Human Right Violations, and Their
Importance, Since The Beginning of
The Twentieth Century
Jonathan McElroy
Junior Division
Historical Paper
Human right violations have had a big impact on the history of mankind for thousands of years.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, there have been many of these human right violations that
have changed the course of history and have changed the way that we do things today. Human right
violations are violations that have been committed by person(s) that have violated our human rights. The
human right violations that I will be focusing on are The Holocaust, Japanese internment camps, Syrian
government’s use of chemical weapons on their own people, the attack of 9/11, the death march of
Bataan and the Paris massacre of 1961. It is crucial for humanity to have knowledge of these terrible
acts in history because we need to know what kind of impact that everybody has in the world. So much
as one person can change the course of history either in a positive way or a negative way.
A human right violation is a crime that has been committed against humanity. A human right is a
right that every innocent being in the world deserves to have no matter who you are. Examples of human
rights include the right to live, the right to have a job, the right of equality, right to education and right to
rest. Everyone currently living has at least once in their life has been eligible to be able to have these
rights. The way that you would lose the rights would be to commit a crime against them. Most of the
punishments for the violations that have been committed are death sentences. The human rights apply to
the whole world and should be accounted for.
The Holocaust was a series of human right violations that were committed by the Dictator of
Germany Adolf Hitler between the years of 1941 and 1945. The Holocaust was Hitler’s way of racial
cleansing in Europe. Some of the human rights that were violated during The Holocaust were the right to
live, the right of equality, the right to rest, the right to hold a job and the right to own a home. The
Holocaust was a period of time where groups that Adolf Hitler did not have a care for (Jews, disabled
people, mentally challenged individuals, Jehovah’s witnesses, gypsies, homosexuals, black individuals
and any other being that did not believe in the Nazi ideology) were sent to concentration camps where
they will be tortured to the point of death. The approximate death total for the Holocaust is eleven
million.
Adolf Hitler committed these human right violations because he and his followers were trying to
create the perfect race above all humanity. He did not want anybody in that way that would not be
considered “perfect”. This human right violation is important in history because nearly eleven million
people died just in the Holocaust! This has had a massive impact on history even today because it was
such a big event and millions of people were killed. This is important to know about because we do not
need a repeat of this and we need to know what happened and how is has violated the human rights.
The Japanese Internment Camps were human right violations that took place during the Second
World War. The Japanese internment camps were put into place by America to prevent any traitors that
could possibly be among them. The Japanese internment camps were camps that were only for anybody
that was in the United States at that point in time or had Japanese ancestry of any kind. This was a
human right violation. It took some of people’s freedoms away. The human rights that this act violated
are the right of equality and the right of choosing a place to live.
The Americans had just been bombed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by the Japanese and America
was taking immediate action. One of the things that they did was take anyone with Japanese Ancestry in
the United States and put them into internment camps where they had no freedoms. They were not
allowed to choose where they were to live. The only people that were going to these internment camps
were Japanese Americans. This is against the constitution and the human rights. The constitution and the
human rights state that all men are created equal. This has had a big impact on history because it is one
of the few times where America has violated its own constitution.
Syria is in a time of rebellion. The civilians of Syria have gone against their abusive government.
The government of Syria has gone against their civilians and has been using weapons that are against the
human rights. The weapons that the Syrian government has been using are chemical weapons against
their own people and it has become to the point where it is war against themselves. This is a human right
violation because it is against the rules of war and the human rights to not use chemical weapons.
This is a crucial thing because it is the first time where a country has brought up chemical
weapons ever since the globally enforced rule was created. This is an important human right violation
that is still going on today because it is such a big rule that was broken and many innocent civilians are
dying because of their own government using chemical weapons. The surviving civilians of Syria have
come to the point where they need outside help in order to stop the madness of the Syrian government.
The date was September the eleventh, two­thousand and one, and the terrorist group Al­Qaeda
was planning to attack the twin towers in New York City. The terrorists hijacked planes and planned to
suicide bomb the planes into the twin towers, the White House and the Pentagon. The terrorists
succeeded in destroying the twin towers but have failed to destroy the White House and The Pentagon.
The human right violation that was committed was the right to live. Over one hundred and fifty thousand
people died in the attack. The attack completely surprised America and we were completely
unprepared for the attack.
The attack on September 11, 2001 was a very important human right violation because so
many people died and there were many wounded. It was such an impact on America because we were
unprepared for such a thing to happen. Currently we are still in the process of making a new World
Trade Center (which was what the Twin Towers were for) from the attack. This is a human right
violation that should be prevented in the future because we know that things like this are going to
happen to America in the future and we need to prepare for when they are going to happen and what is
going to happen when the attack happens.
The Death March of Bataan was a death march that was led by the Japanese on April the
nineteenth, the year nineteen forty­two. The Japanese took their prisoners of war (POWs) and sent
them on this death march across 68 miles. They were given no food or water the entire trip. This is a
human right violation. The people were not given liberty to make their own decisions. The prisoners
would be bayoneted if they failed to do some of the following things (these are a few of the things that
they would be bayoneted for not doing): stay standing up straight, walk at the pace of the rest of the
group, and listening to every guard’s exact orders. If a guard wanted to bayonet a prisoner, then there
was no stopping the guard.
This is an important human right violation because many human rights were broken during this
event and there were many deaths as a result of this event. They were expected to They were not
allowed to make their own decisions about what they were to do and if they tried they were either
stabbed or killed. The march lasted a couple of days and it is estimated that approximately seven
thousand to ten thousand people died from the march.
The Paris massacre of 1961 happened during the Algerian war in Paris, France. Chief of the
Parisian police Maurice Papon ordered the police force to attack thirty thousand Algerians for planning
to further bomb Paris and the rest of France. The French police force tried to drown the FLN Algerians
in the Seine River. One to two­hundred Algerians were drowned in the incident. The mayor of Paris
won a trial against the chief of police, had him killed.
This is a human right violation because it violated the rights to live, rights of assembly, rights of
security and many others. This human right violation is important because it is a racist crime against
humanity. Hundreds of people died in the incident and there were many wounded. The Algerians had
French identity cards, which meant that their citizenship belonged to France. They were mercilessly
attacked and thrown over the Saint­Michel Bridge into the River Seine.
In conclusion, all of these human right violations that have happened since the beginning of the
twentieth century are important to human history because many innocent people have suffered because
of a fault of another. It is crucial that we as a people learn about these things so we can learn from it and
become better as a people. These human right violations have had a major impact on our history. These
human right violations can have an influence on the choices that we make today. We need to make sure
that we are not repeating any of the events that have happened.
Primary Sources
Flowers, Nancy, ed. "Human Rights Here And Now."University Of Minnesota. N.p.. Web. 13 Jan
2014.
This website taught me basic principles of human rights and human right violations. I used
information from this source in my opening paragraph do help describe human rights and human
right violations. The authors of this document helped organize the human right and human right
violation definitions.
Lines, Andy. "9/11's luckiest survivor: Fire chief breaks years of silence to tell his incredible story
This source was used in the two paragraphs describing the attack on nine eleven. The
information in this source came directly from one of the survivors in the attack on nine eleven. I
found information from this source helpful because it came from a direct source and it was very
descriptive.
Phillips, Alison. "Syrian chemical weapons attack survivors: We ran for our lives as poison rained
down." Mirror News. Mirror News, 29 Aug 2013. Web. 28 Jan 2014.
I used this source when I was describing the human right violation committed by Syria when they
used chemical weapons against their own civilians. The information that I found from this source
came from one of the civilians of Syria during one of the attacks that was hosted by the Syrian
government.
Shakespeare, Nikolas. "Helga Weiss: an interview with a holocaust survivor." The Telegraph. The
Telegraph, 19 Feb 2013. Web. 28 Jan 2014.
This source was used when I was describing the Holocaust and what a human right violation it
was. A Holocaust survivor was the author of the information that I received from this source. I
found the information from this source helpful because it was straight from the source and the
information that was given was descriptive and well thought out.
Taxin, Amy. "Japanese American Internment Camp Stories: Survivors Urged To Tell Their Tale For
'Remembrance Project'." . Huffington Post, 25 Feb 2012. Web. 30 Jan 2014.
The information that I gathered from this source helped me describe some of the information
that I was explaining in the paragraphs about the Japanese Internment camps. Survivor stories
is what made up this article and I found the information useful when describing what the
Japanese­Americans went through.
"Internment Camp Refugee Stories." . Telling Their Stories, 9 Feb 2006. Web. 30 Jan 2014.
I did not use much of the information that I gathered from this source. I did learn more in depth
about what the Japanese­Americans were forced to go through during World War II. The authors
of this source were people that were in the Japanese Internment Camps and that dealt a lot with
the camps.
Chossudovsky, Michel, ed. "Interview with Osama bin Laden. Denies his Involvement in 9/11." .
Global Research, 9 May 2011. Web. 30 Jan 2014.
The information that I got out of this source came directly from an interview with Osama Bin Laden
when he denied all of his involvement in the attack of nine eleven. I did not particularly use much
of the information that was in this article but I did learn more about what the opposing side thought
of the attack of nine eleven.
Many, , ed. "Full Interview with Holocaust Survivor, Theodore Haas.." . Jews For the Preservation of
Firearms Ownership. Web. 30 Jan 2014.
I found the information given to me in the source to be very helpful when I was describing the
Holocaust. I used it in my two paragraphs describing the Holocaust. I like this source because it
is very descriptive and it gives me a clear image when I was trying to visualize what the
Holocaust would have seemed like.
Secondary Sources
"The Holocaust and Human Rights." Human Nature­Human Rights. Penn State University, 20­25 Mar
2000. Web. 30 Jan 2014.
I found the information helpful when I was describing Human Rights and the Holocaust because it
was descriptive and valid.
Warren, Abigail. "WWII­like human rights violations persist, says expert." Cornell Chronicle. Cornell
University, 28 Aug 2013. Web. 4 Dec 2013.
The information given in this article was helpful to me (although I did not use the information)
because it helped me form a clear idea of the Holocaust.
Many, . "Human Rights." United Nations: Human Rights. N.p.. Web. 5 Dec 2013.
I think that the information in this source helpful when I was first describing what human rights
there are and what human rights certain people violated.
"Syria Profile." BBC News. BBC International, 8 Oct 2013. Web. 7 Jan 2014.
The information that I used in this article was used when I was describing Syria and their
governments human right violations.
Rosenberg, Jennifer. "The Bataan Death March." 20th Century History. About.com. Web. 29 Jan 2014.
I used the information in this source to help me describe what it was like for Japanese Prisoners of
War during the Bataan Death March.
Many, . "Bataan Death March." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia,
21 Jan 2014. Web. 29 Jan 2014.
The information that was used by me from this article was used in describing the Bataan Death
March .
"Human Rights Violations." United for Human Rights. N.p.. Web. 30 Jan 2014.
<http://www.humanrights.com/what­are­human­rights/violations­of­human­rights/article­3.html>
The information that I gathered from this source was used in me first describing what a human
right violation is.
Shah, Anup. "Human Rights Issues." Global Issues. Global Issues, 7 Oct 2013. Web. 30 Jan 2014.
I did not use information from this article but i found it helpful when discovering background
information of what my topic was going to be on.
"Introduction to The Holocaust." Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
10 Jun 2013. Web. 30 Jan 2014.
The information that I gathered from this source was used when I was describing the Holocaust
and the Human Right Violation involved.
"The World Trade Center History." 9/11 Memorial. The 9/11 Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 30 Jan 2014.
I did not gather any information from this source that was to be used in my paper, but I learned
more about the attack on nine eleven and the damage it did.
"Syria's Chemical Weapons Stockpile." BBC News Middle East. BBC News, 30 Jan 2014. Web. 30 Jan
2014.
In this source I learned more about the weapons that Syria used against its own people, but i did
not include any of the information in my paper.
Peterson, Rick, ed. "The Bataan Death March." Back To Bataan, A Survivor's Story. Dragon Eye
Design, n.d. Web. 30 Jan 2014.
This source was written by a Bataan Death March survivor and I used it in describing the Death
March of Bataan.
Many, . "Paris Massacre of 1961." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, the Free
Encyclopedia, 4 Jan 2014. Web. 30 Jan 2014.
The information that was gathered from this source was used in describing the Paris massacre of
1961 and the Human Right Violation involved/
"Algerians massacred in Paris." This Day In History: October 17. The History Channel. Web. 30 Jan
2014.
I learned more in depth about the intentions of the Paris Massacre of 1961 and included it in my
paper.
"Japanese­American Internment." . The Independence Hall Association. Web. 30 Jan 2014.
For this source I discovered new information about the Japanese Internment Camps and the
reasons behind doing this. I included information from this source in my paper.