THE DARK SIDE

I’m not sure what this says about me, but Nomad Mania runs my life. When you examine the Series General Ranking, it appears to be a significant factor in many travellers’ lives. There are six NM travellers with over 17,000 sites. I have 18,703. I’m also autistic – we are well known for having special interests.
I never thought explicitly of dark side sites until Nomad Mania introduced the category in the Mini-Series. Along with Bizzarium, I prioritized seeing dark side sites and often went out of my way. I led the NM category (along with Bizzarium) from the beginning. And then this guy passed me.
Peter Hohenhaus is a 61-year-old Austrian who owns the website www.dark-tourism.com and is the author of the Atlas of Dark Destinations (2021). He has been to 84 countries and 287 regions. Of 776 sites, as of today, my Dark Side sites are  #??
As of June, Peter had 284, I had 253 and Dominique Laurent, my perpetual friend at the top of all the lists, also had 253.
I say this in jest, but welcome to the world of competitive travel.

Dark Side sites are essential to understanding the history of any country. Genocides are the defining characteristic of many countries – Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Ukraine (the Holodomor, where one million died of starvation at the hands of the Russians in the 1930s). Interestingly, all four of these resulted in the same number of deaths, about one million.
And of course, there’s the Holocaust.
How will we look back at Gaza? A controlling faction of Israel’s government believes the Palestinians should be eliminated. It a genocide that extends to the West Bank. And it is enabled by another Dark Side country – the USA.

All these numbers are little more than well-informed guesstimates. There are no records that will magically resolve the question of exactly how many died. We can only extrapolate based on flawed sources.

The matter of percentages. Mao’s numbers are high due to famine, which occurred in China, home to the world’s largest population. So is Mao simply a reflection of the fact that anything that happens in China becomes a superlative? And that, by definition, the world’s Pol Pots can never compete?
Since recorded time, China has experienced the 3 top natural disasters (the 1931 floods – 4 million, the 1887 Yellow River flood – 2.9 million, and the 1976 Tangshan earthquake – 655,000), the top five wars (WWII, Mongol invasions of 1206-1368 20-60 million, Three Kingdoms War 220-280 34 million, Taiping Rebellion 1850-64 20-30 million, Manchu Conquest of China 168-83 20 million — two as a participant, three were only in China), and three of the top 6 famines (the other three are India). The Great Leap Forward, 1959-61, 40 million, China, 1906-07, 20-25 million, India Doji bara famine 1789-1793 11 million, India Chalisa famine 1783-84 11 million, India/Bangladesh 1769-73 10 million (1/3 of population), China 1928-30 3-10 million, Soviet (Ukraine, Kazakhstan caused by Soviet collectivization), 1932-33, 5-7 million, Russia, 1921, 5 million, Russia/Estonia 1601-03 2 million (1/3 of population in Russia, ½ in Estonia).

Who Was the Butcher of the Century?
Let’s look at the most significant causes of death since 1900, the bloodiest period of human history. Mao didn’t order people to their deaths in the same way that Hitler did, so it’s fair to say that Mao’s famine deaths were not genocide—in contrast, arguably, to Stalin’s Holodomor in the Ukraine, the terror-famine. But almost every legal system in the world recognizes the difference between murder in the first degree and manslaughter or negligence. Shouldn’t the same standards apply to dictators?

WWI. 20 million deaths. Military: 10 million (Allies 6 million, Central Powers 4 million). Civilian 8 million (2 million diseases and 6 million missing). This was the first war where the military deaths exceeded the civilian casualties due to disease and famine.
Casualties – 40 million / 15 to 22 million deaths / 23 million wounded military personnel,
— Somme battlefields July 1-November18 1916 over 4½ months in France.
Three million men fought, and over one million were either wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in human history. On the first day (July 1) – 57,470 British casualties – 19,240 killed,
432,000 British and 200,000 French casualties, 500,000 to 600,000 German casualties. Penetrated 6.2 miles.
— Gallipoli. In WWI, the Allies sought to control the Bosporus and Dardanelles, and they attacked Turkey at Gallipoli. Two hundred fifty thousand died on each side over about 9 months, ending in an Allied retreat.

STALIN Total 15 million Stalin was responsible for at least 6 million murders, and as many as 9 million if “foreseeable” deaths caused by deportation, starvation, and incarceration in concentration camps are included. NM Dark Side sites 8
Of the total of about 28 million deaths suffered by the Soviet Union in WWII, Stalin was partly responsible as he purged his best generals and adopted reckless military policies.

WWII
Total deaths: WWII was the deadliest military conflict in history. Total – 70–85 million: 2/3 civilian (50–55 million), 1/3 military (21–25 million, including 5 million POWs)
Direct Deaths: Military and civilian 2/3. Disease and famine 1/3.
The global population was 2.3 billion in 1940.

ATLANTIC Total 42 to 47 million. Blame it all on Hitler
Europe: 15 to 20 million. Military Dark Side sites 47
Soviet Union: 27 million – Military: 8 million, Famine and disease: 20 million
NM Dark Side sites 4
— Holocaust. Dark Side sites 74 + hundreds of exhibits in other museums
— Treblinka was an extermination camp – everyone went to the gas chambers. Over 15 months from July 1942 to October 1943, 900,000 Polish Jews and 2,000 Romani were murdered. It was the second-deadliest after Auschwitz-Birkenau, primarily a labour camp. 3.5 million Polish Jews had been placed in ghettos. Treblinka was located halfway between the Warsaw (80 km northeast) and Białystok ghettos. Treblinka II incorporated lessons learned from two other extermination camps also in eastern Poland:  Bełżec (500,000 died, #3, Austria and the Sudetenland) and Sobibór (250,000 died, #4, France and the Netherlands)
All three were equipped with gas chambers disguised as shower rooms. Zyklon B was used at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, but these camps used a Red Army tank and diesel engines to produce carbon monoxide.
Warsaw Ghetto – two daily trains, each with 4-7 thousand people, ended up killing 265,000 Jews in 7 weeks.
420 German military trains passed through every 24 hours, and the Holocaust trains’ passage to their destination was routinely delayed, and hundreds of prisoners died from exhaustion, suffocation and thirst.
3,000 people could be “processed” in three hours, and 12,000 to 15,000 in a 14-hour workday,
Cremation pyres had railway rails laid across concrete blocks over wood, splashed with petrol, and burned. The bodies burned for five hours, without the bones being ashed. The pyres operated 24 hours a day. Once the system had been perfected, 10,000–12,000 bodies could be incinerated at a time. The bones were crushed and the ashes spread over a 2.2 hectare area.

PACIFIC
Total deaths about 22 million, Casualties 36 million
Military: 6.2 million (2/3 Allies, 1/3 Japan).
Civilian 15 million deaths in China alone.
NM Dark Side sites in the Pacific theatre: Genocide 11, Military 34
— Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945): 20 million deaths and 15 million wounded. Total casualties were over half of the entire Pacific War.
Military deaths, China: 3.7 million. Japanese military casualties 40% occurred in China.
Civilian casualties: 10.3 million, half were deaths. Three Alls Policy or *sanko sakusen* – “kill all, loot all, burn all” launched in May 1942
95 million refugees. Many deaths were indirectly caused by starvation, disease, and disruption. During the war, China experienced severe famines, including the Chinese famine of 1942–43, which resulted in 2 to 3 million deaths in Henan, and the Guangdong famine, which claimed 3 million lives. Indian famine in Bengal 1943–1945 3 million deaths.
— Unit 731, Harbin, China: 1937 to 1945 was a covert Japanese biological and chemical warfare research unit that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing. Fourteen thousand victims were murdered in Unit 731. Two hundred thousand died due to infectious illnesses. Experiments included disease injections, controlled dehydration and starvation, hypobaric pressure chamber testing, vivisection, organ harvesting, amputation, and weapons testing. Victims included women and children, but also babies born from the systemic rape perpetrated by the staff. All prisoners within the compound were killed to conceal evidence, and there were no documented survivors. The US prosecuted no one in return for all the documents of the experiments.
— Nanjing Massacre is the most infamous example, 200,000 Chinese civilians were killed, over 300,000 died.
— Manila massacre 100,000 Filipino civilians.
— Biological weapons
— POWs. Tokyo Tribunal, the death rate of Western prisoners was 27%, seven times that of Western POWs under the Germans and Italians.
— Bataan Death March (75,000 Americans and POWs from April 9, 1942, were marched from Mariveles to San Fernando and from the Capas Train Station to various camps 105 km. 5,000 to 18,000 Filipino deaths and 500 to 650 American deaths during the march. The foot march was 42 km (14 km for three days). malaria, dengue fever, dysentery,
The purpose of the POW transfer was to move POWs to areas where they could be easily resupplied, but there were too many POWs and not enough trucks to transport them.
The march was characterized by severe physical abuse and wanton killings,
Pantingan River massacre: 400 prisoners were executed. POWs who fell or were caught on the ground were shot. Three Jap officers were executed for this.
–Burma–Thailand “Death Railway“. Sept 1942-Oct 1943, 415 km railway between Ban Pong, Thailand, and Thanbyuzayat, Burma, was completed to avoid a hazardous 2,000-mile (3,200 km) sea journey around the Malay Peninsula. 1940-1943 by Southeast Asian civilians (of 250,000, 90,000 died) and captured Allied soldiers (British and Australians, 12,000 died).
— Comfort women: 200,000 women and girls, mainly from Korea (80%) and China, who were forced to serve in Japanese military camps. Also Australia, Burma, China, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, East Timor, New Guinea.
Prostitution in Japan was pervasive and organized; it was logical to find military prostitution in the Japanese armed forces. The goal was to confine rape and sexual abuse to military-controlled facilities with the goal of reducing rape and venereal disease, the comfort stations did the opposite—aggravating rape and increasing the spread of venereal disease, reduce anti-Japanese sentiment, reduce venereal diseases among Japanese troops, minimize medical expenses on treating venereal diseases, which hindered Japan’s military capacity, and prevent leakage of military secrets by civilians who were in contact with Japanese officers. Also to satisfy disgruntled soldiers and prevent military revolt. Sex 10-40 times a day, less prior to combat but intense after.
After the war, Japan denied the existence of comfort women, refusing to provide an apology or appropriate restitution. After numerous demands for an apology, the Japanese government began to offer an official apology and compensation in the 1990s. However, apologies have been criticized as insincere and many Japanese government officials have continued to either deny or minimize the existence of comfort women.

War Crimes by the Allies
The firebombing of Tokyo  84% of the attacked area was residential, mostly inhabited by women, children and the elderly; the over 100,000 victims constitute the deadliest aerial bombing raid in history.

MAO. The Great Leap Forward. From Jan 1958 until 1961, Mao stockpiled grain (no food and no seed) and wanted to equal Britain’s output of steel (melted down all the agricultural implements, + door knobs, pots) and 35-45 million people died.
The Cultural Revolution (1967-76) resulted in about 2-3 million deaths.
To average all out = 42.6 million.

VIETNAM WAR
Total 1.4 million
Military deaths: US 280,00. Vietnam 600,000
Civilian deaths Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos: 600,000
— COPE Vientiane, Laos: From 1964-73, the US dropped 27 million bombs on Laos.

BALKAN WAR
— Sarajevo has seven dark side sites, second to Berlin with eight.
— Srebrenica Genocide Memorial, where 8,372 UN-protected Bosnian Muslims were slaughtered by Serbia.

Dark Side sites not memorialized
1. Stalin – 15 million. Dark Side sites 8
2. Second Sino-Japanese War 1937-1945. Two Dark Side sites: Unit 731, Nanjing Massacre.
Japanese involvement in the war. 3 Dark Side sites are Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an air raid tunnel and a Poison Gas facility! No memorials in Japan.
3. Mao’s Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution: 42.5 million. No memorials in China.
4. GUN DEATHS IN THE USA. 2023 – 46,728 deaths due to firearm violence – 27,300 firearm suicides and 17,927 firearm homicides (almost 50/day).
Mass shootings (4 or more). 1982 – 2011: once every 200 days. 2011 – 2014: one every 64 days in the United States.
2019 – 417, 2020 – 611, 2021 – 693, 2021 – 10- 11 mass shootings per week
Columbine, Colorado 1999 – 17. Sandy Hook, Connecticut, 2012 – 27. Parkland, Florida 2018 – 17.
Grand Candela” in El Paso, a 30-foot aluminum structure honoring the victims of the Walmart shooting
The National Pulse Memorial & Museum in Orlando will honor the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting.
Gun Violence Memorial Project: Features houses built from glass bricks, each representing a life lost to gun violence in a week.
Memorials with Controversy: The ATF’s Faces of Gun Violence exhibit: While initially dedicated to honoring victims of gun violence, including those in mass shootings, this exhibit was later removed by the Trump administration, sparking controversy and raising questions about the role of government in memorializing victims.

5. INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF THE AMERICAS 
It’s estimated that about 60.5 million people lived in the Americas pre-contact. Following Columbus’s arrival, up to 90% of the indigenous population perished in the century following 1492 with estimates 55 million deaths due to disease (new infectious diseases included smallpox, bubonic plague, chickenpox, cholera, the common cold, diphtheria, influenza, malaria, measles, scarlet fever, sexually transmitted diseases (with the possible exception of syphilis), typhoid, typhus, tuberculosis (although a form of this infection existed in South America prior to contact), and pertussis). Before Cortez’s arrival, the Mexican population was estimated at 25 to 30 million. Fifty years later, the number was 3 million, primarily due to infectious diseases. Cocoliztli (the Great Pestilence) caused about 15 million deaths during the 16^th c, making it one of the deadliest disease outbreaks in history. It was a mysterious illness characterized by high fevers and bleeding.
Four different epidemics in the Plains tribesbetween 1837 and 1870. It was called the “rotting face sickness”.
The 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic, which was brought from San Franciscoto Victoria, devastated the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, with a death rate of over 50% for the entire coast from Puget Sound to Southeast Alaska. In some areas, the native population fell by as much as 90%. Some historians have described the epidemic as a deliberate genocide because the Colony of Vancouver Island and the Colony of British Columbia could have prevented the epidemic but chose not to, and in some ways facilitated it.
SG̱ang Gwaay (“Red Cod Island”, Ninstints) is a village site of the Haida people, part of the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Haida name for Anthony Island. It has the largest collection of Haida totem poles in their original locations, all of which are celebrated as great works of art, though Haida are allowing them to succumb to the natural decay of the lush temperate rainforest climate. Watchmen program,
Archaeological evidence shows that Haida Gwaii has been inhabited for at least 10,000 years. The village site dates back to at least 360 CE
For those who remained at SGang Gwaay, their population was greatly reduced by the 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic. In the succeeding years, the population continued to decline due to other introduced diseases. By 1875 the site was used primarily as a camp, and by 1878 all the remaining people of SGang Gwaay Llanagaay had all moved to Skidegate.
NM should make this a Dark Side site.