The Armenian Genocide

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The Armenian Genocide

• Greg Bedian
• Genocide Education Network of Illinois

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What well cover today

• Genocide overview
• Armenia overview
• Armenian Genocide
• Moving toward genocide
• Implementation
• Facts and figures
• Aftermath
• Whats happened since
• Whats happening now
• Resource review

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Where did the word Genocide come from?

• Greek genos (race) Latin -cida (killer)
• Raphael Lemkin coined the word genocide in 1943
• "I became interested in genocide because it
  happened so many timesfirst to the Armenians,
  then after the Armenians, Hitler took action."
• Lemkin was the driving force behind the Genocide
  Convention, which was adopted by the UN in 1948
• One million Armenians died, but a law against
  the murder of peoples was written with the ink of
  their blood and the spirit of their sufferings

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Historic Armenia
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Present Day Armenia

• Republic of Armenia
• Location Southwestern Asia
• 29,800 sq km (smaller than Maryland)
• Population 3 million
• Capital Yerevan
• Independent nation since 1991

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Background on Armenia

• Over 4000 years old
• Has its own language, alphabet
• Has distinctive architecture
• First nation to adopt Christianity, 301 AD
• The location of the Garden of Eden and Mt.
  Ararat, where Noahs ark landed

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Armenian Genocide Overview

• The first genocide of the 20th Century
• Occurred in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1923
• More than 1.5 million Armenians killed
• 2 million lived in the Ottoman Empire at that
  time
• Nearly every Armenian lost a family member
• Perpetrated by the Young Turk Government
• Main reason for genocide Turkification
• Pretexts for genocide
• Religious differences
• Economic differences
• Scapegoat for WWI military losses

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Seeds of Genocide

• The Ottoman Empire was in decline, losing
  territory, wealth, and influence
• Nearly 500,000 Moslem refugees created by Balkan
  War settled in and around Constantinople
• Armenians were frequently subjected to massacres,
  kidnapping, rape and robbery
• As Christians, Armenians were second class
  citizens in Ottoman Turkey
• Some Armenians resisted this mistreatment and
  agitated for reforms

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Preparation for the Genocide

• Special groups of Turks and Kurds, often made up
  of released prisoners, were created to carry out
  the massacres
• Most Armenian men were drafted into the army,
  then disarmed and put into labor camps
• Government officials, muslim clerics and others
  spread rumors of Armenians betraying Turkey,
  calling for punishment of the infidels
• Community leaders arrested on April 24, 1915, and
  put to death soon after

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Perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide
Talaat Pasha Interior Minister
Enver Pasha Minister of War
Jemal Pasha Minister of the Navy
Leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress,
or Young Turks
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• April 24, 1915
• Hundreds of Armenian intellectuals in
  Constantinople, Symrna, and elsewhere are
  arrested and later killed
• With its able-bodied men in the Army, and without
  its leadership, the Armenian population was
  defenseless

• Use of new technologies
• Women, children, and the elderly were loaded onto
  trains and relocated, unable to return to their
  homes
• Refugees by the hundreds were forced into caves,
  fires were lit at the entrance and those inside
  were killed by asphyxiation in primitive gas
  chambers

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Implementing the Genocide

• Armed groups would come to a village, and take
  remaining able-bodied males to the outskirts of
  town and massacre them
• Women, children and elderly then ordered to
  prepare for deportation, valuables were
  registered and stored for safe keeping
• Caravans preyed upon by marauding bands, stole
  remaining valuables, raped and killed
• Girls carried off, children enslaved or raised as
  Kurds or Turks
• Starvation and disease, exposure, brutality,
  massacre
• Most of those that make it to the desert are
  killed

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Map of Deportation Paths and Killing Zones
Bursa
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January 15th, 1916 To the Government of
Aleppo We are informed that certain orphanages
which have opened also admitted the children of
the Armenians. Should this be done through
ignorance of our real purpose, or because of
contempt of it, the Government will view the
feeding of such children or any effort to prolong
their lives as an act completely opposite to its
purpose, since it regards the survival of these
children as detrimental. I recommend the
orphanages not to receive such children and no
attempts are to be made to establish special
orphanages for them. Minister of the Interior, TA
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September 16, 1916. To the Government of
Allepo It was at first communicated to you that
the government, by order of the Jemiet, had
decided to destroy completely all the Armenians
living in Turkey An end must be put to their
existence, however criminal the measures taken
may be, and no regard must be paid to either age
or sex nor to the conscientious scruples.Talaat
Pasha, Minister of the Interior
August 22, 1939.Accordingly, I have placed my
death-head formation in readinessfor the present
only in the Eastwith orders to them to send to
death mercilessly and without compassion, men,
women, and children of Polish derivation and
language. Only thus shall we gain the living
space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all,
speaks to-day of the annihilation of the
Armenians?
Adolf Hitler
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Reaction to Genocide

• Armenians
• Most didnt know what was happening until it was
  too late
• Church leaders urged villagers not to give in to
  provocations
• Some organized self-defense or fled
• Turks, Kurds and others
• Many took advantage of the situation - looting,
  killing, etc.
• Some risked their lives to help save Armenians
• Foreigners
• Many news reports, diplomatic protests
• Some were able to save Armenians
• No real action taken to stop genocide by foreign
  governments, neither Turkeys enemies nor its
  allies

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Over 145 articles about the genocide were
printed in 1915 alone
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Armenian Population by Province
2,000,000
125,000
Pre-Genocide 1914 Sivas 225,000 Erzerum 215,000
Mamuret-Ulaziz 204,000 Bitlis 198,000 Van 197,000
Diyarbakir 124,000
Post-Genocide 1926 Sivas 5,100 Erzerum lt100 M
amuret-Ulaziz 5,000 Bitlis lt100 Van lt100 Diyarb
akir lt100
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Aftermath

• In 1914, there were 2,538 Armenian churches, 451
  monasteries, and nearly 2,000 schools
• Today, outside of Istanbul, Armenians possess six
  churches, no monasteries, and no schools
• Nearly all moveable property was either
  confiscated by the government, looted by mobs or
  seized during death marches
• The sum of five million Turkish pounds,
  (around 33 tons of gold) deposited by the
  Turkish government at the ReichsBank in Berlin
  in 1916 was in large part, perhaps wholly
  Armenian money."
• Sir James Baldwin, the former British prime
  minister

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Post-Genocide

• Armenia to become US Mandate, US did not accept
  this mission
• Aid activities to help survivors were prominent
  in American society

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• NEAR EAST RELIEF
• First international US Red Cross Mission
• 117 Million raised (over 1 Billion today!)
• Remember the starving Armenians
• Setup orphanages, clinics and schools for the
  Armenians

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What happened to the perpetrators?

• Genocide organizers tried in abstentia and found
  guilty, but never pursued
• Armenian assassins hunted down and killed the
  main perpetrators
• On March 15, 1921, Soghomon Tehlirian shot and
  killed Talaat Pasha in Berlin

• During the trial, details of the Armenian
  Genocide were discussed and Tehlirian was
  acquitted
• Intrigued by the case, Raphael Lemkin began
  studying what happened to the Armenians. His
  work later resulted in the Genocide Convention

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Armenian Genocide Today

• Armenians dispersed all over the world
• Only about 55,000 Armenians left in Turkey, most
  in Istanbul, far from historic Armenia
• The Armenian names of cities, villages,
  mountains, rivers, and even animals have been
  changed to Turkish names
• Ancient churches and other historic sites are
  being intentionally neglected or destroyed
• Much of Armenian culture has been lost
• Nearly all traces of 4000 years of Armenian
  existence on those lands are being eliminated

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Ongoing Genocide
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Genocide Denial

• To this day the Turkish Government is actively
  and aggressively engaged in Genocide denial
• Turkey passed a law in 2004 known as Article 301
  which makes it a criminal offense to mention the
  Armenian Genocide in Turkey
• Hrant Dink, Orhan Pamuk, and other prominent
  Turks have been arrested for violating Article
  301.
• Turkey currently pays millions to US lobbying and
  PR firms to plan and implement its denial
  campaign with the US government and in the US
  media
• Turkey has funded Turkish studies chairs at
  prestigious universities like U of Chicago and
  Princeton to promote the Turkish view of the
  history

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What they say

• The number of Armenian deaths is grossly inflated
• More Muslims died during the same period
• Armenian American evidence of genocide is derived
  from dubious and prejudicial sources
• The Armenian deaths do not constitute genocide
• The British convened the Malta Tribunal to try
  Ottoman officials for crimes against Armenians
  and all of the accused were acquitted
• The Holocaust bears no meaningful relation to the
  Ottoman Armenian experience

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Things to Remember

• Genocide can happen anywhere
• Genocide usually occurs during times of crisis or
  war
• Genocide denial is a continuation of genocide,
  killing the victims twice
• Genocide is a crime against all of humanity, not
  just the victims

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Learn More About Genocide

• Websites
• www.teachgenocide.org
• www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/
• www.unitedhumanrights.org/
• www.genocide1915.info/history/
• www.anca.org
• www.cambodian-association.org
• www.savedarfur.org
• www.genocideintervention.net
• www.hmfi.org
• 20voices.com
• Books
• The Road From Home, by David Kherdian
• A Problem from Hell, by Samantha Powers
• The Burning Tigris, by Peter Balakian
• A Shameful Act The Armenian Genocide and the
  Question of Turkish Responsibility, by Taner
  Akcam

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The End
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Speak Up! Stand Against Genocide!

• In Germany, they first came for the communists,
  and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a
  communist.
• Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak
  up because I wasn't a Jew.
• Then they came for the trade unionists, and I
  didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade
  unionist.
• Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't
  speak up because I wasn't a Catholic.
• Then they came for me -- and by that time there
  was nobody left to speak up.
• Martin Niemoller

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20th Centurys Legacy of Genocide

• 1915-1923 Armenian Genocide
• 1932-1933 Ukrainian Famine-Genocide
• 1938-1945 Nazi Holocaust of Jews, Poles, Gypsies
• 1975-1979 Cambodia
• 1994 Rwanda
• 1995 Bosnia
• Today Darfur
• Tomorrow ????