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Ambassador Morgenthau's Personal Library Donated To The Armenian Gen

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  • Ambassador Morgenthau's Personal Library Donated To The Armenian Gen

    AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU'S PERSONAL LIBRARY DONATED TO THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MUSEUM OF AMERICA

    armradio.am
    25.11.2009 11:21

    The personal library of U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, renowned
    for his extraordinary efforts to bring American and international
    attention to the Turkish government's deportation and massacres of
    Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, has been donated to the Armenian
    Genocide Museum of America (AGMA) in Washington, DC.

    "We are extremely grateful to the Morgenthau family for entrusting this
    invaluable collection of books to the museum, which provides a window
    into the breadth and depth of the Ambassador's intellectual acumen and
    his humanitarian outlook," said Van Z. Krikorian, museum trustee and
    chairman of the project's Building and Operations Committee. "In the
    pantheon of heroes who have fought against genocide, the Morgenthau
    name is legendary. This collection is priceless and wonderful
    Thanksgiving news," added Krikorian.

    The gift of Ambassador Morgenthau's personal library, which has
    been privately held by his family since his death in 1946, comes to
    AGMA from Henry Morgenthau III, the son of Henry Morgenthau, Jr.,
    and the grandson of the Ambassador. In making the gift to AGMA,
    Henry Morgenthau III said "I am only putting Ambassador Morgenthau's
    effects where they belong."

    Ambassador Morgenthau's personal library includes books he acquired
    during his term of service in the Ottoman Empire, and others obtained
    in preparation for his diplomatic posting to expand his knowledge
    of the region, its history and people. The collection also includes
    Ambassador Morgenthau's autographed copy of the official State
    Department publication "Instructions to the Diplomatic Officers of
    the United States," which he was provided upon his appointment.

    Krikorian said the Ambassador Morgenthau collection will be used by the
    research library, and to enhance the museum's exhibits depicting the
    Ambassador's life and work. Ambassador Morgenthau was a naturalized
    American from a German Jewish family and a successful lawyer active
    in Democratic Party politics. With the election of President Woodrow
    Wilson, he was appointed United States Ambassador to the Sublime
    Porte in 1913.

    "Ambassador Morgenthau played a central role in documenting the
    Armenian Genocide, and the items related to his diplomatic service
    are critical pieces of his life story," Krikorian said. "No one
    individual before Ambassador Morgenthau had so prominently alerted the
    international community to the consequences of the mass atrocities
    perpetrated against the Armenian population in Ottoman Turkey and
    analyzed the mechanisms of a state system devised to extinguish an
    entire people. Remarkably, the recent publication of Talaat Pasha's
    diary dispositively confirms what Ambassador Morgenthau reported and
    wrote at the beginning of the last century."

    While in Constantinople, Ambassador Morgenthau had personal contact
    with the Young Turk leaders of the Ottoman Empire and architects
    of the Armenian Genocide, especially the Minister of the Interior,
    Talaat. When news of the deportations and massacres began to reach the
    Embassy in April 1915, Ambassador Morgenthau attempted to intervene
    to alleviate the plight of the Armenian population. He forwarded to
    Washington the stream of alarming reports he received from U.S.

    consulates in the interior of the Ottoman Empire that detailed the
    extent of the measures taken against the Armenians.

    On July 16, 1915, Morgenthau cabled the U.S. Department of State his
    own dispatch whose alarm resonates to this day. He called the Young
    Turk policy of deportation "a campaign of race extermination." In
    effect, he became the first person to officially transmit to the
    American government news that a state-sponsored systematic genocide
    was underway.

    Drained by his disappointment in averting this disaster, Ambassador
    Morgenthau returned to the United States in 1916. For the remainder of
    the war years he dedicated himself to raising funds for the surviving
    Armenians. Ambassador Morgenthau was particularly instrumental in the
    founding of the Near East Relief organization which became the main
    U.S. private agency to deliver critical assistance to the survivors
    of the Armenian Genocide.

    To bring his case to the attention of the public, he published
    "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" in 1918, a memoir of his years in
    Turkey in which he stressed the German influence and role in the
    Ottoman Empire. While he held Germany responsible for starting World
    War I, he placed the blame for the atrocities committed against the
    Armenians entirely upon the shoulders of the Young Turk Ittihadist
    cabinet which he characterized as a violently radical regime.

    Ambassador Morgenthau titled the chapter on the Armenians "The Murder
    of a Nation," and described the deportations and the atrocities as a
    "cold-blooded, calculating state policy." He avowed at the time "I
    am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no
    such horrible episode as this."
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