The Armenian Genocide AmyBenKaren

The Armenian Genocide 1. Pictures and names of key political leaders involved and explanation of roles. Three figures from the CUP controlled the government; Mehmet Talaat, Minister of the Interior in 1915 and Grand Vizier (Prime Minister) in 1917; Ismail Enver, Minister of War; Ahmed Jemal, Minister of the Marine and Military Governor of Syria. This Young Turk triumvirate relied on other members of the CUP appointed to high government posts and assigned to military commands to carry out the Armenian Genocide. In addition to the Ministry of War and the Ministry of the Interior, the Young Turks also relied on a newly-created secret outfit which they manned with convicts and irregular troops, called the Special Organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa). Its primary function was the carrying out of the mass slaughter of the deported Armenians. In charge of the Special Organization was Behaeddin Shakir, a medical doctor. Moreover, ideologists such as Zia Gokalp propagandized through the media on behalf of the CUP by promoting Pan-Turanism, the creation of a new empire stretching from Anatolia into Central Asia whose population would be exclusively Turkic.

The Armenian Genocide 2. Headlines from the Newspapers Armenians Are Sent to Perish in the Desert - Turks Accused of Plan to Exterminate Whole Population (New York Times, August 18, 1915) Million Armenians Killed or in Exile - American Committee on Relief Says Victims of Turks Are Steadily Increasing - Policy of Extermination (New York Times, December 15, 1915).

The Armenian Genocide 3. From the Mouth of Witnesses and Victims 87 years old Armenian survivor, Kosrov Derebegian. “I saw so many horses, so many people, so many children. Many Armenian villages evacuated. My father disappeared with a lot of other men. I remember people panicking. I see we are in the water. I saw a Turk kill a woman with a large knife and a naked man stabbed fatally. Swollen, dead bodies. Flies all over the place.” Joint Commemorative committee, Joyce Matz. “As in the Holocaust, Armenians were tattooed, men separated from their families, women were violated and children impaled upon Turkish bayonets,”

The Armenian Genocide 4. Map of the Victimized Region

The Armenian Genocide 5. Food Kabab Olives Baklava Currently many Amenian foods are the same as those in Turkey. The Turks claim they came up with all these foods, and the Amenians claim they created them. But this is what that region of the world eats.

The Armenian Genocide 6. Languages spoken in the Region Turkish Armenian

The Armenian Genocide 7. Photojournalists and Reporters who covered the Genocide Armin T. Wegner: The photos of Armin T. Wegner are among the few that capture the bleak struggle to survive facing Armenian deportees. As a second-lieutenant in the German army stationed in the Ottoman empire in April 1915, Wegner took the initiative to investigate reports of Armenian massacres. Disobeying orders intended to stifle news of the massacres, he collected information on the genocide and took hundreds of photographs of Armenian deportation camps, primarily in the Syrian desert. Wegner was eventually arrested, but not before he had succeeded in channeling a portion of his research material to Germany and the United States through clandestine mail routes. When he was transferred to Constantinople in November 1916, he secretly took with him photographic plates of images he and other German officers recorded.

The Armenian Genocide 7. Photojournalists and Reporters who covered the Genocide John Elder: The pictures taken by John Elder between 1917 and 1919 constitute a rare photo documentation of the conditions in Armenia during some of the most trying years in the history of the Armenian people. John Elder was a witness of the Ottoman invasion of Armenia in 1918 and experienced the trials of the Armenian people during the month of May when the struggle for survival reached its critical moment. His photographs capture the conditions of the Armenian population, especially those of the refugees to whose care he committed his energies. Elder traveled throughout Armenia and took photographs in all major points of refugee concentration and where relief work was being conducted. His images of the destitute and of the orphans are specially compelling. Captured unobtrusively, they testify to John Elder's sincerity as a humanitarian.

The Armenian Genocide 7. Photojournalists and Reporters who covered the Genocide Dmitri Baltermants Boris Ignatovich Alexander Rodchenko

The Armenian Genocide 10. The International Response “The international community condemned the Armenian Genocide. In May 1915, Great Britain, France, and Russia advised the Young Turk leaders that they would be held personally responsible for this crime against humanity. There was a strong public outcry in the United States against the mistreatment of the Armenians. At the end of the war, the Allied victors demanded that the Ottoman government prosecute the Young Turks accused of wartime crimes. Relief efforts were also mounted to save "the starving Armenians." The American, British, and German governments sponsored the preparation of reports on the atrocities and numerous accounts were published. On the other hand, despite the moral outrage of the international community, no strong actions were taken against the Ottoman Empire either to sanction its brutal policies or to salvage the Armenian people from the grip of extermination. Moreover, no steps were taken to require the postwar Turkish governments to make restitution to the Armenian people for their immense material and human losses.”

The Armenian Genocide Summary It was the first genocide of the 20 th century, starting in Approximately two million Armenians were eliminated by the Ottoman Turks. Massacres, starvation, and deportations, were some of the terrible things that Turkish people did to Armenians since the genocide started until the end of it in 1923.

The Armenian Genocide Bibliography _Genocide_Survivor_Accounts