Turkish Denial

The defeat of the Ottoman Empire and its allies at the end of 1918 raised the possibility of enacting the numerous pledges concerning the punishment of the perpetrators and the rehabilitation of the Armenian survivors. After the Young Turk leaders had fled the country, the new Turkish prime minister admitted that the Turks had committed such misdeeds “as to make the conscience of mankind shudder forever.” United States General James G. Harbord, after an inspection tour of the former Armenian population centres in 1919, reported on the organise nature of the massacres and concluded: “Mutilation, violation, torture, and death have left their haunting memories in a hundred beautiful Armenian valleys, and the traveller is seldom free from the evidence of this most colossal crime of all ages.” The Paris Peace Conference declared that the lands of Armenia would never be returned to Turkish rule, and a Turkish military court martial tried and sentenced to death in absentia Enver, Talaat, Djemal and Dr. Nazim, the notorious organisers of the genocide. No attempt was made to carry out the sentence, however, and thousands of other culprits were neither tried nor even suspended, and even accused and imprisoned war criminals were freed and sent home.

The release of the perpetrators of the genocide signalled a major shift in the political winds. The former Allied Powers, having become bitter rivals over the spoils of the war, failed to act in unison in imposing peace or dealing with the stiff resistance of a Turkish nationalist movement. They concurred that the Armenians should be freed and rehabilitated but took no effective measure to achieve that objective. They hoped that the United States would extend a protectorate over the devastated Armenian regions, but the United States was recoiling from its role in the world war and turning its back on the league of Nations. Unable to quell the Turkish nationalist movement, which rejected the award of any territory for an Armenian state or even unrestricted return for the Armenian refugees, the Allied Powers in 1923 made their peace with the new Republic of Turkey. No provision was made for the rehabilitation, restitution or compensation of the Armenian survivors. Western abandonment of the Armenians was so complete that the revised peace treaties included no mention of “Armenians” or “Armenia”. It was as if no Armenians had ever existed in the Ottoman Empire. The 3,000 year presence of the Armenians in Asia Minor came to a violent end. Armenian place names were changed, Armenian cultural monuments were obliterated or allowed to fall into disrepair. Attempts to eliminate the memory of Armenia included change of the geographic expression Armenian Plateau to Eastern Anatolia . The Armenian survivors were condemned to a life of exile and dispersion, being subjected to inevitable acculturation and assimilation on five continents and facing an increasing indifferent world. With the consolidation of totalitarian regimes in Europe during the 1920s and 1930s memories of the Armenian cataclysm gradually faded, and in the aftermath of the horrors and havoc of World War II it virtuall became the “forgotten genocide”.

In recent years, growing awareness of the Holocaust and the commitment to the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide has again raised the Armenian Genocide to the level of consciousness among educators, scholars and defenders of human rights. The trans-generational trauma of the Armenian people is beginning to be understood, and various official and unofficial bodies have called on the present government of the republic of Turkey to recognise the injustice perpetrated against the Armenians by previous Turkish governments.

But, after a valiant resitance, Van, too, succumbed to the massive Turkish onslaught. My granfather escaped, but lost his father to a Kurdish tribe and his two infant sisters to starvation along the trek. He also lost not all of his cousins, aunts and uncles. One of his cousins, Apraham, with multi-colored eyes, was abducted (stolen)
by a presumably Kurdish horseman who rode past. My grandmother survived but only as an orphan, and with one aunt surviving from an enormous family. Her grandfather was BEHEADED, and the head was put on display.

Now Van has less Armenians that pictured above.

Above you see two Armenian men from Van.

And here I am, granson of two children who escaped
from VAN, ARMENIA alive, to tell you and the world
some forgotten stories.

Listen: this year, the Armenian city of Van (in
Turkish-occupied Armenia) boasts a total Armenian population of…

Zero.

Aikestan — the wealthy, fancy beautiful Armenian
suburb?

It was flattened like a nuclear bomb hit it.

All Armenian material possessions, memories, stores…

reduced to soot, ashes, and faded memories.

Let’s focus on VAN, the one place (besides Musa Dagh), in which the Armenians resisted the forced deportation and massacres.

The entire weight of World War One fell upon the Armenian peasants. With an inborn spirit of hospitality, they shared their meager supplies with soldiers leaving for the front and with Turkish gendarmes and police who stopped at their huts under various pretexts. But these gendarmes “legally,” capriciously, and often savagely, despoiled the Armenian peasants of all their possessions. They confiscated not only grain and cereal, but also oxen and cows, and horses and flocks. In fact, all they had became the property of the Turkish government.

Under these circumstances the Armenian village became economically exhausted, facing inevitable famine and ruin. With all available hands serving in or for the Ottoman army and the harvest confiscated for its use, the Armenian village was being made to look like a ghost town.

According to the law, men between 20 and 45 years of age were subject to military service. Due to the ignorance of the law on the part of peasants and the high-handedness of Turkish conscription officials, practically all able bodied men 17 to 45 were taken.

Even before the outbreak of hostilities the attitude of the Turkish government towards the Armenian people and Armenian soldiers, who volunteered all assistance and did not shrink from any sacrifice, was not only discriminatory but outright enimical.

Eventually it became plain that, under the guise of military necessity, the Turks aimed to ruin utterly trhe economy of the well to do Armenian towns and villages. Without regard to methods, the Turkish Military Council, with a small army of big and petty officials, confiscated all, while higher authorities gave them their blessing instead of punishing them.

The status of the Armenian soldier in the army was even worse. He felt discriminated against at every step. Overworked, abused, savagely beaten and shot on the smallest suspicion, his lot was similar to those miserable slaves that helped build the pyramids. He was constantly exposed to insults, and his race, language and religion held up to ridicule and denigration. The dutiful Armenian soldier was the last to be cared for when it came to food, clothing and shelter.

The attitude of the Turkish government was fast deteriorating, and after the declaration of war, it resorted to outrageous acts of cruelty and murder. The country was plunged into a state of anarchy. Traffic between villages and towns came to a stop. Individual murders and looting gave way to mass murders and wholescale plundering everywhere, beginning with the more distant sections of the country.

Kurdish brigands were reorganized and put into active duty by the Turkish government. Armenian villages were being constantly “searched” as a pretext for cruel beatings, repression, murder and looting.

During November,1914, the Russian army advanced slighly along the eastern boundaries of Van. This was enough to inflame the Turks with added hatred toward Armenians. In order to implement the policy of total annihilation of the Armenians, Turkish rulers, particularly Jevdet Bey, military governor of the eastern military zone, started to massacre innocent and defenseless Armenian villagers. Following thw withdrawal of the Russian army from Sarai, the inhabitants of Avzarig and Akhorig as well as adjoining villages were put to the sword to the last man. Peasants from other villages in the area escaped to Van, destitute, hungry, and withourt shelter. Similar events took place at Bash Kale.

The entire Armenian population of Bash Kale was massacred immediately following the retreat of the Russian army. No one was spared becasue of age or sex. The good looking women and girls were brought to the Shamiram Turkish ward in Van to be auctioned off and to serve their bestial lust. Some ten thousand Armenians were massacred at this time. Not one village was left standing, not one home left intact, not one soul alive except the “fortunate” few that escaped to Van Aikesdan taking refuge in its streets and cellars after horrendous experiences. About his time the Armenian population of Alashgerd were being delivered the same fate of wholescale extermination.

In this preconceived and well-planned scheme for the Armenian massacres, the total obliteration of the Armenian soldiery was contemplated, at first partially, then totally. First, they were systematically disarmed; then Turkish militiamen received secret orders to do away with them. The unburied corpses of Armenian soldiers were discovered in the Khoshab and Arjag regions.

The fate of the Armenian peasants was appalingly tragic. Thses hardworking people had to give up plowing th eland and its harvest in order to bear arms. Yet they witnessed the plundering and the burning of their own villages, the massacres or the flight of their loved ones, the disarming and the disappearance of fellow soldiers, the approach of the devastating tornado engendered by men for whom they had come to sacrifice their own lives.

Now then, with hardly any men left in Armenian villages
and cities across what is now Turkey, the policy of Genocide swung fully into action.

The Armenian of Van had had enough.

1) Massacre of 250,000 from 1894-1897.
2) Massacre of 25,000 Armenians 1909.
3) Relentless persecution from Kurdish Tribes with NO
PROTECTION from the “Turkish” government to which they pay
huge taxes.

4) And on April 24th, 1915, over 200 Armenian intellectuals
from Constantinople (now Istanbul) were rounded up and hanged.

Van battled to RESIST the escalating massacres and the deportation of the Armenians.

In their books denying the Armenian genocide,
instead of showing intellectuals like these two
men, Turkish government-sponsored books like
to show pictures of armed Armenian self-defense
groups as “visual proof” of a civil war.

In reality, most Armenians, even at the border of
Russian Armenia, were seeking only peace and
freedom from the oppression and persecution.

The Armenians were crucial in helping the the
Young Turks overthrow Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
But in 1909, the next year, 25 thousand wealthy
Armenians from across Cilicia (where Marash is
located) were massacred, their possessions confiscated
or looted!

25,000 human beings killed by their oppressive government.

Not 5, not 12, not 155.

Twenty five thousand in 1909.

Talk about betrayal!

How foolish the Armenians
were to trust the Turkish governments,
and yet… THEY TRUSTED THEM STILL.

And trusted them.

Armenians were signed up for the “Ottoman Turkish army” and, in 1915. Many fought and died for “Turkey.” Over a quarter of a million Armenian men were taken away from Armenia. They were treated like slaves, and eventually killed. They were “disarmed” before they were liquidated.

The poor Armenian men. The were separated from the Turkish troops and killed by them en masse. Many were thrown into ditches they had been asked to dig.

Armenians wanted peaceful reforms and justice — as documented in WRITTEN REQUEST to Turkish leaders up to and including April 1915!! (These peaceful pleadings are now labelled “revolts” by those who distort the past) and were reprimanded (for wanting to be equal to the Turk) with bloodly massacres. Turks did not want the “rayah” (cattle) to be eqault to them. The only REVOLTS occured AFTER and DURING MASSACRES, which led to MORE MASSACRES. The cycle continued.

Do we forget the massacres of 1909 (25,000 Armenian massacred) and the annihilation of a quarter of a million 1894-1897? Half a million Armenians were left homeless after the Hamidian Massacres of 1894-1897.

(a.k.a. Nikoghayos Boghosian and Aram Manukian)

Armenian intellectuals and leaders were found in all
vibrant Armenian communities. They knew about the
history of Armenia and they knew…

even though Constantinople in Turkey and Tblisi
in Georgia had large and perhaps more wealthy
and influential Armenian populations…

Van was still the historic heart of Armenia.

About half of Van’s inhabitants were Armenians,
the rest Assyrian Christians, Moslem Kurds, Moslem
Turks, Christian Greeks, and Islamized Armenians
who were called Kurds, and small groups of others.

The city had Armenian quarters, and a very
high-class district called Aikestan in which
Armenian merchants, salesmen, shop-owners,
intellectuals and farmers talked, mingled
and laughed.

Armenians in Van usually spoke only Armenian,
but many knew Kurdish, and some both Kurdish
and Turkish.

In contrast, Armenians in other cities, like
Marash, could have their tongues chopped off
if they spoke Armenian and not Turkish.

In Van it was a little different. Armenian was being
spoken…and written… and read! (The Varak
publication, for example).

News is a good tool for effective word or event circulation. There are a number of good news sources and because people think that they are reliable, many believe in what they offer. Most of the times, it is also news sources that get high-priced advertisers simply because many professionals read their content in a daily basis. A good news source knows how to make money online and it is not only because of their credibility, it is what the advertisers think of the readers that they get - quality and potential customers.

During the Hamidian massacres of 1895, the two-hundred odd villages of Vaspurakan province were subject to massacres and looting. However, in Van (the leading city of Vaspurakan province), the Armenian quarters were saved by the bravery of their revolutionaries.

The villagers who had survived the massacres had taken shelter in the city but the Turkish authorities were determined to subject the Armenian community in Van to the same treatment as all the others. The mayor’s job was to exact the same toll in human lives as other cities had paid to the policies of the sultan. But because the Turkish mayor, Nazim Pasha, was not perpetrating sufficiently horrible atrocities on the defenseless people, he was judged inept and removed from office. The replacement of Nazim Pasha with the notorious “Saadeddine” Pasha proved to be a serious setback to the Armenians cause in Van.

Ironically, Saadeddine Pasha, who was sent to punish Armenians, was himself of Armenian origin. He was from Tsigha village in the Akhlat district of Taron province. His father’s name was Karapet. His two brothers lived in Alexandria, Egypt. When he went to Constantinople at the age of twelve, Saadeddine attracted the attention of an influential pasha who sponsored his education in military schools. He was brought up as a Turk and attained an officer’s rank in the Sultan’s palace guards. He became one of the most loyal, dedicated “dogs” of his master, Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

The city of Van was divided into two main sections: the Kaghakamedj (the inner city proper), inhabited mostly by Turks, and the Aikestan (the vineyard), the Armenian quarters. The Armenians of Van knew about Saadeddine’s plans for them, so they took precautions for their self-defense.

The founder and leader of the Armenakan party, Mkrtich Avetisian, undertook the defense of the Armenian quarters, having as his principal lieutenants both Peto (Dashnak Federation party) and Martic (Hunchak Bell party).

In order to incite anti-Armenian feelings among the Turkish mob, the Turkish authorities paraded the corpse of a Turkish contrabandist in the streets of the city, all the while attributing his murder to Armenians. In connection with a rumor of a dead horse (whose death was also blamed on Armenians), the Turks arrested Armenian notables, Harutune Bartevian, Boghos Solakian, and Karabet, the elder brother of Mkrtich Avetisian. These three men were brutally murdered after suffering unspeakable tortures near Agrpi.

On June 5, 1896, the Turks intensified their efforts by massacring seven hundred Armenians from quarters that were not strictly Armenian.

Some women who were baking bread were thrown into the tonirs (furnace-type ovens). No babies or children were spared. Other Armenians took shelter in the mayor’s house because they considered themselves to be friends of the mayor. Saadeddine surrendered them to the mob, which tore them to pieces.

Perhaps their fate was no worse than that of the Armenian revolutionaries in Aikestan. They had already resisted for three weeks when the British consul, Mr. Williamson (formerly an artillery captain in the British army), mediated and promised the Armenian fighters safe conduct to Persia, if they took their guns with them and left. Actually, Mr. Williamson was trying to stop the fighting because he was concerned that the Russians might use the Armenian massacres as a pretext for attacking Turkey and occupying its eastern provinces.

The Armenakan party youth — about six hundred strong (four hundred from the city and two hundred from the villages) - set out towards Persia under the leadership of Mkrtich Avetisian. Contrary to Mr. Williamson’s promises, they WERE attacked on the way. Finally they reached the monastery of Saint Bartholomew not far from the Persian border. Two hundred Turkish soldiers and thousands of Kurdish brigands were waiting in and around the monastery to ambush the young people. They were encircled. About five hundred were massacred including their leader, Mkrtich Avetisian. According to another source, only thirty young people survived.

About eighty Armenian Dashnak and Armenian Hunchak fighters had followed a different route to Persia. The Dashnak party youth, under the leadership of Peto [Alexander Petrosian] and the Hunchak youth under Martik [Martiros Sarukhanian] and the Hunchak youth under Martik [Martiros Sarukhanian], met the same fate. They, too, were trapped and massacred, all except their Assyrian guide.

All these martyred young people were the victims of a trick by Mr. Williamson. During the fighting in the city, wearing a fez (Turkish hat) on his head, Mr. Williamson went and examined the Armenians positions in Aikestan, reported to the Turkish side, and helped direct the Turkish cannons against the Armenian positions.

“Serob (or Serop) was born in 1864, the youngest in his family. He grew up in the village of Sokhort in the Akhlat
district of Taron province.

Serob often rode his horse and hunted on Mount Nemrut. One day Serob was out hunting wild deer in the forested valleys of Nemrut, an incident occured that changed his life. Two Kurds noticed Serob hunting and decided to kill him, steal his clothes, and take his horse. Serob raised his gun and killed one of the two Kurds; the other ran away.

Mekho, the eldest of Serob’s three brothers, was the village chief. Trying to avoid trouble, he asked his uncle to take Serob to Constantinople (this was 1891). In 1892, Serob moved on to Rumania and settled in the city of Sulina. There he worked as a waiter in a restaurant and then in a coffeehouse. This is how Serob of Sokhort happened to be in Rumania when Hrair-Dzhoghk came to recruit.

In 1893, Serop left Rumania for Batum. After wandering in Transcaucasia for two years, he organized a twenty-seven-man fedayee (freedom fighter) group and made it back to his village, Sokhort, in the fall of 1895. Other fedayee groups had failed to cross the Russian border into Turkey.

Serob’s arrival in the Sassun district was a godsend, occurring just in time to prevent a bloodbath. The Turkish despot, Sultan Abdul Hamid II, had ordered his Moslem subjects to take up their hatchets and swords, break into Armenian homes, and kill any and all Armenians on sight. All over Turkey the toll of Armenian lives lost in the “Hamidian Massacres” was about 300,000 innocent men, women, and children.

As soon as Serob arrived in his village, he took steps to organize the defense of Taron province. He dispatched his trained fedayeen two by two to distant Armenian villages to teach the inhabitants how to resist massacre at the hands of Turks and Kurds. After Serob’s armed resistance measures took hold in these villages, Turkish and Kurdish armed bands soon learned that their gang violence would be met with stiff resistance. Sustaining some casualties, the bands would hastily retreat. With his courage and combativeness, Serob Aghbiur spread terror among the Kurdish clans that were the dominant minority in the eastern and southwestern provinces of Turkey.

Andranik first joined Serob’s fedayeen (freedom fighters) in the fall of 1895. During the first few months Andranik did not receive much notice, nor was he allowed many responsibilities. being an “outsider” he was not trusted and not even allowed to carry a gun. He was given the job of porter, carrying the bags and provisions of more seasoned fedayeen. Andranik accepted this role and remained an obedient follower as long as Serob Aghbiur was alive. The happiest day of Andranik’s life was the day his worth was recognized and he was entrusted with a gun. The first gun Andranik carried was an old-fashioned rifle that had to be loaded from the end of the barrel. Nevertheless, being considered worthy of his trust impressed him greatly, and later in life he remarked, “Thereafter no matter what kind of gun I cam to possess, it did not give me the same thrill.”

In 1893, a noted Armenian revolutionary who adopted the name Hrair-Dzoghk (Armenak Ghazarian) went via Batum to Constantinople and on to Rumania to recruit Armenian volunteers. One of the men he recruited was to become Andranik Ozanian’s mentor, the famed Serop Aghbiur (Serop Vardanian). Who was this man Serop Aghbiur who earned great fame as a valiant and fearless freedom fighter?

1894-1923, 2 million Armenians were killed by
Kurds and Turks. When Armenians fought back,
it often led to MORE MASSACRES.

The Armenians were viewed as “CATTLE or SHEEP” to eat.

Language experts shed tears over the total and
irreversible destruction of so many many dialects
of Armenian.

Musicians shed tears over the destruction of
so many many Armenians folk songs.

Lost.

Gone forever.

Each village had its own traditions.
Moreover, many of the most musically enjoyable
Turkish tunes were written and performed by
Armenians! (See for example UDI HRANT).
Thanks to the Genocide, the Turks lost out
on all that Armenian music talent.
Now the Armenians are helping the
Persian People enjoy the beauty of music.

See http://www.persianmedia.com/vote/

Andy, Viguen and Artoosh are among the
great Persian-Armenian musicians.

The French are also benefiting.

Charles Aznavour, Michel LeGrand (who wrote
the music for Yentl, The Summer of ‘42,
and Brian’s Song), Rosy Armen, and Marten
Yorgantz are all French Armenians.

Only some European-Educated Turks will admit
that Armenians contributed to their musical traditions.
The great composer Gomidas (who is responsible
for the survival of some Armenian village music)
was one of few Armenians from Constantinople
(Istanbul) spared on April 24th 1915, when the
Turks killed hundreds of Armenian intellectuals
from the (former) capital of the Ottoman Empire.
Gomidas had performed concerts not just
for Armenians but also for Turks, and provided
much folk music material for the Turkish people.