Why is the Holocaust central to the post World War II concern with human rights?

The Holocaust exploded human rights into an international area of concern due to the fact that the genocide that took place covered an entire continent rather than within one country. Before this event in history there were no internationally recognized human rights or an active concern regarding human rights violations. Prior to the war there was no effort made to help Jews who were attempting to flee from the surppressing Nazi party. Even more surprising was those who did escape it hopes of seeking refuge were mostly turned away by the Allied governments. These same governments stood idle while millions of innocent human beings were being exterminated and brutally tortured and Nazi death camps. While all this brutality was taking place the rest of the world did not respond. The documentary “genocide” mentioned that articles about the genocide did not even make front page news in the United States, but merely a small article on page six that gave little awareness of the large scale slaughter taking place over an entire content. When the war came to an end and the horrific reality of what took place began to be exposed to the world through pictures and the press. Moral outraged and retribution against the Nazi party for the inhuman brutal acts of violence was being demanded from around the world.

At this time in history the international community did not have any sort of system in place to properly punish the people responsible for this genocide. Not only did the Nazi party kill German nationals, they killed Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and anyone else they sought out to be unfit to their deaths throughout the majority of Europe. The Holocaust broke all state borders, which made it an international concern. This created a need for international standards for human rights and a need to establish organizations for protecting those basic human rights. The Nuremberg War Crime Trials was the first time that government (Nazi) party official were held responsible for “crimes against humanity” and were held on trial for crimes against individuals rather than by states.

Another factor lacking prior to the Holocaust was awareness and education of human right. Without awareness of the atrocities that were taking place it was easy for the world to turn a blind eye during that time.