Crimes Against Humanity

Genocide and ethnic conflict have occurred many times in the last hundred years -often under the cover of war.  Crimes Against Humanity looks at these events and at the challenges involved in trying to prevent them.

The exhibition examines some of the common features shared by the bloodshed in Armenia, Nazi-occupied Europe, Cambodia, East Timor, Bosnia, Rwanda and elsewhere. A specially commissioned 30-minute film is at the heart of the exhibition. Using the words of well-known commentators including broadcaster Fergal Keane, African affairs expert Alison des Forges, war correspondent Martin Bell and international jurist Richard Goldstone, it explores how groups of people are ostracised by societies, the role of mass propaganda and international involvement and justice.

The 30-minute film shown in this gallery contains scenes which some may find distressing.

Collections in context

The Holocaust
On coming to power in 1933, the Nazis began to actively persecute the Jews of Germany with the introduction of discriminatory legislation which was accompanied by vicious antisemitic propaganda...

War Crimes Trials
After the end of the Second World War in Europe and the Far East, the Allied powers undertook to bring the leading civilian and military representatives of wartime Germany and Japan to trial...

 

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Learning Resources

The Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide took place in 1994, and was carried out by the Hutu militia to try and eradicate those from the Tutsi ethnic identity...

Bosnia in Conflict
Bosnia-Herzegovina was one of the six states that made up the most ethnically diverse federal state in Europe...

See all Crimes Against Humanity Learning Resources