In September 2015, the UN General Assembly decided to proclaim December 9 as the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Crime of Genocide, Honoring their Dignity and Preventing this Crime. This date was chosen due to the fact that on this day in 1948 the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted. The purpose of this Day is to raise awareness of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and its role in combating and preventing genocide as defined in the Convention, and to commemorate and honor the victims of it.
During World War II, every third resident of Belarus died — almost 3 million people. A separate tragic page of that barbaric war was the actual total extermination of Belarusian Jews. According to experts and historians, about 800 thousand Jews died on the territory of Belarus, including in the Minsk ghetto and the Trostenets concentration camp. During the war, Belarus actually experienced two genocides on its territory: the Holocaust of Belarusian Jews and the genocide of Belarusians as a component of the Eastern Slavs.
Convention on the Prevention of Genocide
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Article 2) defines genocide as “the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group…”:
- killing members of such a group;
- causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of such a group;
- deliberately creating for any group conditions of life that are calculated to bring about its total or partial physical destruction;
- measures designed to prevent childbearing among such a group;
- forcible transfer of children from one human group to another.
The Convention affirms that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or war, is a crime that violates international law and against which parties to the Convention undertake to “prevent and punish its commission” (Article 1). The main responsibility for preventing and suppressing genocide rests with the state in which this crime is committed.