices within Germany into an unparalleled catastrophe in Europe that shook the world (Bauer & Keren, 2001; Berenbaum & United States Holocaust Memorial, 1993; Cesarani, 2016; Hayes, 2017). Discriminatory laws developed by the Nazi German governmental systems were combined with violent industrial military forces and used to fuel persecution and the mass murder of Jewish and several other populations throughout central Europe (Bazyler, 2016). Never again will our international communities allow such brutality and barbarism. To this end, the term and the crime of genocide were coined in the wake of the Holocaust (Lemkin, 1944, 1947). International law has developed ever since. The abuses of power and national policies that enabled mass violence were profoundly unjust. Nazis came to power through both violence and law; the global community has worked ever since to ensure human rights and to make sure that the Holocaust was a warning, not a precedent (Bazyler, 2016).