Ever since the German Nazis committed horrendous mass murders of Jews, homosexuals, Roma, and Catholics, many commentators, analysts and scholars have made the mistake of associating “genocide” with “executions and gassing” of people en masse. The originator of the term “genocide” attorney and author Raphael Lemkin’s analysis essentially explains this error when his analysis points to how the Holocaust is not a synonym for genocide, but the consequence of Nazi imperialism and Colonialism in Europe. While the massive murders by the Nazi government was a horrific case of human destruction the genocide had already begun before the killings. Read from Lemkin’s book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington, DC: Carnegie Council, 1944) on page 79 how he describes genocide: Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group: the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population, which is allowed to remain, or upon the territory alone, after removal of the population and the colonization of the area by the oppressor’s own nationals. In other words, when a distinct people is systematically occupied by an outside population with the intention of replacing that population with the invading people under the instrumentality of a government or other organized agent monopolizing violence, that process is genocide. All events after the occupation—the Colonization—are the result of the initial genocide. Scholars claim that there have been no fewer than 181 “genocides” since what they describe as the “beginning of genocides” in 1945–that is, instances where human beings have been massively killed with the intention of destroying that human population. The Center for World Indigenous Studies is conducting a study of “Genocides against Fourth World Peoples” to learn about the extent of genocide (in the Lemkin sense and in the latter-day scholars’ sense) committed against Fourth World peoples and what alternatives exist to establish justice and prevent occurrences of genocide. By simply examining the continental figures for Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East gathered by contemporary scholars tabulating the killings of groups by particular perpetrators we find that 156 Fourth Nations have been invaded with the resultant killing of an estimated 12.482 million people between 1945 and 2017. Up to 58 UN member state governments and the militias they supported were responsible for all 156 invasions and ultimate killings of Fourth World peoples. ESTIMATED POST-GENOCIDE KILLINGS FROM 1945-2017 Our initial finding is that “governments” (Republics, Dictatorships, Empires, Kingdoms) commit the vast majority of genocides in both the Lemkin and the latter-day scholars’ sense. According to our estimate, UN member states committed an average of 51% of all 181 incidents of genocide counted by contemporary scholars. That figure alone is astonishing, since invasions and killings of Fourth World nations account for about 86% of all “genocides” counted by contemporary scholars since 1945. Clearly by these numbers alone, cultural genocide and massive killings constitute a major feature of genocide over the last 70 years and beyond. But, curiously, despite the International Convention on Genocide (1948) and the Rome Statute of 2002 that created the International Criminal Court, the cultural genocide of a people in whole or in part has not been prosecuted. And, of equal interest is the fact that not one of the governments responsible for invasions and then killing of Fourth World people has been sanctioned by the international community or any juridical forum. Ongoing genocides are taking place now in China against the Uyghurs, Iraq against the Yezidi, Madaeans, Zoroastrians, and Assyrians; and against the Rohingya in Burma; and many other nations. Yes, 156 Fourth World nations have suffered cultural genocide since 1945 and not one government responsible for invasions and killings of millions of people have been called to account. Rudolph Ryser is the Chair of the Center for World Indigenous Studies.

International Fact-Finding Mission Crucial to Address Rights Crisis (Geneva) – The United Nations Human Rights Council should adopt a resolution establishing an international fact-finding mission to Xinjiang, the region of China where up to one million Turkic Muslims are being arbitrarily detained, a group of nongovernmental organizations said in a joint statement to UN member states today. During the next session of the Human Rights Council, from February 25 to March 22, 2019, the Council will consider the outcome report of China’s November 2018 Universal Periodic Review, at which Chinese officials denied allegations of grave human rights violations in Xinjiang. “The magnitude of abuses allegedly occurring in Xinjiang demand uncompromising scrutiny from the Human Rights Council,” said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director at Human Rights Watch. “The Human Rights Council’s integrity demands that states not allow China to hide behind its membership or economic might to escape accountability.” The Chinese authorities have detained Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims – outside any legal process – in “political education” camps for their perceived disloyalty to the government and Chinese Communist Party. In those camps, they are subjected to forced political indoctrination, renunciation of their faith, mistreatment, and, in some cases, torture. Numerous UN experts, treaty bodies, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights have expressed grave concern about the situation in Xinjiang and called for unrestricted access to the region. China has not responded positively to these requests. In December and January, the government arranged visits for some journalists and diplomats to what they claim to be mere “vocational training centers.” Following those visits, Chinese state media asserted that visitors found the conditions there “impress[ive]” and detainees “in good spirits.” “China has had multiple opportunities over the past year to answer serious questions about the horrendous situation in Xinjiang, and at every turn provided narratives that strain credibility,” said Kumi Naidoo, Secretary General of Amnesty International. “China should recognize that only an international fact-finding mission can separate facts from fiction and set the record straight.” The proposed resolution would urge the High Commissioner for Human Rights to dispatch a fact-finding mission to assess the situation and report to the Human Rights Council at its next session. The resolution should also welcome China’s expression of willingness to allow access by international experts, and stresses that such access must be independent, unrestricted, and unsupervised. China should also be reminded of its obligations as a member of the HRC to “uphold the highest standards of human rights” and to “fully cooperate with the HRC.” The statement was issued by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Service for Human Rights, and the World Uyghur Congress, and is being endorsed by a broad range of organizations regionally and globally. “The deterioration in human rights in the country is a long-standing concern, but this is a tipping point. No country in the world should be able to get away with arbitrarily detaining a million of its own people,” said Philip Lynch, Director of International Service for Human Rights. “A resolution mandating a fact-finding mission is the bare minimum members of the Human Rights Council should do if they take their obligation to promote human rights seriously.” “For too long Uyghurs and other Muslims have suffered gross repression at the hands of Chinese authorities,” said Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress. “We are now looking to the HRC to act – and get to the truth.” © 2019 Human Rights Watch

Kurds, Christians, and Yezidis in Northeast Syria are at grave risk of genocide by the armies of Turkey and Syria. The genocide will be supported by Russia and Iran. Turkey and Iran have sizable Kurdish minority populations, which they consider threats to ethnic and national unity. 100,000 Christians live in the area Turkey will invade. Turkey and its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, have a century old history of genocide against Christians. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced his intention to create a “twenty-mile buffer zone” in northeastern Syria, an area now controlled by the Kurdish and Arab Syrian Democratic Forces. Read More

Some 50 million Indigenous peoples died during the 16th century, a collapse that caused atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to drop. The mass deaths of Indigenous American peoples 500 years ago—caused by disease and violence spread by European colonizers—was so extreme that it cooled Earth’s climate, according to a new study in Quaternary Science Reviews. Led by Alexander Koch, a graduate student in geography at University College London, the authors said that a period of global cooling that lasted from the 16th to 19th centuries was partly caused by epidemics and warfare that killed 90 percent of the Indigenous population in just 100 years. The devastating loss, known as the Great Dying, left 56 million hectares of farmland unattended, enabling forests and other vegetation to grow over agricultural terrains. The rewilded landscapes drank in much more carbon dioxide than the preceding farms, which reduced levels of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere by 7-10 parts per million. With fewer CO2 molecules to trap heat on Earth, global temperatures dropped by 0.15°C in an event called the Little Ice Age. “We conclude that the Great Dying of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas led to the abandonment of enough cleared land in the Americas that the resulting terrestrial carbon uptake had a detectable impact on both atmospheric CO2 and global surface air temperatures in the two centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution,” Koch’s team said in the paper. The researchers came to this conclusion by modeling the amount of carbon that would be stored by vegetative regrowth on fallow land. Using over 100 regional estimates, they calculated that the pre-Columbian Indigenous population totaled around 60.5 million people, mostly concentrated in Central and South America. These communities farmed crops like maize, beans, squash, and quinoa, often in irrigated terraces built on mountain slopes. By 1600, only five or six million survivors of this once expansive civilization remained. The rest were wiped out by European-introduced diseases like smallpox and measles, with a smaller percentage killed by warfare, slavery, and famine. Koch's team used models to estimate that some 7.4 billion metric tonnes of carbon would have been sequestered by subsequent landscape changes, enough to have a significant impact on Earth’s climate. The study supports previous research that places the onset date of the Anthropocene, the era of large-scale human influence on Earth’s systems, in the year 1610, when atmospheric CO2 levels began to decrease partly as a result of the Great Dying. “Our results also show that this aspect of the Columbian Exchange—the globalization of diseases—had global impacts on the Earth system,” the researchers said. This is “key evidence in the calls for the drop in atmospheric CO2 at 1610 CE to mark the onset of the Anthropocene epoch.” Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day by signing up for our newsletter.

At least 60 people were killed following the 28 January devastating Boko Haram attack on Rann, a border town in Borno state, northeast Nigeria, Amnesty International has confirmed. The organization also analyzed satellite imagery which shows hundreds of burned structures in the town. Many of the destroyed structures only date back to 2017, suggesting they were shelters for internally displaced people who came to Rann seeking protection. “We have now confirmed that this week’s attack on Rann was the deadliest yet by Boko Haram, killing at least 60 people. Using satellite imagery we have also been able to confirm the mass burning of structures as Boko Haram unleashed a massive assault on Rann, most of which is now destroyed,” said Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria. “This attack on civilians who have already been displaced by the bloody conflict may amount to possible war crime, and those responsible must be brought to justice. Disturbingly, witnesses told us that Nigerian soldiers abandoned their posts the day before the attack, demonstrating the authorities’ utter failure to protect civilians.” Inadequate security Alleged withdrawal of troops, triggered a massive exodus of civilians to Cameroon, as fear spread that Boko Haram would take advantage and attack the town. At around 9am on 28 January, a group of Boko Haram fighters arrived on motorcycles. They set houses ablaze and killed those left behind. They also chased after those who attempted to escape and killed some people outside the town. Eleven bodies were found within Rann town, and 49 bodies were found outside. Amnesty International was informed that about 50 people have not been accounted for. Those who took part in the burial explained what they saw. According to an eyewitness: “Ten of us [Civilian Joint Task Force] came from Cameroon to Rann for the burial. When we arrived, we found and buried 11 corpses within the town, but the soldiers told us that they buried several others yesterday [30 January] who had decayed. "Outside the town, we recovered and buried 49 dead bodies all with gunshot wounds.” Aid agencies have reported that some 30,000 civilians have fled for the border with Cameroon in recent days, joining a further 9,000 who fled Boko Haram’s previous attack on Rann on 14 January. Satellite evidence of mass burning Amnesty International analyzed satellite images from 30 January 2019 showing hundreds of structures burned in the east, south and southeast of Rann. Environmental sensors detected fires in the area on 28 and 29 January. In the 14 January attack, Boko Haram burned well over 100 structures in other areas of Rann. These two recent attacks have left most of the town heavily damaged or destroyed. Amnesty International is calling on Nigerian authorities to investigate the alleged withdrawal of security forces of the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) from Rann, which may have left tens of thousands of civilians exposed to this latest deadly attack. “Boko Haram has consistently and deliberately targeted civilians in Rann, which makes the Nigerian authorities failure to protect people all the more unacceptable,” said Osai Ojigho. “The authorities on both sides of the border must provide the supplies and safety that these people require. The Cameroonian authorities must also desist from forcing people to return until conditions are safe and they choose to do so voluntarily.” © 2019 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

April will mark the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, a 100-day period in which world leaders stood idly by as more than 800,000 people — Tutsi minorities and moderate Hutus — were murdered by the majority Hutus, who had been whipped into a homicidal frenzy by their leaders. The fallout from this killing spree is the subject of a clunky but fascinating BBC drama, Black Earth Rising, just out on Netflix. It was made by Hugo Blick, whose award-winning 2014 series The Honourable Woman used a deliriously serpentine plot to explore the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum. Blick's up to the same tricks in this new eight-part series, which offers us the gaudy goodies of a thriller — murders, chases and shocking revelations — in order to interest us in a tragedy whose aftershocks are still rocking Africa today. Rising British star Michaela Coel plays the role of Kate Ashby, a 30-ish Rwandan who, as a little girl, was rescued from the 1994 genocide by human rights lawyer Eve Ashby — that's Harriet Walter — who adopted her and raised her in London. Eve and her American boss Michael Ennis (played by John Goodman) are dedicated to prosecuting those who turned Central Africa into a killing field. All of which is fine until Eve goes after a Tutsi general who, after helping end the genocide, went on to commit war crimes in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. Kate is outraged. How can her own mom go after a man who saved Tutsis like herself from slaughter? This tricky question gets even trickier once Kate finds herself working with Michael on a second case, this time defending a Rwandan government minister from a war crimes charge brought by the French. As the two cases cross-pollinate, Black Earth Risingraces from London mansions to Congolese mining camps, from Parisian police stations to the presidential offices in the Rwandan capital of Kigali. Meanwhile, Kate — whose childhood trauma keeps her inner life churning — burns with a righteous anger that blinds her to the past's full complexity. Now, Black Earth Rising is decidedly not one of those current-events potboilers like Bodyguard or Homeland. It cares less about ratcheting things up than reminding us that history is vast, messy and ever-changing. Kate's exploration of her past helps us understand the Rwanda genocide and its violent aftermath. We get details of how Belgian and French policies helped fuel the killing, and how colonialism still works today. We see how the Tutsi leaders who currently run Rwanda have created an orderly but dictatorial state. And more abstractly, we see how hard it is to define justice in a world where onetime heroes start doing bad things and fate transforms villains into victims. Of course, it would take a lifetime to capture the complexity of all these things, and Black Earth Rising is only an eight-hour TV series. Although Blick tries hard to do justice to his subject, his ambition has a cost: The dramatic side of the series can be wobbly. Some of the dialogue is thuddingly expository, some of the plot twists feel mechanical, some of the symbolism is overbearing. And our heroine, Kate, is less a three-dimensional character than a walking emblem of Central African trauma. Yet Coel plays Kate with such incandescent intensity that she keeps us riveted anyway. In fact, the whole series is superbly acted. There's a winningly ambiguous turn by Lucian Msamati as the confidant of Rwanda's president and a brilliant one by Goodman who, in Michael, aces a dream role — he gets to play smart, witty, soulful and, heck, even sexy. In the show's opening credits, we hear Leonard Cohen performing his song "You Want It Darker" in his incomparable hound-of-hell growl. Yet Black Earth Rising is actually about seeking the light. As Kate learns the buried truth about the past — her own and her home country's — she begins to escape its clutches, transforming herself from an innocent victimized by history into a wised-up woman who's trying to make it.

Malawian authorities have extradited Vincent Murekezi a Genocide suspect who has been in custody in the southern African country since 2016. Vincent Murekezi, a Genocide fugitive who has avoided capture for the past 15 years, was on Monday morning brought to Rwanda and handed to Rwanda Correction Service (RCS) by their Malawian counterparts. Murekezi, who was serving a jail sentence for fraud-related charges in Malawi, was deported to Rwanda to complete his sentence courtesy of a prisoner exchange agreement signed between RCS and Malawi Prisons. Following this development, National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) issued a statement saying that due process will be followed to ensure he is also held accountable for the crime of Genocide he stands accused. “NPPA will ensure that, the rest of criminal procedures with regard to the crime of genocide and crimes against humanity of which Murekezi Vincent stands accused, follow the due process of law,” prosecution said in a tweet. Murekezi was arrested in December 2016 following an international arrest warrant issued by Rwandan prosecution to their Malawian counterparts. However, midway through the trial to determine his extradition, another case arose concerning crimes he committed on Malawian soil including using fraudulent means to evade tax. He was in March 2017 sentenced to five years for these crimes. Murekezi, who is known to have been an influential businessman in Malawi was accused of having used bribes to evade capture over the tax evasion charges, and had also been previously been sought over forging documents to acquire a Malawian citizenship. Prosecutor General Jean Bosco Mutangana welcomed the development in a tweet Monday morning. “I would like to thank authorities in Malawi notably the Ministry of Justice, Prisons Services and the DPPs Office for the cooperation extended to have Murekezi Vincent sent to Rwanda to serve his sentence,” he said. Prosecution, through the Genocide Fugitives Tracking Unit issued an international arrest warrant for Murekezi after they established that he had found safe haven in the southern African country. Rwanda and Malawi signed an extradition treaty in February 2017. Murekezi is accused of participating in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi mainly in Tumba in the current Huye District and was tried in absentia and handed a life sentence by a Gacaca court. He is however under the Rwandan laws allowed to seek retrial in the ordinary courts. His arrest in December 2016 was preceded by an uproar from members of the civil society in the southern African country, where it was alleged that Murekezi was peddling influence to evade arrest. Previous reports had pinned him on forging Rwandan documents that he presented during his naturalisation process in Malawi. Reports from Malawi had earlier said that during the process to acquire a Malawian nationality by naturalisation, he had lied to authorities there, purporting to have been born in Tanzania. He is among the at least dozen indicted Genocide fugitives said to be living in Malawi. © Copyright The New Times Rwanda 2007 - 2019

FILE PHOTO: New UNICEF executive director Henrietta Fore poses for Reuters ahead of an interview in Brussels, Belgium, May 25, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo YANGON (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. children’s fund urged Myanmar on Monday to implement the recommendations of a panel on the Rohingya crisis led by former U.N. head Kofi Annan, saying it had yet to create conditions right for the return of refugees from Bangladesh. Speaking at a forum in the capital, Naypyitaw, UNICEF executive director Henrietta Fore said children from the Rohingya Muslim minority, a persecuted and mostly stateless community from Buddhist-majority Myanmar, were living “a precarious and an almost hopeless existence” in camps in neighbouring Bangladesh. About 730,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine state, in western Myanmar, since a military crackdown in 2017 after Rohingya insurgents attacked security posts, U.N. agencies estimate. Tens of thousands remain behind in Rakhine, where they are subjected to restrictions on movement and have limited access to healthcare and education. Fore said Myanmar’s “commitment” to enacting the recommendations of Annan’s committee – which include ensuring freedom of movement and access to education – would help mend the lives of suffering children. “We urge the government to seize this moment and translate this potential into reality for all children,” she said on the first visit by a UNICEF head in decades. “Taking these steps will also go a long way towards creating the right conditions for the return of refugees from Bangladesh.” The Annan commission was created by Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 2016 to find long-term solutions to deep-seated ethnic and religious divisions in Rakhine.But implementation of its recommendations has been beset by crises and setbacks. A day after the panel issued its report in August 2017, Rohingya insurgents launched attacks on security forces, provoking a military crackdown the U.N. investigators described as “ethnic cleansing” with “genocidal intent”. Myanmar denies the charge. In mid-2018, a Myanmar minister told Western diplomats that eight of Annan’s recommendations - including one that asks authorities to take steps to amend the 1982 citizenship law that had rendered the Rohingya stateless - were problematic and could not be immediately fulfilled. The commission’s recommendations included points urging the government to “immediately expand primary education to the communities in northern Rakhine State, and intensify efforts to ensure that teachers assigned to Muslim villages resume their work, including by providing adequate security when necessary”. It also called on authorities to “ensure that all children in the state have access to education in Myanmar language” and that the tertiary education access is expanded.In August, UNICEF warned of what it described as a “lost generation” of Rohingya children, with half a million in refugee camps in Bangladesh facing dangers including disease and floods and those still in Myanmar lacking access to proper education. “We urge that the necessary steps are taken to enable their safe, voluntary and dignified return back to their homes where their rights are respected and they can once again live peaceably with their neighbors,” said Fore. © 2019 Reuters. All Rights Reserved.

For Aung San Suu Kyi, it’s now or never UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Myanmar, Professor Yanghee Lee, on Friday called for the Myanmar Army Chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, to be prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya. Prof Lee, who was barred from entering Myanmar by civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, made the statement during her visit to refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh which has now swelled to over 1.1 million Rohingya. Although this is the first time Lee has herself publicly called for the prosecution of the army chief, last year the UN Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar came to the same judgement. After an extensive and detailed investigation, it demanded that senior generals face international prosecution for orchestrating a military campaign of mass killing and rapes with “genocidal intent.” With the UNs most senior human rights officer for Myanmar joining a chorus of other UN agencies now publicly calling for prosecution, how likely are we to see the generals in the dock? The path to actual prosecution for the orchestrators of this genocide is long and uncertain. China is expected to block proceedings through the UN Permanent Security Council to refer the country and parts of its government to the International Criminal Court, but prosecution can still be pursued for specific individuals such as those identified in the UN report in ad hoc international tribunals, such as those used in the former Yugoslavia, provided Myanmar cooperates. Or, in other words, provided Aung San Suu Kyi, as a democratically elected leader of the civilian government in the country, cooperates with the tribunals. But will she? She is already identified in the UN report as complicit to the abuses. While her civilian government has no authority over matters of security, and could not order the military to halt their operations or alter the way in which they are conducted, they nevertheless hold power over the political discourse in the country and certain aspects of international relations. And they, including Suu Kyi, have so far opted to use their power to support the military campaign against the Rohingya, block international efforts to investigate and document the events on the ground including some previous efforts by UN agencies, and support the Buddhist-nationalist narratives used to justify the removal of the Rohingya from the country of their birth. For the past year, the international response to the unfolding event in Myanmar has been paralyzed by the fear that exceedingly robust criticism would undermine Suu Kyi’s position in the country, and doing so would hand back untrammeled power back to the erstwhile military junta. The West watched patiently as more and more Rohingya refugees poured over the border to Bangladesh, in the hope that Suu Kyi would eventually find a way to assert herself and intervene on behalf of the Rohingya. Some Western leaders who have previously championed human rights and democracy in Myanmar are still in that position now, such as US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The problem with that patience -- patience in the face of genocide, remember -- is the underlying premise that Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize-laureate, was, deep down, on the side of the Rohingya. There has been scant evidence of Suu Kyi ever having had much concern for this Muslim minority in what she herself regards as a naturally Buddhist state. But, if ever she had such concern for this minority among her people, now is the time for her to prove it. Aung San Suu Kyi should be given an opportunity to fully redeem herself and her country and live up to the ideals of the Nobel Prize which made her a global human rights icon. There is already a template for exactly what she needs to do to rectify the situation. It is set out in the UN Advisory Commission Final Report published last year under the direction of the late Kofi Annan. The Rohingya need that Suu Kyi implements fully the recommendations of the Annan report, including granting them full citizenship. UN agencies must have full access to the country to oversee any return and resettlement initiatives. And all the military officials named in this week’s report must be removed from office, with the view that they shall face an international tribunal in due course. Now that the verdict of genocide has finally been pronounced, neither the international community, nor Myanmar’s civilian government, can obfuscate or deflect the issue any longer. It is time to ensure that what remains of the Rohingya community is protected, and that those who committed this genocide against them will be held accountable. Suu Kyi must now turn the tables on the military and help the international community bring the perpetrators of genocide to justice -- or herself be prosecuted as an accomplice and enabler of genocide. Azeem Ibrahim is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Global Policy and Adj Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College. He tweets @AzeemIbrahim. This article was first published in Al-Arabiya. Copyright Ⓒ 2012-2019. 2A Media Limited. All Rights Reserved. 8/C, FR Tower, Panthapath, Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh. Kazi Anis Ahmed, Publisher

Sunday marked the 74th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi-run concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau where more than one million people died or were killed by Nazis. January 27 was later officially commemorated when the United Nations designated it International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day was officially designated in 2005 and has been commemorated each year since. The idea behind the day was to both honor the victims of Nazism and the Holocaust and to promote education around it while preserving sites where the acts of genocide took place, according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The day is frequently marked by commemoration ceremonies and activities to accomplish the awareness and remembrance of the day. Museums, memorials and education centers across the United States play an active role in the education around the Holocaust year-round, but especially on the day of remembrance. Here are five Holocaust memorials and museums around the U.S. you can visit. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C. — This museum is frequently reviewed as one of the best in the world. The museum officially opened in 1993 and is open every day of the year except for Christmas and Yom Kippur. The museum is on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and admission is free though visitors do have to reserve timed-tickets ahead of time. The Nancy and David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center, Cincinnati, Ohio — The Nancy and David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center was holding its grand opening on Sunday, the same day as Remembrance Day. The new location of the center is in Union Terminal in Cincinnati where some Holocaust survivors arrived in Ohio. “The museum examines this watershed moment through its local connection,” according to the center. The center is open every day of the year except Christmas and Thanksgiving and there is a small fee for tickets. Florida Holocaust Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida — The idea for the Florida Holocaust Museum came from a businessman and philanthropist who escaped Nazi Germany in 1939. Along with others who had a personal connection and those who just wanted to be sure the Holocaust was remembered, Walter P. Loebenberg started the museum in 1992. On Sunday there will be free admission at the museum for Remembrance Day. Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, Los Angeles, California — This museum is the oldest survivor-founded Holocaust museum in the U.S. according to the museum. The museum began when survivors met while taking English classes and decided to put their items from the Holocaust on display. The new building for the museum opened in 2010 and admission is free but it is closed some days through the year for holidays and conferences. Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, Skokie, Illinois — Located about a 20-minute drive north of Chicago, the museum opened in 2009 after years of an education center working out of a storefront in the area. The idea for the foundation and ultimately the museum came after neo-Nazis threatened to march in Skokie in the 1970s, according to the museum. Tickets range from $6 for children and $15 for adults and the museum is open every day except Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Thanksgiving and Christmas. © 2019 NEWSWEEK

(WARSAW, Poland) — The world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Sunday amid a revival of hate-inspired violence and signs that younger generations know less and less about the genocide of Jews, Roma and others during World War II. In Poland, which was under Nazi German occupation during the war, a far-right activist who has been imprisoned for burning the effigy of a Jew gathered with other nationalists Sunday outside the former death camp of Auschwitz ahead of official ceremonies remembering the 1.1 million people murdered there. Since last year’s observances, an 85-year-old French Holocaust survivor, Mireille Knoll, was fatally stabbed in Paris and 11 Jews were gunned down in a Pittsburgh synagogue during Shabbat services, the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. Human Rights First, a U.S. organization, recalled those killings and warned that “today’s threats do not come solely from the fringe.” “In places such as Hungary and Poland, once proudly democratic nations, government leaders are traveling the road to authoritarianism,” said Ira Forman, the group’s senior adviser for combating anti-Semitism. “As they do so, they are distorting history to spin a fable about their nations and the Holocaust. ”The Polish nationalist, Piotr Rybak, said his group was protesting the official observances at Auschwitz, claiming they remember only murdered Jews and not murdered Poles. That accusation is incorrect. The observances at the state-run memorial site pay homage each Jan. 27 to all of the camp’s victims, both Jews and gentiles. Counter-protesters at Auschwitz on Sunday held up a “Fascism Stop” sign and an Israeli flag, while police kept the two groups apart. Former Auschwitz prisoners placed flowers Sunday at an execution wall at Auschwitz. They wore striped scarves that recalled their uniforms, some with the red letter “P,” the symbol the Germans used to mark them as Poles. Early in World War II, most prisoners were Poles, rounded up by the occupying German forces. Later, Auschwitz was transformed into a mass killing site for Jews, Roma and others, operating until the liberation by Soviet forces on Jan. 27, 1945. In Germany, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned in an op-ed in the weekly Welt am Sonntag that across Europe populists are propagating nationalism and “far-right provocateurs are trying to downplay the Holocaust.” “We shall never forget. We shall never be indifferent. We must stand up for our liberal democracy,” Maas wrote. Over the past year, Germany has seen a rising number of often violent attacks against Jews carried out by neo-Nazis and Muslims, prompting the government to appoint a commissioner against anti-Semitism and to start funding a national registration office for anti-Semitic hate crimes. The clashes of views at Auschwitz come amid a surge of right-wing extremism in Poland and elsewhere in the West. It is fed by a broader grievance many Poles have that their suffering during the war at German hands is little known abroad while there is greater knowledge of the Jewish tragedy. However recent surveys show that knowledge of the atrocities during World War II is declining generally. A new study released in recent days by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and the Azrieli Foundation found that 52 percent of millennials in Canada cannot name even one concentration camp or ghetto and 62 percent of millennials did not know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Its findings were similar to a similar study carried out a year before in the United States. In Britain, a new poll by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust found that one in 20 adults in Britain do not believe the Holocaust took place. The poll of more than 2,000 people released Sunday also found that nearly two-thirds of those polled either did not know how many Jews had been murdered or greatly underestimated the number killed during the Holocaust. “Such widespread ignorance and even denial is shocking,” chief executive Olivia Marks-Woldman said. Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs said in its Global Antisemitism Report released Sunday that 13 Jews were murdered in fatal attacks in 2018, marking the highest number of Jews murdered since a wave of attacks on Argentinian Jews in the 1990s. The report found that around 70 percent of anti-Jewish attacks were anti-Israel in nature and that most of the attacks were led by neo-Nazis and white supremacists. The United Nations recognized Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2005. © 2019 TIME USA

BANGKOK/DHAKA (Reuters) - Myanmar’s army chief should be prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority, a U.N. human rights investigator said, adding that holding perpetrators to account for crimes was necessary before refugees who fled the country could return. Yanghee Lee, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar, was speaking during a trip to Thailand and Bangladesh, where she met officials and Rohingya driven out of western Rakhine state after an army crackdown in 2017. “Min Aung Hlaing and others should be held accountable for genocide in Rakhine and for crimes against humanity and war crimes in other parts of Myanmar,” said Lee, who is barred from the country, referring to the military’s commander-in-chief. Her interview marked the first time Lee has publicly called for the army chief to be prosecuted for genocide. A U.N. fact-finding mission on Myanmar last year said that the military campaign, which refugees say included mass killings and rape, was orchestrated with “genocidal intent” and recommended charging Min Aung Hlaing and five other generals with the “gravest crimes under international law”. Since August 2017 some 730,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine to Bangladesh, where they now live overcrowded camps. “For any repatriation to happen ... the perpetrators must be held to account, because sending the refugees back with no accountability is going to really exacerbate or prolong the horrific situation in Myanmar,” Lee told Reuters in an interview in Thailand on Jan. 18. “And then we’ll see another cycle of expulsion again.” Spokesmen for Myanmar’s military and government could not be reached for comment. The country has previously denied almost all allegations made by refugees against its troops, who it says were engaged in legitimate counterterrorism operations. LEGAL ROUTES The U.N. Human Rights Council in September voted to approve the establishment of an “ongoing independent mechanism” for Myanmar that would collect, consolidate, and preserve evidence of crimes that could be used in an eventual court case. Lee said the independent mechanism would provide funds for “victim support”, including money for criminal cases. Myanmar has said it “absolutely rejects” that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction to rule on its actions. The country is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the Hague-based court. Non-parties can be referred to the ICC by the U.N. Security Council, though diplomats have said permanent members China and Russia would likely veto any such move. Britain has been drafting a Security Council resolution on Myanmar, but diplomats told Reuters in December it did not include a referral to the ICC. Legal experts say other options for an international prosecution include referral by individual U.N. member states – five Latin American states recently successfully referred Venezuela – or an ad hoc tribunal. CAUTION URGED ON ISLAND PLAN Lee’s trip to the region this week included visits to Cox’s Bazar, in southern Bangladesh, where the camps housing Rohingya refugees are located, and Bhasan Char, a remote island in the Bay of Bengal where the Bangladeshi authorities have been building new temporary accommodation for them. Bangladesh says moving refugees to Bhasan Char - whose name means “floating island” - will ease chronic overcrowding in the existing camps. But some humanitarian groups have criticised the plan, saying the island is vulnerable to frequent cyclones and cannot sustain livelihoods for thousands of people. Speaking at a news conference in Dhaka on Friday, at the end of her trip, Lee called on the Bangladesh government to consult with the U.N. and humanitarian agencies before any move to Bhasan Char, which she said should not be done in haste. “There should be no rush to relocate refugees, such as before the monsoon season which is one of the possibilities that has been outlined to me,” she said. “The island’s isolation does particularly trouble me, especially in the event of cyclones or other natural disasters.” (This version of the story corrects ‘Security Council’ to ‘Human Rights Council’ in eighth paragraph) Reporting by Poppy Elena McPherson in Bangkok and Ruma Paul in Dhaka; Editing by Alex Richardson Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. © 2019 Reuters. All Rights Reserved.