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ORANGE COUNTY <br />BOARD OF COMIVIISSIONERS <br />ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT <br />Meeting Date: May 1, 2008 <br />1 <br />~.e ~ose~ <br />Action Agenda <br />Item No. '7~ ~Q ~ ~. <br />SUBJECT: A Resolution to Foster Genocide Remembrance <br />DEPARTMENT: Human Rights and Relations PUBLIC HEARING: (Y/1~ No <br />ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: <br />Resolution Shoshannah Smith, 960-3877 <br />TELEPHONE NUIV[BERS: <br />Chapel Hill 960-3875 <br />PURPOSE: To recognize and remember the millions who have perished through acts of genocide. <br />BACKGROUND: Throughout the 20th century and into this century, countries have perpetrated genocide <br />or mass killing for hateful reasons. There have been numerous atrocities against humankind throughout <br />history, horrible cases of genocide directed against innocent people -- 10-20 million black Africans who <br />died during the 200 years of the international slave trade, the decimation of nearly 12 million Native <br />American Indians in North America between 1600 and 1850, Joseph Stalin's forced relocation and murder <br />of millions of Soviet citizens, and the more recent, so-called ethnic cleansings in Bosnia, Rwanda and <br />Darfur. <br />The first genocide of the 20th century occurred when two million Armenians living in Turkey were, <br />through forced deportation and massacres, eliminated from their homeland. The government order to <br />exterminate the Armenian people on Apri124, 19151ed to more than 1.5 million Armenians - 75% of the <br />population -being killed. In honor of this massacre, Apri124 has been designated Armenian Martyrs Day. <br />The Armenian genocide spawned other governmental efforts to exterminate populations throughout the <br />20th century. The most far-reaching was promulgated by Nazi Germany under Adolph Hitler. On August <br />22, 1939, Hitler gave the following instructions to his Army commanders: <br />"Thus for the time being I have sent to the East my `Death's Head Units' with the orders to kill <br />without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish race or language. Only n_.such a way <br />will we win the vital space that we need. Who still talks nowadays about the Armenians?" <br />After the initial massacre of the Polish people, the Nazis moved on to acts of genocide against other <br />groups, most famously Jews. In addition to the 6 million Jews who were exterminated in the Nazi <br />Holocaust, an estimated 5.5 million "enemies of the German State" were murdered under equally <br />inhumane circumstances -people known or suspected of being gay/lesbian; leftists; Jehovah's Witnesses, <br />