Extending Metadata Standards for Historical GIS Research: A Case Study of the Holocaust in Budapest and the Armenian Genocide in Turkey

2. Two Cases Of Genocide

The 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Kunz, 1949; United Nations, 1948) defines genocide as the intentional attempt to destroy another group, either in whole or in part. “Groups” are defined in national, ethnical, racial, and religious terms, to the exclusion of the political and social dimensions. The U.N. (1948) also limits the means of intent to killing, serious mental or bodily injury, inflicting unlivable conditions, preventing births or forcing sterilization, and, finally, removing children from the group and placing them in another group. Several extensions and refinement of the 1948 definition have been proposed (Chalk, 1989; Derderian, 2005; Huttenback, 2002; Jørgensen, 2001; Miller, 2003; Schabas, 1999; Staub, 1989), but for our purpose of this article the U.N definition suffices.