A delegation of young campus leaders embarked on a tour of the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide center. The delegation was made up of a number of representatives from university campuses churches, school councils and members of the clubs and societies from Gauteng. The total number of the delegation was 18 young people.
Comments by the students
“With regards to the holocaust what stood out the most for me was how Nazi ideology was based on a systematic hierarchy, which perpetrated dominance of one race over another. It was interesting to see how the use of propaganda was infiltrated into every sphere of German societies.
The manner in which the process of socialisation into the ultimate Nazi ideological loyalist was carefully structured which led to many Germans pledging alliance to Adolf’s vision of a supreme and purely German race.
We see a demonstration of power politics, which is conflicting in its nature. We see how war was waged on the Jews and other minority groups were sustained by conquering other countries in ultimately meant that the Nazi would be able to exploit the resources in such countries to sustain the wars.
We see the role of media in setting the agenda on issues in the case of Rwandan genocide in that the time the war broke out the world had its eyes fixated on the birth of South African democracy.
Both instances of the genocide we how fear is being used to create hysteria among the public. Fear drives the political animal to act a certain way, it plays on the self interested or collective interests of a group of people to advance dominion over another or be subject to being the inferior weakling and succumb to being dominated by another. A survival of the fittest kind of scenario.” By Tshepang Pitsi – Honours Bachelor of Arts, politics and international relations major.
“The museum explores genocide and human rights, as well as the Holocaust and 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Featuring 34 panels of content created exclusively.
The exhibition commemorates 10 years since the devastating May 2008 outbreak of xenophobic violence that swept through South Africa, leaving over 60 dead. “Killing the Other” documents the continued flare ups of xenophobic violence from 2008 up until the present day. The photographs form a visual documentation of the terrible, senseless brutality of xenophobia, and serve as both a reminder to never forget and a call to action to stop this from happening again.” By Tshiamo Modise – 3rd year Bachelor of Arts majoring in Political Science.
We would like to thank Gertie and Ronny who gave the delegation an educative guide of the Holocaust and Genocide center for free. Furthermore, we would like to thank the generous sponsor who helped in putting up the programme together.
