A wagon of corpses at Buchenwald.

The Holocaust, although it led to the coining of the term, is certainly not the only genocide in the annals of human history.  In fact, the kind of cultural hatred that brought about the Holocaust is quite common.  The United Nations Convention on Genocide in 1948 explained genocide was "an odious scourge which has inflicted great losses on humanity in all periods of history."  The number of actual genocides depends on one's specific definition, though they all tend to include the concept of one-sided killing.  Here are some notable examples. Others from the twentieth century can be found here and here.

Armenians
    Several hundred thousand people were killed in what some term "the first modern genocide"after the nationalist leadership of the Young Turks in 1925 led to the slaughter of the innocent Christian Armenian minority.

Cambodia
    The Khmer Rouge, under the leadership of Pol Pot, was responsible for the deaths of twenty percent of the Cambodian population, almost 2 million people, between 1975 and 1979  because he felt the intelligentsia and religious types threatened the classless society he was trying to create. In recent news Pol Pot has been put on "trial" by a guerilla faction in Cambodia.

Native Americans
    Though not in all cases dedicated to the goal of eradicating Native Americans, United States policy as well as that of conquistadore predecessors certainly led to a large number of deaths. American Indians continued to be plagued by their tragic legacy, teen pregnancy and alchoholism rates have sky-rocketed on the reservations.

Soviet Union
    Under Stalin, beginning in 1929, an anti-peasantry feeling led to a man-made famine that killed as many as 38 million in Ukraine.  This idea that starvation can be used as instrument of cruelty was also seen in the Irish potato famine.

If those aren't enough reminders that the world could forget, look at current headlines. Some of the examples are even quite recent, such as Bosnia and Rwanda.

However, the Holocaust is often viewed seperately from these for various reasons.  Some of these are outlined by Kurt Jonassohn, including many aspects of the aftermath.  For example, Germany acknowledged the genocide rather than claiming (although there is a small revisionist school) it did not happen and even provided some reimbursement for survivors.  Furthermore, the survivors voiced their outrage so that eventually a Jewish state was create. Victims of other genocides were driven to express their own indignance, causing historians to consider the Holocaust a turning point in the way they look at the past.

Scholar Ben Austin also points out that the motivation was purely racial -- the Holocaust served no economic or territorial aims. He also points out the "intensity" of the genocide in comparison to other occurrences in history.

Additional unique characteristics are found in Life Unworthy of Life, dealing mainly with the way the Holocaust occurred.  All aspects of an enlightened, modern society utilized the advancements of science towards the unenlightened destruction of fellow humans.  One scholar explained that, "After Auschwitz, anything is possible." Certainly, the future demands a wary eye.

Corpses strewn about the Woebbelin camp.

Mauthausen Survivors count the dead.