...THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE “Kill every Armenian, women, children and men without concern for anything”~ Talaat Pasha, Ottoman Turkish leader. The Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust was the Ottoman government’s systematic extermination of its minority Armenian subjects from their historic homeland in the territory constituting the present-day Republic of Turkey. It took place from April of 1915 to 1923 (during and after WWI), and was implemented in two phases: The wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and forced labor, and the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches to the Syrian Desert. The total number of people killed as a result has been estimated at between 1 million to 1.5 million. But people may ask why? Armenia had come largely under Ottoman rule during the 15th and 16th centuries. The majority of Armenians were grouped together under the name Armenian Millet (community) and they were led by their spiritual head, the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople. This community was made up of three religious denominations: The Armenian Apostolic, The Armenian Catholic and The Armenian Protestant, meanwhile the Turkish were Muslim. Basically the Armenian community were persecuted and killed by the Turkish because a religion matter. The Armenian Genocide it is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides. It have been pointed as an organized manner in which the killings were carried...
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...Armenian Genocides Prashanth P. Samuel Professor Hicks History 116 The Ottoman Empire was a very powerful and influential force in the world during the early 19th century. As the empire was predominantly of Turkish decent, other minority groups started growing within the empire. Eventually it came to a period where the Ottoman Empire felt these minority groups such as the Armenians, Greeks, as well as the Assyrians were becoming to strong and felt they were threating the empire therefore they were persecuted and the mass killings of the Armenian people being. The purpose of this paper is to dive into the times of the Armenian genocides before during and after the April 24th 1915 genocide attacks on the Armenian people. The various sources and references used in this paper will explain the various situations the Armenian people faced and how this has correlated to other world events at the time and how this has affected Armenian people for generations to come. The first part which we will look at is determining if the mass killings of the Armenian people is considered genocide or not as the people of Turkey time and time again failed to recognize that it was genocide. The genocide convention in 1948 defined the word “genocide” as an incident which involves a significant number of dead, as similar to the number of dead during the 1915-1916 era. “On 12 March 2010, the Swedish Riksdag recognized the 1915 Genocide in Ottoman Turkey” (Avedian). As the Swedish have stated that...
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...These issues can be pinpointed by the Armenian genocide by the Turkish people, the ongoing battle for the island of Cyprus, Turkey’s Islamic heritage, the location of Turkey in the European continent, low literacy rates, and below EU average earning levels. These factors, teamed with Turkey’s history of violence makes it unlikely to gain admission to the EU in the near future, although eventual membership is not out of the question One of the most predominant factors is the Armenian Genocide, in which troops of the Ottoman Empire slaughtered an estimated one and one half million Armenians. Armenia, which neighbors Turkey to the East and has a population of 3.3 million, has proven to be a major impediment in Turkey’s application to the EU (cia.gov). The Armenian genocide began during World War I and was a systematic killing of all Armenian citizens in the Ottoman Empire (umich.edu). The first step of this genocide was disarming, and eventually killing, any Armenian member of the Ottoman army; this measure was taken to avoid any uproar within the ranks. However, most would note that April 24, 1915 was the first official day of the Armenian genocide because “300 Armenian leaders, writers, thinkers and professionals in Constantinople, which is now present day Istanbul, were rounded up, deported and killed. Also, on that day, 5,000 of the poorest Armenians in Constantinople were butchered in the streets and in their homes” (umich.edu). The Ottoman reign of terror merely...
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...Bride in Armenian genocide Armenian genocide recognized by 22 Nations (including the Argentina), is an issue of high sensitivity that was always denied by Turkey. Francisco was the first Pope to verbally denounce that the Armenian people were “genocide". Exactly one hundred years ago, there began one of the most discussed event in the history of Turkey is the Armenian genocide. It is the killing of Armenian citizens during the First World War. The eventual happenings of those mass murders generated strong tensions with Turkey, by mentioning that the political heir of the Turkish Ottoman Empire responsible for the carnage (Smith 1-22).. But he refused to acknowledge the responsibility of academics, Governments and international organizations. The bodies of the women and children were basically the subject of protagonist discourses and the policies. The issue of belief in Armenian genocide and proof have brought the acceptance towards the continuing disputes that the crimes against the Armenian people were part of the many claims which were intended to target the Christian Armenians. During the Armenian genocide, Armenian women were owned and were forcibly kept as the wife and sex slave. This paper discusses the War bride in the Armenian genocide which had adverse effects afterwards. Body: The genocide definition corresponded to the nationalist government of the young Turks, who seemed to share the idea of equal citizenship with ethno-religious minorities (Greeks, Armenians and Jews)...
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...Atrocities committed against the Armenian people of the Ottoman Empire during W.W.I. is called the Armenian Genocide. A genocide is an organized killing of a group of people to put an end to their existence. The Armenian Genocide was planned and administrated by the Turkish government against the entire Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. The genocide was between the years 1915 and 1923 during W.W.I. The Armenians were deported, expropriated, abducted, tortured, killed and starved. A huge part of the Armenian population was forced to move from Armenia and Anatolia to Syria, where the majority was sent into the desert and to die of thirst and hunger. Large numbers of Armenians were massacred throughout the Ottoman Empire. W.W.I. gave the Young Turk government an excuse to carry out their plans of a genocide. The Armenian Genocide was masterminded by the Central Committee of the Young Turk Party which was dominated by Mehmed Talât , Ismail Enver , and Ahmed Djemal. They were a racist group whose ideology was articulated by Zia Gökalp, Dr. Mehmed Nazim, and Dr. Behaeddin Shakir. Armenians all over the world commemorate this great tragedy on April 24, because it was on that day in 1915 when 300 Armenian leaders, writers, thinkers and professionals in Constantinople were rounded up, deported and killed. Also on that day in Constantinople, 5,000 of the poorest Armenians were butchered in the streets and in their homes. Across the Ottoman Empire the same events happened from village...
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...The Armenian Genocide Throughout history genocide has taken place on more than one occasion, causing mass destruction and casualties. The most commonly known genocide is the Nazi Holocaust, but the one less commonly known with an equivalent amount of brutality is the Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust. The Armenian Genocide seems to have been ignored and this can be due to the fact that today, Turkey still rejects that the massacre was ”genocide”. Genocide is the murder of an entire people (Levack 800). The United Nations estimates that about 1 million Armenians were killed as a result (Bass). Since the early 1900’s Turkey has been trying to hide the massacres, but this organized genocide should not be ignored because it became a model for future genocides. The Armenians lived in Turkey peacefully for years. The Armenians official religion was Christianity. Islam was the major religion in Turkey. Prior to the Genocide, the Armenians and Turkish people lived together without conflict. In 1908, a movement led to a new group coming to power. The new socialist power, the Young Turks, was formed by young military officers who were concerned about the loss of power in the Ottoman Empire. They worked under the secret police to overthrow the Turkish Sultan, Abdul Hamid II. The Muslims thought the Christians were nonbelievers and treated them unequal. Christians did not have the same legal rights and had to pay higher taxes. The Armenians continued to live...
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...A powerful way in which Turkey denies the genocide lies in their restricted access to archives. There is also controversy involving the degree to which the ones available can be trusted because of the possibility of them being tampered with. In his work The Young Turks’ Crime against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire, Taner Akçam evaluates powerful evidence proving that the Ottoman documents have been “cleansed” intentionally in order to shadow mistakes. Akçam’s book also introduces evidence from more than five hundred secret Ottoman documents. He demonstrates how the Armenian Genocide and the expulsion of the Greeks from the Ottoman Empire was a result of an official effort to free the empire of its...
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...World War I The Ottoman Empire joined Germany and Austria (the Central Powers) during World War I (1914-1918) and collapsed after their defeat. The YoungTurks who controlled the government, anxious to have an all-Muslim empire, saw the chance to get rid of the Christian Armenians. Evacuations and killings during the Armenian genocide of 1915 left 600,000 dead and eliminated all the Armenians inside Turkey. The British expected easy victories, and sent armies into Mesopotamia (Iraq), which were badly defeated, and landed at Gallipoli in order to capture Istanbul, but failed badly in 1915. However, the British were successful in moving from Egypt to conquer Palestine, using the aid of Arab nationalists stirred up by British officer Lawrence of Arabia (T.E. Lawrence). Winston Churchill and other top British leaders envisioned an operation in which they placed their strength against Ottoman weakness. Instead of engaging a feeble opponent, however, the British faced the best-trained and best-led divisions in the Ottoman army and were up against the most heavily fortified and well-prepared positions in the Ottoman Empire. In command and control the Ottoman army performed well at all levels, and Ottoman soldiers proved to be effective fighters on the defensive. The Germans, furthermore, provided very talented generals and senior staff members to aid and help direct the Ottoman effort. As a result the Ottoman army fought the British to a stalemate, leading the British to abandon...
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...permanent” (Mohandas Gandhi). If only our world leaders knew this sooner. Genocide is the act of killing a large mass of people for no valid reason. The Holocaust was a genocide where the Nazi Germans tried to eliminate the Jews from Germany from 1939-1945. The Nazi Germans believed that the Jews were the reason Germany lost World War 1 and wanted them to pay for what they did. The Armenian genocide was where the Turkish people in the Ottoman Empire desired a homogenous Turkish state and wanted to get rid of the Armenians from 1915-1918. Although the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide are similar in their horrible dehumanization and unjust polarization stages, each genocide exterminated its people differently....
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...listen, the truth is hidden, massacres and cruel killings to snatching out future kingdom and commonwealth” (Armin Hariri). The first two genocides of the twentieth century, the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust, have many similarities. Although the Armenian Genocide was twenty-five years before the Holocaust, both leaders had a goal of diminishing the Christian and Jewish religions and both leaders decided to massacre and kill innocent victims through starvation since the two were vulnerable targets. The Armenian Genocide took place on April 24, 1915. “The Armenian people were subjected to deportation, expropriation, abduction, torture, massacre, and starvation” (Armenian National Institute). The Turkish government planned this Genocide, which took place in Armenia and Anatolia. The Ottoman Empire forced the Armenians to relocate to Syria. Armenians walked through the Syrian Desert where many starved to death and died of thirst. Both the Christians and Jews were terribly abused and massacred. Their wealth was taken from them and they were also stripped of their clothing. Many people were treated like animals and went through excruciating pain before their deaths. The Armenians, from the Armenian Genocide, and the Jews, from the Holocaust, had both been treated inhumanely. Both races had been starved to death and the Turks and Hitler had the ‘strong and intellectual’ killed before they killed the ‘weak and dumb.’ The Armenian Genocide is also similar to the Jewish Holocaust because...
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...The events, the rise of the young Turks, and World War 1, leading up to the Armenian Genocide had paved the way for such action to be taken. During the Genocide Armenians were treated horribly. They were beaten and sentenced to be killed. If they tried to revolt against the Turks, they would be killed. They had little or no rights. This all started with the rise of the young Turks and World War 1. In 1908, a new form of government was founded in Turkey and the rise of the young Turks began. The Sultan at the time named Abdul Hamid was overthrown and a group called the young Turks created, what was supposed to be, the more advanced ways to rule. They created new and improved sets of laws and principles for ruling a large group of people....
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...troops," he said. "We are in the presence of a crime without a name." Did you know Raphael Lemkin created a word to describe the Nazi’s way of killing the Jewish people, by using the ancient Greek word genos, (which means race and tribe) and the word Latin cide, (which means killing)? IT WAS GENOCIDE! Raphael Lemkin created the word Genocide because he lost his family in the Holocaust. Genocide is a mass murder that develop in ten stages: classification, symbolization, discrimination, dehumanization,...
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...Holocaust Midterm Dana Bob Mercy College 1. Explain the origins and development of modern anti-Semitism Throughout history the Jewish community has been subject to a violent history which can be traced as far back as their expulsion from Carthage in 250 C.E. For centuries, Jews have endured slavery, land confiscations, massacres, pogroms, blood baths, mass arrests, public torture, banishments, inquisition, slaughter, mass murders and finally, the Holocaust in the 20th century (Grossman, 2014). The Holocaust by far has been the most odious experience that the Jewish community has endured and yet there are many who deny it even took place. The rise of anti-Semitism in early 20th century Germany surely did not begin with Adolf Hitler; however, he was the fulcrum on which it intensified. This hatred for the Jews was not always the case as prior to World War I Jews in Eastern Europe “enjoyed a period of comparative peace, tranquility and the flowering of Jewish religious life” (Jones, 2011). It was after the defeat and subsequent peace settlement at Versailles in 1919, which was followed by a period of depression and burdensome reparations, that nation began to look for a scapegoat. The Jews were seen as the leaders of the parties which had surrendered and ‘stabbed’ Germany in the back by agreeing to the peace accord. Germany slipped into a great depression in the early 1920’s with widespread unemployment and rampant inflation. Hitler and the Nazi party began...
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...Final Paper Genocide Wade Harris HIS306: Twentieth-Century Europe Instructor: Fara Driver November 2nd, 2015 If anything could be described as a scar on the face of the twentieth century genocide would be that scar. Genocide is not the invention of those in the twentieth century, but rather the epitome, the refinement of a horrific act that the twentieth century has perfected. An act that has popular support and the backing of governments, so how can people who live side by side peacefully with others for so long suddenly flip and be able to kill their neighbors? Genocide is a series of choices, choices made by leaders to begin the killings, choices made by people to participate, and the choice to see something wrong and having the power to stop it, but choose not to. Many have written that it is deep seeded hatred passed on from generation to generation that always sits in the back of the minds of those committing genocide, things that may or may not have happened. Other scholars write that it is cultural differences that are ignored until a leader or group uses them for their own gain. (Churchill, R. P. 2014) Whatever the reasons, it is always the minority on the losing end, the bully mentality of a few whirling up hatred for someone else until everyone is in a frenzy and the rhetoric seems real, the threat conjured up is real, and the only action to keep things safe and secure is to remove the problem by any means. This is how genocide starts. But...
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...others who were persecuted with us together – many of them only because they helped Jews.” Mr. Wiesenthal was just one of the survivors from the brutal Holocaust who will forever remember the worst time of his life. How he was torn away from his family and was used as a slave for the Nazis. Yet he was still able to have sympathy and think about others. The Holocaust had a significant impact on America by giving lessons about genocides and preventing other genocides, how they punished war criminals after the...
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