1. 10th World Studies 4.3.18 Today’s Agenda: Armenian Genocide
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NOTES & NOTE-TAKING DEVICE
Today’s Learning Objectives:
I can understand how different leaders changed the power structure in Europe following WWI.
Today’s Agenda:
Armenian Genocide
“Hitler: The Rise of Evil”?
HW:
NONE

2. Powerful & Continuing Nationalism
Disdain for Human Rights
Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats (as a Unifying Cause)
Supremacy of the Military
Rampant Sexism
Controlled Mass Media
Obsession with National Security

3. Religion & Government are intertwined
Corporate Power is protected
Labor Power is suppressed
Disdain for Intellectuals & the Arts
Obsession with Crime & Punishment
Rampant Cronyism & Corruption
Fraudulent Elections

4. Avedis Aharonian (1866-1948) Armenian Delegate to Paris Peace Conference

6. Historic Armenia

7. 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

8. Background on Armenia Over 4000 years old
Has its own language, alphabet
Has distinctive architecture
First nation to adopt Christianity, 301 AD
Believed to be the location of the Garden of Eden and Mt. Ararat, where Noah’s ark landed

9. Armenian Genocide Overview
The first genocide of the 20th Century
Occurred in the Ottoman Empire,
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

10. Seeds of Genocide
The Ottoman Empire was in decline, losing territory, wealth, and influence
Nearly 500,000 Muslim 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

11. 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

12. Perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide: The Three Pashas (title of high ranking official)
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

13. Use of new technologies
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

14. 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

15. Map of Deportation Paths and Killing Zones
Bursa

16. 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

17. 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, Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formation in readiness—for the present only in the East—with 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

18. Reaction to Genocide Armenians Turks, Kurds and others Foreigners
Most didn’t 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 Turkey’s enemies nor its allies

19. Over 145 articles
about the genocide
were printed in
1915 alone

20. 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 <100
Mamuret-Ulaziz 5,000
Bitlis <100
Van <100
Diyarbakir <100

21. 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

22. Post-Genocide
During Paris Peace Conference (Treaty of Versailles), David Lloyd George (British) asked Woodrow Wilson (USA) to make Anatolia/Turkish Armenia (parts of present-day Turkey…) a “mandate.”
US did not accept this proposal
Aid activities to help survivors were prominent in American society

23. 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

24. 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 (Operation Nemesis)
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

25. Armenian Genocide Today
Armenians dispersed all over the world (Diaspora)
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 years of Armenian existence on those lands are being eliminated

26. 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

27. 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

28. 20th Century’s Legacy of Genocide
Turkish Genocide of Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian Greeks
Ukrainian Famine-Genocide
Nazi Holocaust of Jews, Poles, Gypsies
Cambodia (Pol Pot)
1994 Rwanda
1995 Bosnia
Today Syria??? Iraq??? Central Africa???
Tomorrow ????