The 20th century was a time of change and hardship that led to both good and bad consequences that affected the world as a whole. With the hardships caused by World War I came the need for change that empowered questionable leaders. As a result, two different nations, Cambodia and Germany, experiment with similar radical approaches to reform, in the form of genocide. Both the Nazi and Khmer Rouge regimes attempted to build these idealistic nations under totalitarianism, but succeeded only in committing atrocities that will never be forgotten. Through these genocides, survivors Chanrithy Him and Elie Wiesel give us an inside view of what life was like in these difficult times. Both readings, When the Glass Floats, Him, and Night, further help Wiesel understand the reasoning, process, and genocide implications of totalitarian societies. they had to create the ideal nation. After World War I Germany had suffered greatly economically and was in need of reforms which led to Hitler's reign. Hitler held the Jews responsible for Germany's defeat, and their success during the Depression only fueled his antipathy. This hatred eventually pushed the Nazi Party to eliminate people it considered a threat. Years later, with the spread of communism, French-ruled Cambodia was liberated but conquered by the Khmer Rouge, who quickly imposed the elimination of all Western influence. Leading the Khmer Rouge to resort to eliminating certain people to "repeasantize" society and maintain order within the nation at all costs. Both powers therefore seized the opportunity to eliminate unwanted sectors of people who they consider... middle of paper... due to international interference in both scenarios, who knows how far the totalitarian regimes would have gone and how many countless more deaths would add to their reign. Therefore, we conclude that these totalitarian regimes became an extreme version of a form of slavery, as we have witnessed through Equiano's life. Although people were not initially chosen for work, those who lived were forced to work without the intention of keeping them alive but rather to use them and then eliminate them. Unlike Equiano's experience of being kept healthy to perform better, people in Cambodia and the Holocaust were worked to death out of spite. So, let's see how totalitarianism affected the treatment of the segregated group of people in both scenarios. As well as trying to understand the reasoning, process and effects that genocide had in these utopias.