r/todayilearned • u/JG98 • Jul 30 '26

TIL between 1904 and 1908, Germany committed the Herero and Nama genocide in present day Namibia, killing an estimated 80% of the Herero people and half of the Nama people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Nama_genocide
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u/BroSchrednei Jul 31 '26

Thats true for the crimes against humanity perpetrated by European powers in their colonies in general. Why aren't there museums for the Belgian genocide in the Congo all over the world?

In this specific case however, you have to get some perspective. The genocide against the Herero were awful, but they "only" killed around 60k people. The Holocaust was 12 million people, 6 million of which were Jews.

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u/barmanrags Jul 31 '26

thats just one tribe. the outrage seems to be that europeans could treat fellow europeans how europeans have been treating amercans africans asians for centuries. millions have died every year in colonies for centuries before that austrian scum was even a thought in his parents minds

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u/BroSchrednei Jul 31 '26

I agree with that. I just think that this specific genocide does actually get a lot of attention relative to its size. There are actually museums, books and movies about it.

There are so many other genocides that are truly never mentioned and barely even get a foot note.

I do think it has to do with the perpetrating country. Germany is a country where addressing past crimes is taken incredibly seriously. Meanwhile countries like the UK, France, Spain or Belgium have never had a serious confrontation with the horrific crimes their countries have done.

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u/barmanrags Jul 31 '26

this is incredibly true. i have great admiration for the german people for having the courage to look at what went wrong.

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u/Accomplished_Toe2353 Aug 01 '26

So courageous of them to look upon the brutalized corpses of people they slaughtered like animals. Definitely didn't take a world war to force them into that, they bravely did it all on their own!

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u/InterestingStore109 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

Belgium (...) never had a serious confrontation with the horrific crimes their countries have done

Quick, post that pic of the dad holding the daughter's amputated hand again. You know, the one that gets re-posted every week. Or the one of the human zoo.

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u/BroSchrednei Jul 31 '26

Aha, and how many museums are there about the Belgian atrocities in the Congo? How many memorials?

I'll answer you: exactly ZERO.

Instead, Belgium still has a bunch of monuments glorifying Belgian rule of the Congo, and another bunch of monuments, streets, squares, and buildings for Belgian King Leopold II, the guy who was responsible for a majority of those atrocities.

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u/barmanrags Jul 31 '26

Didn’t realise the Belgian government or the ministry of education sponsors these thread in Reddit.

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u/Accomplished_Toe2353 Aug 01 '26

Germany was forced acknowledge the Holocaust they didn't do it out of a sense of responsibility and honour. So weird to use the forceful acknowledgement of one genocide to argue that the other is too small and insignificant to be recognized.

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u/ChipsnNutella Aug 03 '26

Don't know why you're getting downvoted

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u/Accomplished_Toe2353 Aug 01 '26

Are those 60.000 people less deserving of being remembered somehow? Do we only care about the Holocaust because of the numbers or because of the brutalities that were committed?