"In many cases, in many instances of genocide, victims are dehumanized. First, the humanity of the victim group has to be withdrawn from it before perpetrators can proceed to destroy the group without remorse. We stop seeing them as other human beings that are embodiment of flesh and blood.

"For instance, in Nazi Germany, the Jews were presented to the German public as vermin or lice. In Cambodia, from 1975 to 1979, Pol Pot used to describe western-educated intellectuals as microbes. In Rwanda, in 1994, the Hutus were constructed as cockroaches and snakes.

"So very often the victim group is portrayed in animal metaphors that reduce their humanity to a level that allows perpetrators to proceed to destroy them. They are often presented as a threat to the dominant group of perpetrators in the society. They are also presented as a degenerate species of humankind whose elimination is necessary for that society to develop and progress.
[Edward Kissi, Understanding Auschwitz Today: The Origins of Genocide, 2004, PBS]