Charles Patterson (author)
Charles Patterson (author)
Charles W. Patterson is an American author, historian, and animal rights advocate, best known for his books, Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust, Anti-Semitism: The Road to the Holocaust and Beyond, Animal Rights, The Civil Rights Movement, and Marian Anderson.
"Calling people animals is always an ominous sign because it sets them up for humiliation, exploitation, and murder. It is significant, for example, that in the years leading up to the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Turks referred to Armenians as rajah (cattle)."
"Those who kill “humanely” often contend that their victims suffer minimally or not at all. This contention helps ease their guilt and makes the continuation of the killing more acceptable."
"This use of animal terms to vilify and dehumanize the victims, combined with the abominably degraded conditions in the camps, made it easier for the SS to do their job, since treating prisoners like animals made them begin to look and smell like animals."
"Once animal exploitation was institutionalized and accepted as part of the natural order of things, it opened the door to similar ways of treating other human beings, thus paving the way for such atrocities as human slavery and the Holocaust."
