Which holocaust was more horrific, that of the Jews or that of the African slave trade?

Answer 1

in all honesty... concentration camps were probably more humane than the hollows of a slave ship en route from the African continent to the US... However, I do think that the Nazis were definately issuing out unprecedented acts of cruelty on the Jews. Now, I am African American, but I truely think horror is horror, and I don't see 1 being any better than the other. However, at least the Jews still have a heritage to embrace, while all I have is myself to identify with in a foreign nation to my ancestors. No no, I wouldn't weigh these horrors against each other... All I can say is, thank goodness I didn't have to endure through either... I'd most assuredly would not have stood either long enough to survive.

Answer 2

That is an intriguing question. The Holocaust in Europe took place over a very compressed period, under ten years (about 5 actually 1940-1945). And a huge number of people were exterminated by the Nazis, at least 8 to 10 million.

The African slave trade was horrific, as it was systematic and lasted roughly 200 years (1600-1800). There were large numbers of deaths on slave ships, upwards of 50 percent in some cases. And given 200 years of slave traffic, the number of deaths is unquestionably in the millions.

But the deaths resulting from the slave trade were a by-product; they were not the intent. Having slaves die was actually a negative, as dead people cannot be sold. The Nazi's "Final Solution" was the intentional murder of millions of people, so I would rule it more horrific.

Neither one is a positive commentary on the human condition, save that they were both abolished.

Answer 3

I don't think the two can be compared. They are both extremly horrific events in history but very different events.

In the case of the Jewish Holocost the aim of it's perpirators was initally the removal of the Jews from Germany. This later escalated to the desire to remove jews from europe and eventally the desire to anialate all jews. The crimes against humanity comitted during and as a result of the slave trade was comitted for another reason. It was not the intent of the masterminds of this particular crime to anialte it's victims but to perpetually abuse them for profit.

You may have noticed that I did not refer to the Africa slave trade as a form of holocaust. This is because it does not fit into the defition of holcoaust but into the definition of crimes against humanity. Genocide is a systemic killing of a racial or enthic group, what happened to the jews and in Rwanda was genocide but African salvery was not.

Regardless of the right way to refer to them, they were both horrible events which I hope won't reoccur.

You did give me something to think about though.

Answer 4

The movement of millions of people (sharecroppers) from the land to the cities carried out under Roosevelts policies ranks right up there with the greatest relocation by force of any people, though they weren't moved into slavery just welfare. (or was that then 3 generations of a new form of slavery?)

Answer 5

The extermination of six million people I think qualifies as the most horrific.

Answer 6

There's no way to put it in categories. Horrific is horrific.