Question

What do you understand by genocidal war

Answer 1

It means the mass murder of selected groups of innocent civilians of Europe. Nazis killed the Jews, Gypsies and the Polish civilians. They killed people in poisoned gas chambers. Number of people killed included six million Jews, 2,00,000 Gypsies, one million Polish civilians, 70,000 Germans, who were considered mentally and physically disabled besides many political opponents.

Answer 2

The word genocide has been derived from the Greek word 'Genos' which means race or people and Latin word 'Cide' which means an act of killing. So the genocidal war means an intentional killing and termination of an ethnic, racial, national or religious group.

The UN Genocide Convention 1948, termed genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group".

The killing of Jews by Hitler is an example of genocide. Similarly today the killing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma is an example of genocidal war.