Armenian Genocide Quotes

Mehmet Talaat Pasha was one of the national leaders who adopted the policy of extermination of the Armenians. The Christian Armenians, a minority in Turkey and its lands, were discriminated against like other non-Muslim minorities in the Ottoman Empire. But during the Turkish War with Russia, some Armenians defected and served on the Russian side. Many Turkish citizens took revenge on Armenians by means of murder and torture. Soon, the extermination of the Armenians became the official “Young Turk” government policy.

Turkey, even a century later, takes great offense at the terms “holocaust” or “genocide” to describe the death of so many Armenians. The censor newspapers and jail academics who even want to have conferences to study the question. This is in great contrast to Germany which faced its genocidal killings squarely and built a society and government structure to never forget it and always focus on preventing a reoccurrence,

At the time hundreds of thousands of Armenians were being massacred by the Turks. Some atrocities were spontaneous, many were committed under orders, and many were triggered by Turkish leaders who whipped up the resentment and hate for the non-Muslim Armenians and then forced unarmed Armenians into areas where the Muslim Turks themselves were short of food and supplies. See {626835} for one of the several admissions of the intended genocide.

At the time Dulles was the Assistant Secretary & Near East Division chief of the State Department. Congress was outraged over the Turkish massacres of the Armenians, the Russian pogroms against the Jews, and the Belgian atrocities against the Blacks in the Congo. However, the State Department was then more interested in maintaining relations for our corporations than the moral aspects of mass murder within a country.

At its largest, the Ottoman Turkish Empire included all of the Middle East, most of North Africa, much of Russia, and Europe right up to the walls of Vienna.

At the time Dulles was the Assistant Secretary & Near East Division chief of the State Department. The Turks were killing, starving and displacing Armenians—Mostly Christians—in Turkey. Like modern ethnic cleansing and genocides such as Kosovo, Rwanda, and Sudan, the magnitude of the atrocities was denied by the perpetrators and their apologists and other countries did not want to publicly admit the genocide lest they be forced to intervene by public opinion. Previously, the Armenians had slaughtered many Turks, especially the Armenians allied with Russia, and the two groups to this day have a continued distrust of each other—see {51838}, {638251}, {620602}, {620603}, {620604}, {620605}, {620600}, and {620606}

While there is often considered to have been only one Holocaust, the headline Another Armenian Holocaust implies there were multiple holocausts in Armenia

He was one or the few Turkish Senior officials who would testify about the Armenian genocide. The Christian Armenians, a minority in Turkey and its lands, were discriminated against like other non Muslim minorities in the Ottoman Empire. But during the Turkish War with Russia and WWI, some Armenians defected and served on the Russian side. Many Turkish citizens took revenge on Armenians by means of murder and torture. Soon, the extermination of the Armenians became the official “Young Turk” government policy. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed outright, and about an equal number were “deported” to special areas. Many died of malnutrition along the forced march of Ethnic Cleansing. Others were murdered as they were deported. No one knows exactly how many Armenians were killed with estimates ranging from ½ million to 4 million. This was the first genocide of the 20th century. Modern Turkish leaders however, are in denial about the Armenian deaths. They claim that there was a war and food was scarce; the only Armenians killed, the claimed were proven Russian agents. They further claim that the Armenian behavior was in large part responsible for the forced deportations because of their lack of patriotism and unwillingness to help the Turkish authorities identify the Russian agents. Most Turks today are unaware of the Armenian Genocide as nothing is taught about the massacres in schools or other institutions. It is against the law in Turkey to even have an intellectual study of the Turkish behavior towards the Armenians, much less publish anything about it.

This speech was given on the Armenian murders, (the word genocide had not yet been coined), in Turkey

“Abdul Hamid” referred to Abdul Hamid II—the Sultan and Caliph of the entire Ottoman Empire. He was the secular and spiritual leader of all Muslims the world over. He solved the “problem” by killing most of the Armenians and ethnically cleansing from Turkey the few that were still alive. The two groups of Christian minorities in Turkey then were the Greeks and the Armenians. The discrimination against those minorities had been so great that many sought independence for their areas and accepted and gave assistance to Russia and other “enemies” of Turkey. The Turks, instead of distinguishing between those who aided the enemy and those that did not, assumed that all Armenians and Greeks were guilty and began a program of ethnic cleansing and organized murder of the Christians—the Armenians in particular. Unlike Germany, which accepted its guilt for the Holocaust and organized their society to prevent anything like that from ever happening again, the Turks deny the Armenian Genocide and despite clear historical evidence to the contrary, claim that the Armenian deaths were “collateral damage” resulting from the war.

Talaat Pasha was one of the Young Turks who ran the Turkish Government of which Talaat was the Minister of Interior and one of the ruling trumverate. The Christian Armenians, a minority in Turkey and its lands, were discriminated against like other non Muslim minorities in the Ottoman Empire. But during the Turkish War with Russia and WWI, some Armenians defected and served on the Russian side. Many Turkish citizens took revenge on Armenians by means of murder and torture. Soon, the extermination of the Armenians became the official “Young Turk” government policy. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed outright, and about an equal number were “deported” to special areas. Many died of malnutrition along the forced march of Ethnic Cleansing. Others were murdered as they were deported. No one knows exactly how many Armenians were killed with estimates ranging from ½ million to 4 million. This was the first genocide of the 20th century. Modern Turkish leaders however, are in denial about the Armenian deaths. They claim that there was a war and food was scarce; the only Armenians killed, the claimed were proven Russian agents. They further claim that the Armenian behavior was in large part responsible for the forced deportations because of their lack of patriotism and unwillingness to help the Turkish authorities identify the Russian agents. Most Turks today are unaware of the Armenian Genocide as nothing is taught about the massacres in schools or other institutions. It is against the law in Turkey to even have an intellectual study of the Turkish behavior towards the Armenians, much less publish anything about it. The Christian Armenians, a minority in Turkey and its lands, were discriminated against like other non Muslim minorities in the Ottoman Empire. But during the Turkish War with Russia and WWI, some Armenians defected and served on the Russian side. Many Turkish citizens took revenge on Armenians by means of murder and torture. Soon, the extermination of the Armenians became the official “Young Turk” government policy. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed outright, and about an equal number were “deported” to special areas. Many died of malnutrition along the forced march of Ethnic Cleansing. Others were murdered as they were deported. No one knows exactly how many Armenians were killed with estimates ranging from ½ million to 4 million. This was the first genocide of the 20th century. Modern Turkish leaders however, are in denial about the Armenian deaths. They claim that there was a war and food was scarce; the only Armenians killed, the claimed were proven Russian agents. They further claim that the Armenian behavior was in large part responsible for the forced deportations because of their lack of patriotism and unwillingness to help the Turkish authorities identify the Russian agents. Most Turks today are unaware of the Armenian Genocide as nothing is taught about the massacres in schools or other institutions. It is against the law in Turkey to even have an intellectual study of the Turkish behavior towards the Armenians, much less publish anything about it.

This speech was given on the Armenian murders, (the word genocide had not yet been coined), in Turkey

The Armenians were victims of ethnic cleansing where some were chased out and others killed.