Historian Ben Kiernan has compared the Cambodian genocide to the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire and the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi-era Germany . While each was unique , they shared certain common features . Racism was a major part of the ideology of all three of the genocidal regimes . All three targeted religious minorities and tried to use force of arms to expand into what they believed to be their historical heartlands ( the Khmer Empire , Turkestan , and respectively ) , while all three regimes " idealized their ethnic peasantry as the true ' national ' class , the ethnic soil from which the new state grew . " The Khmer Rouge regime is also well known for having practiced torture and medical experiments . There are many accounts of torture in both the S-21 records and the documents of the trial . Tortures were not only meant to force the prisoner to confess , they were also used for amusement among the prison guards . They feared that they would become themselves prisoners of the same prison if they treated the prisoners well
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Cambodian genocide