Jewish Genocide Across Cultures

Genocide vs. Jews
Rome
The Romans led by Titus, during the first Jewish-Roman war, in 70 tried “to wipe out completely the Jewish people, since they alone of all nations avoided dealings with any other people and looked upon all men as their enemies.”

Titus wanted to destroy Jews so they destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem because in their religion you needed a sanctuary and if they destroyed this the Jewish religion would be abolished.

Titus was able to destroy the entire city in his siege. In this siege over 1,100,000 people were killed. Most of them were Jewish and of the Jews that did survive they were then sold into slavery.

Josephus describes this siege in detail in his book.  He talks in length about how the people in Jerusalem were cut off from food and therefore were starving.  He even goes into such detail to describe a women who had no choice but to eat her own baby.

Josephus then tells of the tactics used in the siege.  How the Romans stormed the first two of the thee walls and destroyed them without much trouble.  Then they were sent in to capture the temple and castle where the Jews where fortifying themselves.  The Castle was taken and all the Jews inside were killed.  Then, even though Titus had not wanted to destroy the temple, it was made clear that this would be the only way to defeat the Jews.  So they burnt down the temple, killing those inside.  Finally they finished their capture of the city and took the rest of the Jews to be slaves.


This genocide was similar to the genocide of Melos. This is so because Titus, the roman leader, gave the Jews many chances to save themselves and their city which they did not take. Just as the Melodian leaders chose to bring war upon themselves, the Jew refused to surrender into slavery and instead were killed and their civilization was destroyed.  This, however, is simplifying the situation.  It was not as if these people wanted to die.  They could not live with themselves if they were to stand idly by and let their home be destroyed by the Romans.  As the first group to really attack a Roman occupation, they were not willing to sacrifice their freedom without a fight.  So they decided to fight and in the end lost.  

After destroying Jerusalem the Romans then went to the next Jewish hot spot on Masada. There they had trouble taking siege to the city since it was well barricaded on a mountain top. However, by the time they were able to break into the city, all of the inhabitants had committed mass suicide. So this was a complete annihilation of these people since none of them survived.

http://www.truthnet.org/Spiritual-warfare/10pulling-down-strongholds/pulling-down-strongholds.htm

Germany
Hitler tried to do get rid of all Jews, Gypsies, Gays, and other minority groups. He killed 6 million Jews and around 12 million total people. It was his dream to create a master race and the Jews did not fit into this plan.

Hitler created concentration camps where Jewish people were taken to provide free labor and then to be killed. These camps were very highly organized and were very effective in the mass murder of the Jewish people.

Hitler, however, was unsuccessful in his genocide. The Allied nations were able to defeat the Hitler and save the Jews that remained alive. Although this was not a complete genocide on the Jewish population, it wiped out a huge part of it population which the effects can still be seen today.

This genocide was more like the one committed by Rome. This was a major nation at the time trying to gain more power by wiping out completely other people that got in their way. The Romans did this with Carthage during the 3rd Punic War. This is a struggle for world domination but in the end both parties failed to do this.