[Text on screen]: 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators…as well as millions of Romanis, homosexuals and disabled people. On Holocaust Memorial Day we need to stand up for human rights. In 2006, President of Genocide Watch, Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, identified the 10 stages of genocide:

1. Classification
2. Symbolisation
3. Discrimination
4. Dehumanisation
5. Organisation
6. Polarisation
7. Preparation
8. Persecution
9. Extermination
10. Denial


Those stages can be seen in the case of the Holocaust.

The Nazis started by classifying Jews through the Nuremberg laws.

They put symbols on them, making them wear yellow stars.

Jews faced discrimination and lost their basic legal rights.

This quickly led to dehumanisation as the non-Jewish population were encouraged to view Jews as sub-human.

The Nazis were highly organised and efficiently ghettoised the Jewish community. Persecution and extermination followed.

Millions of Jews were systematically exterminated in death camps.

At the Nuremberg trials, leading Nazis claimed the 6 million murders didn’t happen, or “not under their watch”.

Sadly, denial continues to this day.

Human rights are the early warning system against the stages of genocide.

A lesson of the holocaust is that genocide doesn’t happen overnight. It begins with everyday discrimination and the denial of rights.


We can’t afford to wait until the earlier stages. We need to stand up for basic human rights now. That is how we can honour the millions of people who died in the Holocaust.