|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Books | |
Armenian Forum | |
Events | |
About | |
|
|
Receive updates | |
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Atrocities, Turkish: The File in Print | |
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Turkish Atrocities" is an invaluable resource for those with any serious interest in the Armenian Genocide, not least because it counters the insidious attempts to deny the events of 1915 even today. The publication is composed of twenty-one eyewitness accounts of the Armenian Genocide; each statement distinguishes between events personally observed by the author and events recounted to the author by others. "Turkish Atrocities" is a living testimony drawn from the whole expanse of the Ottoman Empire, from Smyrna to Bitlis, from Constantinople to Ourfa, detailing actual episodes from the horrific period 1915–17. These testimonies are a remarkable tribute to the Reverend James L. Barton, head of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In 1918 Barton asked missionaries who had served in the Ottoman Empire to file such detailed reports. (One of these, a book-length report about Kharpert (Harpoot), has been published separately by the Gomidas Institute as a companion volume: Henry H. Riggs, Days of Tragedy in Armenia. Another twenty-two appear in the present volume.) The reports were submitted to an American Presidential commission examining various aspects of World War I, including the genocide of Armenians. The statements make for compelling and disturbing reading, and are invaluable as critical evidence of events constituting the Armenian Genocide. Although the reports were submitted from widely varying geographical regions of the Ottoman Empire, the events and methods described are remarkably similar. The cumulative effect is to leave one in little doubt that this was a systematic murderous attack on the Armenian people. There is more to this collection than documentation and proof, however. The reports provide insights into the psyche of the perpetrators and victims alike. The victims have similar responses to the assault. One is faced with a chaotic, anarchic, and frenzied atmosphere. Terror-stricken and starving Armenians are begging foreigners, such as American missionaries and officials, for assistance—for their lives, for food and water. The perpetrators, meanwhile, seem to relish in their victims’ distress. These phenomena are disturbing even before taking into account the incidents of rape, mutilation, infanticide, and torture that are a common theme throughout. The title under which these materials were originally filed, "Atrocities, Turkish," was not a misnomer. Similarities between the Armenian Genocide and other twentieth-century genocides that have followed in its wake are also apparent in this volume. One of the missionaries who testifies here is Myrtle O. Shane. She explains how, when they were burying the bodies of Armenians who had been killed near their house, they unearthed mass graves from the time of the 1895 massacres of Armenians. This incident is reminiscent of bodies found in unknown mass graves in Bosnia. Shane also tells how Armenian victims were made to dig their own graves, a responsibility that Jews found themselves burdened with during the Holocaust. Another eyewitness, Mary Riggs, talks of a woman literally tearing her hair out as a result of the onset of madness incurred following the departure of her only son on a death march—a common malady on the trains to the death camps of the Nazis. When there were mass executions, some Armenians survived by feigning death and lying under those bodies that fell on top of them. Examples of this means of survival can also be found during the Holocaust. In the report by Mr. and Mrs. Harlow and Mr. and Mrs. Birge, they explain how on questioning a German officer on his country’s complicity in the deportations, he replied "You cannot object to exiling a race." Here is an attitude that Hitler was to exploit less than a quarter of a century later. There are, of course, also examples of differences between the Armenian Genocide and similar events in world history, the most obvious perhaps being the attempts by the Ottoman Turks to convert and assimilate certain elements of the Armenian population as Turks. In the current era Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide is allied to United States, British, and Israeli interests. The British ambassador to Armenia shamelessly suggests that "sophistry" is being used with the word "genocide" to describe the events of 1915. At such a time it is important to point out the quality and substance of eyewitness accounts such as those published in "Turkish Atrocities," some of which could be directly appropriated and placed within the era of 1939–45 Germany or 1990s Bosnia. Herein lies this collection’s intrinsic value. The reports remind the world that these events took place; they were horrific beyond description; and they were a clear example of systematic mass murder. James L. Barton collected these reports because he was afraid that the genocide of Armenians might be denied. He writes, "Even Lord Bryce’s book upon the subject is seriously questioned in some quarters." He may therefore be seen as a visionary, as he saw the seeds of denial quite obviously already planted in 1918. The Gomidas Institute and Ara Sarafian should be commended for bringing these reports to the public domain. Gregory Topalian |
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Books | Armenian Forum | Events | About | Updates © 2000 The Gomidas Institute.
All rights reserved. |
|
|
