During the Armenian Genocide (1915-1917), a plan by the Turkish Authorities to exterminate and expel the Armenian population within its borders was, implemented. The crimes against humanity were not spontaneous in origin, but a result of a well-planned, evil scheme that was, implemented under the cover of the First World War. Up to 1.5 million Armenians, were summarily executed, gassed, died of starvation or exhaustion, were brutalized from the elements (Deportations, long treacherous treks through barren, inhospitable land) raped, enslaved, and had their lands, property, and other possessions confiscated or destroyed. The idea of gassing scores of people was first, implemented by the Turkish military against the Armenians. Groups of defenceless Armenians were, forced to enter caves, prevented from leaving they were, gassed to death. Instances of entire families tied together and then tossed into a body of water, to drown also occurred.
Many women and children were raped, many repeatedly, yet others were savagely tortured and raped, sexually mutilated; used as sex slaves, concubines, wives, or second wives, and other sexual deviant acts occurred, it was a free-for-all; forced conversions of Armenians at gunpoint, by ignorant soldiers who followed orders and knew nothing about religion was common. Children were, sold on a whim into slave-like labour or child marriages. It is not known how many raped women were, impregnated by their rapists and what happened to the scores of fatherless children. There were a minority of non-Turkish participants from the crumbling Ottoman Empire, including Kurds and others. However, as for the Arabs (In particular those from the fertile, crescent), their countries were open to the Armenians. In fact, the Mediterranean Arabs were fearful that they too would eventually be butchered but not to such an unprecedented scale. Iran took in some Armenians too.
The Ottoman Empire and whatever tidbits were left of the Caliph system had by now been ‘Turkish’ or ‘Turkified’ and very nationalistic. There were Arab deserters amongst the Ottoman forces. They did not want to have anything to do with supporting an oppressive empire. My paternal grandfather was one of those deserters, he and a group of men walked back to Jaffa, Palestine; my maternal grandparents were from Haifa, Palestine. My grandfather and his group of deserters travelled during the night and slept in caves during the day. The British authorities were able to convince the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula to fight against the Turks, making promises to the Arab leaders that were baseless.
When Adolph Hitler was drawing up his plans for the Final Solution (Eradication of European Jewry) he, was told that the world body would not permit such a thing; he allegedly responded by saying, ‘Who remembers the Armenians?’ Indeed, the world had for the most part forgotten about the Armenian genocide- holocaust.
“The story of those who didn’t die—the story of young women who survived and stayed behind—has never been told. Men write down history, so it is with Genocide. There is no room for the women. They were impure, tainted, and despised. Yet they were the ones who suffered most. They were the ones who paid a terrible price. They had to carry the heaviest burden of all: They had to regenerate life,” Narrated by Suzanne Kardalian, Director of Grandma’s Tattoos (2011) via Nanore Barsoumian, December 7, 2011; The Armenian Weekly: ‘Devilish Marks’ and Rape in the Time of Genocide)
“The {Armenian} children and young people arriving in Aleppo {In Syria} told of deportations, separations, mass extrajudicial killings, and repeated rapes, followed by years of unpaid servitude as agricultural workers or domestic servants, servile concubines, un-consenting wives, and involuntary mothers.” Keith David Watenpaugh, The League of Nations’ Rescue of Armenian Genocide Survivors and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism, 1920–1927. (Nanore Barsoumian, December 7, 2011; The Armenian Weekly: ‘Devilish Marks’ and Rape in the Time of Genocide)
BELOW ARE SOME IMPORTANT QUOTES REGARDING THE ARMENIAN, GENOCIDE:
One of the primary instigators of the Armenian genocide was a person not known in today’s world. History books have not identified this person as a war criminal. Ismail Enver Pasha (Turkish: Ismail Enver Pasa, November 22, 1881 – August 4, 1922) was an Ottoman military officer and a prominent figure in the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. He was a major figure in the Balkan War (1912-1913) and in the First World War (1914-1918). In 1914, he rose to the rank of Minister of War of the Ottoman Empire, thereby becoming one of the triumvirates, including Enver Efendi, and Enver Bey. He was a strong promoter of the nationalistic-racist, non-inclusive philosophy of Pan-Turkism, a precursor-catapult for the Armenian genocide.
Enver Pasha was a strong supporter and promoter of Germanophile policies of the Young Turk government. In 1911, he helped develop the defence of Libya against Italy. In 1913, he led the January coup, which culminated in the establishment of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) in power. The following year he lucked out by marrying into an Ottoman imperial family. By now, he was Minister of War. He was one of the major forces that directed the Ottoman State into the First World War on the side of the Central Powers by forming a formidable alliance with Germany.
While symbolic, in name-only command of the Ottoman armies was, performed by Turkish officers, organization, strategizing, and financing was, delegated to the massive German mission emanating from the War Ministry. Enver took the initial steps to the path of Armenian genocide by executing into action the CUP design by ordering Armenian recruits in the Ottoman Military to be disarmed and transferred to, labour regiments before their summary executions. A major debacle that helped catapult Enver Pasha’s actions was his leading of a major campaign and against Russia, which ended in a catastrophic defeat at the border of Sarikamish in the Armenian highlands. Someone had to be, blamed for this debacle; the most convenient target was the Armenians. They were labelled as treasonous and agents of the enemy.
The onset of large-scale massacres of Armenian civilians would soon follow. Enver Pasha had control of a secret organization called Special Organization (Turkish: Teshkilâti Mahsusa), the SO was commanded by Behaeddin Shakir, a physician, and its comrades in the field were led by CUP advisers whose purpose was the slaughter of the Armenian populace.
The advance of the Ottoman Army into the Caucasus, led by Enver’s brother, Nuri, allowed the SO agents to initiate major atrocities against Armenians in Azerbaijan, a country located on the western edge of the Caspian Sea, at the junction of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
In 1915, when the Ottoman Turk patrols arrested Mugrditch Nazarian in the dead of night, he was not, given a chance to put on proper attire he was, taken in his pyjamas. Varter’s loving wife instinctively knew that it was improbable that she would ever see her husband again this was a period of time when large numbers of Armenian men were, taken away. The official notification was deportation - to a horrible place.
Not only did Varter never see her husband again, she never found out what happened to him; no doubt he was killed but the how, when, and where was a mystery. Many among this cluster were, shot outright, others were mercilessly tortured, so excruciating that a number of victims committed suicide, some going to such lengths as pouring kerosene on themselves, turning themselves into human bonfires.
When Varter was deep into her pregnancy she was, ordered to join a death march, including women and children lead to concentration camps. She miraculously survived the journey however, her six children died during the death march. Her youngest two children were, thrown down a mountainside by Ottoman Turk guards. The remaining four died of starvation, at the foot of a well hiding from their oppressors.
Varter was, tricked by a man who told her that he was going to deliver her to safety. Instead, as was the case in many instances, she was, raped. In the end, she was one of the luckier ones who were eventually, released. What happened to the Armenians was the first genocide of the 20th Century. The Ottoman Turks had twenty-five concentration camps set up in an organized, calculated, efficient system of extermination. The Ottoman Turks labelled the Armenians as ‘vermin’. Winston Churchill (November 30, 1874 - January 24, 1965, A renowned statesman and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1941 - 1945, and 1951 - 1955) described the Ottoman Turk eradication plan for the Armenians as an ‘administrative holocaust’. The Government of modern Turkey continuously and adamantly denies their complicity in any genocide.
Many photographs of the atrocities, documentation, and countless witnesses and testimonials attest to the fact that there was indeed a planned extermination of the Armenian People. Recently discovered photographs from the archives of the German Deutsche Bank, which was active in region financing a railway structure. This particular cluster of photos was, discovered and brought to light by renowned Middle East war correspondent, historian, and writer Robert Fisk (July 12, 1946 - ).
The photographs show young men packed into cattle trucks, to be, sent to their deaths. On average each wagon contained ninety terrified men, shockingly, this average number, equals the number of victims the Nazis loaded onto train carts to be used for transportation of victims during World War 2; the primary but not the sole target were the Jews. Other photos show women and children, blank-faced, gazing past the camera, witnessing acts of monstrosity and wondering about their own fate. There were no powerful Armies or other saviours to prevent them from being, victimized. Sexual savagery was common hardly any age cohort was safe. However, as for the women who were to be, victimized but were somehow, too unappealing they were, beaten to death; bullets were too costly to waste on this category of Armenians. Many men, women, and children, not excluding babies were, dumped out in the open, where they were subjected to starvation, dehydration, illness, no love or human comfort, the elements, and hungry animals. Many victims eventually became walking skeletons, willing to eat anything. Many corpses lay in rivers and lakes; a common practice was to tie a family or group together and then toss them into a body of water wherein they would all drown in a very painful, agonizing way; the stench around the death and killing fields was quite noxious according to travellers.
It is not, known how many Armenian babies were tortured or killed outright, but this kind of monstrosity was by no means beneath the moral standard of the participating Ottoman Turks. Some women tossed their babies in lakes rather than hand them over to the Ottoman Turk soldiers. Attractive girls and women were sent off to become wives, concubines, prostitutes (This activity lasted until the mid-1920s), or as servants. Some children had their knee tendons detached. Blinding, crucifixions, and the pulling out of fingernails and toenails also occurred.
“On the night of April 24, 1915 - the anniversary of which is marked by Armenians around the world - the Ottoman government moved decisively, arresting 250 Armenian intellectuals. This was followed by the arrest of a further 2,000 ... Some died from torture in custody, while many were executed in public places. The resistance poet, Daniel Varoujan was, found disembowelled, with his eyes gouged out. One university professor was, forced to watch his colleagues have their fingernails and toenails pulled out, before being blinded. He eventually lost his mind, and was let loose naked into the streets.” (October 11, 2007; dailymail.co.uk: The forgotten Holocaust: The Armenian massacre that inspired Hitler)
Dozens, of Armenians at a time, would be, routinely rounded up and bound together in small groups and then they were, sent to a hidden area, soon, the sound of gunshots roared in the air. Many of the Armenians who were, executed in this manner were naked; their oppressors conveniently stole their clothing. The word ‘deportation’` or ‘transfer’ usually meant eventual killing. Entire Armenian villages were, evacuated emptied of all its inhabitants. Theft, looting, and pillaging of Armenian villages and property occurred on a colossal scale.
The Ottoman authorities had formed a delusional idea in their head that they were going to establish a vast Muslim empire, Ottoman-Turkic style, ignoring the plight and aspirations of not just the Armenians but also the many millions of Arabs, the smaller number of Kurds, and other minorities whom they certainly did not treat as equals, many were persecuted. The Ottoman Turks were to be the masters. No wonder, the British were able to convince tribal Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula to fight on their side against their Ottoman oppressor-occupiers. The British and French authorities double-crossed the Arabs with their Sykes-Picot Agreement 1916 (or Asia Minor Agreement), carving up a big chunk of the Arab World. The Government of Tsar Nicholas II had no problem with this deal. However, shortly following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the new government publicized the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement 1916, shocking Arab officials in the affected regions. Later, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 issued by Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour, promised the Jewish people a homeland in Palestine. In reality, there was hardly any consideration given to the indigenous population of Palestinians in the affected land.
Just as the Nazis later viewed the European Jews as an evil obstacle in their path, the Ottoman Turkish authorities wanted the Armenians erased from their empire. Large-scale massacres of Armenians had already occurred from 1894 to 1896, commonly referred to as the Hamidian Massacres, so great and horrible in scope they are, believed by some to be a near-genocide act. The name Hamidian refers to the fact that the massacres occurred by order of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (Turkish: Abdul Hamit; September 21, 1842 – February 10, 1918; the 34th and final Sultan of the Ottoman Empire to wield dictatorial-like powers. Ruling from 1876 – 1909), he was deposed shortly following the Young Turk Revolution (July 1908).
At the turn of the 20th Century there were an estimated 2 million Armenians living within the Ottoman Empire, 200,000 Armenians had already perished due to pogroms, primarily during the Hamidian Massacre period.
Life in the concentration camps was, as is expected, atrocious to say the least. Most of the victims were sent to camps located near the modern Iraqi and Syrian peripheral border, in a desert region Jerablus (Today, a Syrian city in the Aleppo Governate), and Der ez-Zor (Or Derr Al-Zor; the largest city in eastern Syria). Therein an estimated 70,000 Armenians were, rounded up and forced into each camp, where diseases were rampant; with no food, water, or shelter, some of the inmates were so desperate they resorted to cannibalism; the survival rate was miniscule.
From June 10-14, 1915, killing squads exterminated around 25,000 people in the Kemal Erzincan region (Located in Erzincan Province, in the Eastern Anatolia region in Turkey). In September 1915, Leslie A. Davis, the American consul in Kharput, a region in Turkey, made known her discovery of nearly 10,000 Armenian bodies disposed of in Lake Geoljuk (located in Eastern Anatolia, Turkey), referring to it as the ‘slaughterhouse province’. At the Ras-ul-Ain concentration camp near Urfa (Also Sanliurfa, located in South-eastern Anatolia), two German railway engineers reported witnessing 300 or 400 naked women arriving in one day. One of the witnesses said that Sergeant Nuri, the superintendant of the concentration camp, boasted about raping children, how utterly despicable.
In 1915, Mrs. Anna Harlowe Birge, an American tourist, travelling from Smyrna (Located in western Turkey) to Istanbul, noted that at each and every station that they stopped in, they were side-by-side with a train made up of cattle trucks, she saw the faces of young children looking out from the tiny, barred windows of each truck. In her memoir, Aurora Mardianian explicitly recounted having been, raped and to add insult to injury she was forced to become a harem (A women centered upon one man; concubine), she came from a wealthy family, many other Armenian women and children suffered a similar fate others were tossed away or killed.
As early as 1920, it was apparent that Ottoman Turkish officials had no sorrow in their hearts for the genocide, later, there would be, continual denial. "These things were done to secure the future of our homeland, which we know is greater and holier than even our own lives." (ibid)
However like, the Jewish Holocaust and other large-scale atrocities, there are people who do care, some lend a helping hand, while others go as far as risking their lives. Hajji Halil, a Muslim Turk, hid eight members of his mother’s family in his home, risking his own life. There were instances of Kurds trailing behind the deportation caravans saving as many victims as they could. There were many instances of mothers giving their children to Turkish and Kurdish families to save them from torture or killing.
The Governor of Aleppo took a more forceful stance against Ottoman officials, trying to block deportations from his jurisdictional area, but was unsuccessful. He later recollected the nightmarish scenario, "I was like a man standing by a river without any means of rescue. But instead, of water the river flowed with blood and thousands of innocent children, blameless old men, helpless women and strong young people all on their way to destruction. Those I could seize with my hands I saved. The others, I assume, floated downstream, never to return." (ibid)
The Ottoman officials made a profit from the sales of stolen Armenian properties. Fayez, Al-Hussein, an Arab eyewitness to acts of grand theft wrote in his memoirs, following the massacres of the Armenians, the Ottoman Turk Government established agencies that were active in selling surplus property. Armenian cultural artefacts were, sold at the lowest prices even food was, sold. The total count of victims of the Ottoman Turk brutality from 1914 to 1923 reaches an estimated 3.5 million; if we include the Armenians, Pontian and Anatolian Greeks, and Assyrians; numerous villages were, erased from the map. The Assyrians of Iraq continue to be, persecuted in the has-been, state of Iraq.
Despite a campaign promise to, recognize the Armenian genocide during his eight years in office President Barack Obama (August 4, 1961 - ; 44th President of the United States) refused to do such a thing. Instead, he backtracked and used a weaker phrase: "Two years ago, I criticized the Secretary of State for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used the term 'genocide' to describe Turkey's slaughter of {1.5 million} Armenians starting in 1915... As President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide." (By Marta Cerava, Louis Jacobson May 11, 2016)
What follows is another statement reflecting President Obama’s broken campaign promise to recognize the Armenian genocide, “Today we solemnly reflect on the first mass atrocity of the 20th century -- the Armenian Meds Yeghern -- when one and a half million Armenian people were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman empire." (ibid)
Apparently, President Obama believed that currying favour, to Turkey, America's Ally, and the autocrat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (February 26, 1954 -; 12th President of Turkey) was worth more than his word. “It {is} a Turkish government veto over U.S. policy on the Armenian genocide ... It’s like Erdogan imposing a gag rule very publicly and an American president enforcing that gag rule,” said Aram Hamparian, head of the Armenian National Committee of America. (By the Associated Press, April 22, 2016; Despite Campaign Vow, Obama Declines to Call Massacre of Armenians ‘Genocide’)
The Israeli Government continues to refuse to acknowledge that what happened to the Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks was, genocide. Although it is a historically accurate and proven fact, other factors seem to play a more important role for their denial. Israel has a firm political and military relationship with Turkey. Israel imports roughly forty percent of its oil from Azerbaijan (Recently fought a war against Armenia), and ships a great deal of military weapons and hardware to this country. Armenia is a country with a population of 3 million; from the perspective of the deniers, it is not worth the sacrifice.
Operation Nemesis was a codename, for a covert operation and an assassination campaign. It occurred from 1920 to 1922. The goal was to assassinate the Turkish architects of the Armenian genocide, headed by Armen Garo (Born Garegin Pastermadjian; February 9, 1872 - March 23, 1923; Activist and politician), Aaron ‘Aharon’ Sachaklian (1879 - August 5, 1964), and Shahan Natalie (Born Hagop Der Hagopian; Changed his name to John Mahy after becoming an American Citizen; 1884 - 1983).
Armen Garo was a high-ranking member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), the organization that formed the assassination plot. Following the end of the First World War, an Ottoman military tribunal sentenced to death the main Young Turk leaders responsible for designing and execution of the Armenian genocide. However, as soon as the trials were over the men condemned were, set free; they moved to and lived in European cities; the men used pseudonyms. They were soon placed on, an assassination list.
BELOW IS A LIST OF THE NAMES OF THE ASSASSINATED MEN:
At a congress in Berlin, historians have been discussing Germany’s role in the role of the Armenian genocide. New evidence indicates that Germany’s complicity is more significant than previously presumed. At the end of September 1916, German diplomat Gottlieb von Jagow (June 22, 1863 - January 11, 1935) was compelled to give t