For instance, the Nazis did not build death camps immediately when Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933. The Holocaust began with smaller steps, like preventing Jewish people from holding certain jobs, then preventing Jews and non-Jews from marrying each other.

It was not until the late-1930s that the Nazis transitioned to their Final Solution, which called for the destruction of all Jewish people. And the Nazis did not construct the first death camps until 1941. But all these steps over the years constituted what we now call the Holocaust.

When people understand genocide as a process and learn to recognize the early stages that can lead to genocide, there is more opportunity to intervene before people are killed.

Prevention scholars and activists stress a long-term view of prevention that entails three stages.

First, there are actions people can take before genocide occurs to make sure it never happens. This involves identifying which groups of people are at risk of violence, then passing laws, for example, to protect those groups.

A second stage of prevention involves responses to a genocide once it breaks out. This can include using military troops to quash violence. But it could also extend to things like diplomacy, threats of prosecution and economic sanctions.

Finally, a third stage of prevention only occurs when a genocide has already happened. This stage aims to prevent its recurrence. This can include things like truth commissions, which aim to expose and document mass violence or other periods of turmoil, trials against the perpetrators or reparations to victims.

Obviously, stopping a genocide before it actually happens is the most effective and least costly form of prevention.

Scholars have identified certain risk factors that make a society more likely to experience genocide. Countries with poor human rights records, for example, are typically at higher risk of genocide.

Poor economic conditions and a country’s history of conflict are also factors that could contribute to large-scale violence against a group of people.

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