As someone who grew up in Thailand, I have never had to think much about genocide and extreme racism that may lead to ethnic cleansing. I learned about what happened in Europe during the second World War from history classes but
I had never given much thought other than what would be on the test. It may be foolish of me but, I thought the age of genocide and ethnic cleansing was over and that I wouldn’t have to worry about it, even though there had been genocides in Southeast Asia.
My reasoning was that we, modern people, were too civilized, educated, and diverse to coordinate a genocide against large groups of innocent people. I didn’t learn too many new facts from the holocaust museum and the concentration camp, I learned about how Hitler seized power and the holocaust in grade school, but I learned a scary truth: hate finds a way.
It was scary to see some parallels from today but I feel safer today because of how some countries have laws and attitudes that does not enable the government to do anything as drastic as the Nazi party did in their time. But it scared me nonetheless because of how structured and methodical the Nazi party was to seize power and eventually commit genocide in a continental scale. The stories of all the people who were killed or involved scared me because of how normal and full of future they were.