Summary:
Find out the terrible truth about the Armenian Genocide
The purpose of this research paper is to learn more about my heritage and history of my ancestors. I am an Armenian and this is a paper on my people. This was a hard subject to do due to the graphic pictures and nature of the text. I want everyone to see the truth of the Armenian Genocide. We remember the Genocide every April 24 and remember those who died at the hands of the Turks. I was lucky enough to be at the Times Square in New York this year and to see a few survivors of the genocide and hear their stories.
The Young Turks did not like the multiculturalism in turkey. Their goal was to create an all Turkish turkey. They didn't like the fact that there were a lot of Armenians in high places, earning their living and living better than the Turks. This was one of the reasons that angered the Turks. Armenians and Turks began having conflicting dreams of the future. Some Armenians began to call for independence like the Greeks and others. The Turks were dreaming of a pan Turkey spreading all the way to the Turkish speaking parts of central Asia . Armenians were the only ethnic group in between these two major pockets of Turkish speaking countries. The Turks only saw one possibility to get their goal. Exterminate the Armenians.
In 1914 the young Turks were in total control. But the rest of the world was in panic. The first world war was about to start. By 1915 there was turmoil The Turks viewed this as an opportunity to get rid of the Armenians. They would get rid of it by blaming the war.
In the evening of April 24th 1915 the darkest night in Armenian History accord. The Young Turks put the word out on the street that Turkey was at war and needed the help of fellow Armenians ages 16-60. Armenians feeling grateful for the Turks for providing them a promise of "good life" followed the Turks in the back of trucks with covers on them so they wouldn't know where the Turks where taking them. The only Armenians left were helpless women, children, and elders who had no idea to what happened to their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. All of them were forced to flee from their homes with what they could carry with promises of going to a safer place away from the war. Convoys carried the people out south to the desert of Dier-el-Zhor dessert south of Syria.
There they where forced on death marches. There those who could not keep up with the group where killed on the spot. Women were raped by soldiers Those women and girls who wanted to avoid it jumped in rivers or committed suicide as did those who couldn't bare the humiliation " a young girl who was raped by one of the Turkish leaders of the town the caravan happened to be passing through. The gauardarmes went through the caravan and found and especially pretty twelve-year-old girl. They dragged her away from her mother telling the weeping women that they would return her. And . in fact the child was returned, but she had been terrible abused and died. " ( Miller, 1993 page 102-103 ) " virgin girls holding each other's hands threw themselves into the river Euphrates. Hundreds of girls often drown themselves in one day." ( Miller, 1993 page 103 -104 ) The children where kidnapped Those two young to endure the tortured died. Many were orphaned. Some where abandoned in hopes they would be taken by a kind soul and survive. Some were sold into slavery. Many of those abandoned and orphaned where taken in by Turks known as "the good Turks" and where raised as Turks and forgot about their Armenian heritage.
Many of these children lived in the homes of Kurds, Turks, and Arabs. Many of them were malnourished and plagued with lice. When they found out they were Armenian and found out what happened to their people they ran away from their foster homes to an Armenian orphanage. At the orphanages they were bathed, deloused, given clean clothes, and given to a surrogate Armenian mother. They were taught the Armenian language again because many had forgotten it. The Elders that could not keep up where shot right in front of their families.
The slaughter of the men was gross. " they asked the men and boys to separate from the women. There were some teen boys dressed as girls and they were kept behind. but my father had to go. He was a grown man with a mustache. As soon as they separated the men, a group of armed men came from the other side of the hill and killed them right in front of our eyes. They killed them with Bayonets at the end of their riffles, sticking them into their stomachs. Many women could not take it and threw themselves into the river Euphrates and they two died. They did this right infant of our eyes. I saw them kill my father. " This is a story of a survivor from Konia. (Miller, 1993 Page 80). Others were taken to concentration camps and were tortured by having their nails pulled out, eyes burned with metal rods, then their bodies blazed with heat. They had their ears, noses, lips, fingers, toes, limbs, and head cut off. Then if that wasn't enough they put the bodies in caves shaped like ovens, made it really hot and cooked the bodies. Then the remains were crushed with large stones and boulders.
Resistance happened in little places because the people that were able to defend the villages where taken to the Turkish army, The weapons were taken and used against them by the Turks. And the leaders and brains of the society were imprisoned or killed.
Two places where resistance occurred were in Van and Urfa. Children went around house to house collecting brass candle bars to make shells for bullets. Some Armenians when they killed a Turk pulled him into a house and took the ammunition he was caring " one morning in a place south of Urfa, about one to two hours away, these men worked building a road from Urfa to Rakka. In the morning, thousands of these young men were reported to work. They were asked to strip to their shirts and underwear, line up and be tied. Overlooking them was an Armenian Official with a sword. When he realized what was happening, and understanding that they were going to all be killed, he drew his sword and yelled out loudly for all of them to run away. So they all ran and the Turks open fire on them." ( Miller, 1993 page 75)
Those who survived went to many different places. Some of those places include Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Bulgaria, England, France, Italy and very few to the United States. " Armenians were scattered all around, each one of them with a heart filled with grief or the loss of a loved one....."( Fedayi, page 4)
Some Armenians have taken revenge against the Turks. Tehlirian followed Talaat Pasha all the way to Germany and shot him in the head. Five Armenian youths went to Lisbon captured the Turkish ambassador hostage. Then they were surrounded by Libon police. Then ambassador escaped. They stood in a circle and in the middle way a bomb. Then they linked hands and gave their lives in the name of Armenia.
Everything that is stated in this report is true. I didn't make up any of this. If this genocide had been recognized then the Jews wouldn't have suffered as much because it could have been prevented. As the saying goes never forget the past because history repeats itself is true and applies here.
History repeated itself 2 times. First in 1915 and the other in 1938-1945.
" we have been waiting 86 years for an apology" ( Cilica, page 1) " We Survived, We resurrected, and that I believe, is our biggest REVENGE" ( Fedayi, Page 5)
Works Cited
1. Avakian, Arra ARMENIANS IN AMERICA Minneapolis, Minnesota, Learner Publishing company, 1977
2. Baliozian, Ara, THE ARMENIANS: THIER HISTORY AND CULTURE. AGBU Ararat press 1980
3. Miller, Donald, Lorna Miller SUVIVORS AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE ARMNIAN GENOCIDE University of California Los Angeles, California 1993
4. Toynbee, Arnold ARMENIAN ATROCITIES THE MURDER OF A NATION Tankian publishing corp. New York, N.Y. 1975
5. http://www.cilica.com/armo0bl.html
6. http://www.fedayi.com/genocide.
7. http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/facts/genocide.html.
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