The Holocaust and Human Rights

In studying the history and evolution of human rights, it becomes clear that the modern understanding of and emphasis on human rights is based in the events of the Holocaust. Prior to WWII, the conception of human rights, while discussed by philosophers of the Enlightenment and inspiring to the French and American revolutions, had a  purely a national rather than international character. A notable exception to this is, of course, the first Geneva Convention of 1864, regarding wounded and sick soldiers in the field. As a general rule, however, there was no universal idea of human rights, and each nation viewed the rights of its citizens as a sovereign matter which would be decided in accordance with its specific social and cultural values.

However, with the end of WWII and the liberation  of the concentration camps, a more global view of human rights came into being. For the first time in history, a genocide was carried out on such a grand scale. Not only this, but the killings crossed borders, becoming an international problem not confined by lines on a map. And with the liberation of the camps and the dissemination of photographs and reports throughout the world, governments could no longer ignore the need for an international effort to protect what were recognized as universal rights. Though the world had already begun to move towards globalization after the total war of WWI with the League of Nations, it took the tragedy of the Holocaust, made public on a  wide scale by faster communication and an involved media, to force the conversation into a recognition of universal human rights.

After visiting La Memorial de la Shoah and exploring the exhibitions, the horrors of the Holocaust are even more solidified in my mind. The ease with which the Nazis played on existing fears, stereotypes and tense political climate to systematically dehumanize Jewish people and other minorities perfectly depicts the need for international human rights protection. It was these horrors that inspired the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enumerate rights such as life, liberty, security, freedom from slavery and torture among others. By creating binding documents, the international community has created a world standard, something which did not exist before the Holocaust. Perhaps because nations believed they were too different to agree on a set of universal rights, perhaps because nothing had threatened citizens on such an impossible to ignore, international scale, but only an event of unprecedented horror based on differences among people created an understanding of the universality of humanity.