The Armenian Genocide and Its Denial

Between the years of 1915 and 1918 the Ottoman Empire, under the Young Turks began a deliberate program of removing and exterminating the Armenian population; a population already dismantled through previous massacres. The Armenians were a minority in both population and religion. Because most Armenians were Christians, they were made an easy scapegoat in an empire that was mostly Islamic. With the world’s eyes on the First World War, the Armenian Genocide went mostly unnoticed and there were no punishments such as ones received by Germany after the Holocaust. The United States has deliberately avoided the recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 in order to maintain an ally in the Middle East and to avoid American genocidal policies,

The Holocaust was the extermination of Jews along with other groups by the Nazis under the leadership of Hitler. The Holocaust lasted from 1933 to 1945 and took the lives of about 6 million Jews as well as millions of others within other ethnic groups. This was nearly two-thirds of the European Jewish population. The Armenian genocide began in 1915 and ended in 1917. However, brutality to the Armenians did not cease until 1923.This genocide was the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman government under the power of the Young Turks. There were around 2 million Armenians living in the Ottoman empire before WWI. By the end of Armenian brutality in 1923, an estimated one and a half million Armenians had been slaughtered and only half a million Armenians were

Many people recognize the Holocaust as the biggest and worst genocide ever. Although the Holocaust was one of the worst and biggest genocides ever. It is important to learn about other genocides to study how and why they happened and to understand the causes and effects. The ultimate goal is to get rid of genocides all together. Through education we learn to stop and prevent these types of events from happening. One and a half million people died from 1915 to 1923 in the Armenian genocide. A genocide is deliberate killing of a large group of people (dictionary.com). In 1915 the Armenian people living in the Ottoman Empire were targeted by the Turkish government. Many people do not know about the Armenian genocide because they do not teach

The Turkish massacre of the Armenians during World War I is very similar to the Holocaust but on a much

Since a hundred years ago, the discussion over the barbarous actions of the Ottoman Empire murdering and deporting of its Armenian community has come down to one question. Was the viscous acts of the Ottoman Empire considered Genocide or not? This is the real global issue that has been debated for so long throughout the world. While the vast American-Armenian community truly believes the word Genocide should be openly used to describe the massacre that took place a hundred years ago, the United States has not let the word out of their mouth. Many Armenians wonder why the United States choose not to express the G-Word when they know more than a million Armenians were massacred during the final days of the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman leaders felt as if their homeland was under threat from the Armenian diaspora. The call for their deportation came as nationalism had risen in the Empire, and leadership changed hands several times. The Ottoman military began rounding up Armenians in 1915 with the intent of deportation, but within weeks over 5,000 had been burned to death, and the massacres had officially begun. (Ani) The

The Turkish government refuses to allow other allied countries and those within NATO to address this event as a genocide. This act is to purely save face. It does not allow the families who have already lost so much due to the slaughtering of their families to heal. One hundred years has gone by and the evidence to support the fact that the Armenian genocide did indeed happen and past the extent that the Turkish government allows to be known. The government has done everything from silencing the media to forging records from the times of the Genocide to paint the government in a better light and not cause any unwanted backlash from the people or from allied governments. The continuation of the denial of the magnitude of the situation is only serving to reflect poorly on the Turkish government as a whole. Flat-out denial to acknowledge these actions caused by the government in the past is only making the families affected by the genocide against their ancestors want to make right to this injustice. The Armenian Genocide ended with the Ottoman surrender in 1922 to conclude their role in WW1. This caused the Turks to flee to Germany where it was promised that they would not be prosecuted for their actions. The genocide started with well over two million Armenians living within the Ottoman empire's borders but ended

The genocide began on April 24, 1915, when “300 Armenian political leaders, educators, writers, clergy and dignitaries in Istanbul were taken from their homes, briefly jailed and tortured, then hanged or shot” just for being a non-believer in the Muslim religion (UHRC, par. 19). After this, many Armenian men were being arrested for no real reason. They were then taken and shot or bayoneted by Turkish soldiers. Now, it was time for the Armenian women and children. These people were “ordered to pack a few belongings and be ready to leave home, under the pretext that they were being relocated to a non-military zone for their own safety when they were actually being taken on death marches heading south toward the Syrian Desert” (UHRC, par. 21). Over a million people took part in these “death marches” with almost ¾ of people dying while traveling through the desert.

The Armenian genocide is one of the most brutal genocides to occur in modern history and was set against the backdrop of World War I and the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Armenians populated the eastern provinces of the Ottoman domain for centuries, all while being treated with contention by the ruling Muslims due to their adherence to Christianity (Whittaker & Moreno-Riano, 2013). The gradual decline of the Ottoman Empire increased this contention, as the Turkish majority grew anxious over the precarious future of the Muslim dominated empire. When the Ottoman Empire entered World War I, it only exacerbated the fear that Armenians were disloyal, and it became widely believed that they would assist the Russians in their fight against the Turkish. It is possible some Armenians perceived the Entente Powers as a lesser evil than the Turks, but unlikely that it was a

There are more than one ways that the holocaust is very similar to the Genocide in Armenia. Like Hitler, The Turkish government had devised and set into motion a plan to exterminate more than one million of turkeys Armenians. Like the holocaust in Germany, the genocide in Armenia had a lot to do with religion and in almost a super similar situation to the holocaust, it all started to go bad when a group called the "young Turks" decided they wanted all the power and wanted any religion but theirs out of turkey. By April of 1915 hundreds were arrested and thousands were taken from their homes and put on death marches without food and water through the desert and just like in the holocaust, people were also tortured and killed in very cruel manors.

Elie Wiesel is quoted saying “Denial is the final phase of genocide, a second killing.” This can be seen when on April 24th, 1915, a group of Armenians were forcibly removed from their homes, and unknown to them, marched to their death. This would begin the period known to many as the Armenian Genocide. However, many still refuse to acknowledge the killings that took place. The mass genocide of Armenians is still a taboo subject in Turkey, almost 100 years after two million citizens lost their lives.

“Deportations orders were announced publicly or posted in each city and township. Families were allowed two days to collect a few belongings; their property confiscated or quickly sold off” (“Crimes” 84). The Turks sold the seized houses without any of the Armenian citizens’ permission and started deporting the last of the family members. After having their homes taken away, Armenians were easier to deport because they had nowhere else to go. Without the safety of their home, the surviving Armenians were forced to walk death marches.

The war allowed the Turks to impose their wrath and destruction on the Armenians. The first phase began with the war afflicted provinces; the Turks took the opportunity to seize properties and personal belongings of the remaining Armenians. Whatever valuables they had were forcibly taken from them. They had no means of support and were subjugated under the leadership of the Turks. They were removed and transported by trains or had to walk miles and miles by foot to the Mesopotamian desert. This initial step was the start of the mass execution of the innocent Armenians in an isolated place at the hands of the Empire.

What is the Armenian Genocide? It is “the atrocities committed against the Armenian people of the Ottoman Empire during W.W.I. The Armenian people were subjected to deportation,

Approximately one and a half million Armenians were killed from 1915-1923. The remaining part was either Islamized or exiled.” The Armenian Genocide was a horrific event that caused the Armenians to have a major loss in population. From this, the Armenians should have been given reparations, but were not and that still affects them to this day.