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DAILY MAIL (London), UK
December 23, 2011 Friday
ARMENIAN HORROR WAS A BLUEPRINT FOR HITLER
BY PAUL HARRIS
THEY call it the forgotten holocaust, a mass slaughter conducted under
cover of war.
For nearly a century now it has been shrouded in secrecy and mystery;
coloured with denial and contention.
But the killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by Ottoman Turks
between 1915 and 1916 is still held to be one of the worst atrocities
committed by one race against another ` and a historical blueprint
for Hitler's massacre of the Jews.
In towns and villages across the Ottoman Empire, Turkish gendarmes
began rounding up Christian families and deporting them en masse.
The men were seized in the dead of night, and either killed, tortured
or imprisoned. Women and children were raped, beaten and abused. Many
would perish on the `death marches' that forced them to walk
towards desert concentration camps. Those who didn't may have wished
they had.
Accounts of atrocities said to have been carried out by the Turks told
how mothers were forced to watch their babies being smashed to their
deaths against rocks¦ how their daughters were raped in front of
them¦ and how guards beheaded their menfolk and played football with
their heads.
Some of the torture to which prisoners were subjected was so
unbearable they doused themselves in paraffin from prison lamps and
set themselves alight.
At one stage a caravan of more than 40,000 women was seen under escort
through the desert, some so starved they were described by one witness
as `mere skeletons enveloped in rags¦ their leathery skin burned
by the sun, cold and wind'.
According to the Armenians, it was a systematic slaughter designed to
eliminate the Armenian people whom the Turks regarded as `vermin'.
It is recorded as the first `ethnic cleansing' of the 20th
century. Most historians accept that up to 1.5million Armenians may
have died.
`Forgotten' therefore, is a curious term to apply to what is
widely described as an act of genocide. But in the 96 years that
followed, Turkey has consistently and resolutely refused to
acknowledge that genocide took place. It accepts that there were
atrocities but insists there was no systematic attempt to wipe out
Christian Armenians.
Now the poisonous legacy of 1915 has surfaced again. And even after so
many years, the bitterness has far from subsided.
At the turn of the 20th century, there were two million Armenians in
the Ottoman Empire. Some 200,000 had already died in pogroms. The
Ottoman Empire wanted to build a huge Muslim empire ` but the
Armenians' Christian civilisation stood in its way.
When the First World War broke out Armenia was divided between the
Russian and Ottoman empires, which were on opposite sides of the
conflict.
Armenians on the Russian side formed volunteer battalions to help the
Russians fight the Turks and persuaded separatist-minded Turkish
Armenians to join them.
The Ottoman government responded by ordering the `deportation' of
the entire Turkish Armenian population to Syria and Palestine. It
formed `Special Organisation' units to implement mass killings.
Winston Churchill described the massacres as `an administrative
holocaust' and `a crime planned and executed for political
purposes'. Years later, Hitler's bid to exterminate the Jews would
bear startling similarities to the Armenian massacre, right down to
the number of people that could most efficiently be crammed into a
cattle truck.
The `deportation' began on the night of April 24, 1915. The date
is seared in blood into the Armenian calendar, marked annually by
Armenians around the world.
It is unlikely ever to be erased, whatever becomes of the French
`genocide bill'.
Mass slaughter: Many Armenians were killed, others died on forced marches
December 23, 2011 Friday
ARMENIAN HORROR WAS A BLUEPRINT FOR HITLER
BY PAUL HARRIS
THEY call it the forgotten holocaust, a mass slaughter conducted under
cover of war.
For nearly a century now it has been shrouded in secrecy and mystery;
coloured with denial and contention.
But the killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by Ottoman Turks
between 1915 and 1916 is still held to be one of the worst atrocities
committed by one race against another ` and a historical blueprint
for Hitler's massacre of the Jews.
In towns and villages across the Ottoman Empire, Turkish gendarmes
began rounding up Christian families and deporting them en masse.
The men were seized in the dead of night, and either killed, tortured
or imprisoned. Women and children were raped, beaten and abused. Many
would perish on the `death marches' that forced them to walk
towards desert concentration camps. Those who didn't may have wished
they had.
Accounts of atrocities said to have been carried out by the Turks told
how mothers were forced to watch their babies being smashed to their
deaths against rocks¦ how their daughters were raped in front of
them¦ and how guards beheaded their menfolk and played football with
their heads.
Some of the torture to which prisoners were subjected was so
unbearable they doused themselves in paraffin from prison lamps and
set themselves alight.
At one stage a caravan of more than 40,000 women was seen under escort
through the desert, some so starved they were described by one witness
as `mere skeletons enveloped in rags¦ their leathery skin burned
by the sun, cold and wind'.
According to the Armenians, it was a systematic slaughter designed to
eliminate the Armenian people whom the Turks regarded as `vermin'.
It is recorded as the first `ethnic cleansing' of the 20th
century. Most historians accept that up to 1.5million Armenians may
have died.
`Forgotten' therefore, is a curious term to apply to what is
widely described as an act of genocide. But in the 96 years that
followed, Turkey has consistently and resolutely refused to
acknowledge that genocide took place. It accepts that there were
atrocities but insists there was no systematic attempt to wipe out
Christian Armenians.
Now the poisonous legacy of 1915 has surfaced again. And even after so
many years, the bitterness has far from subsided.
At the turn of the 20th century, there were two million Armenians in
the Ottoman Empire. Some 200,000 had already died in pogroms. The
Ottoman Empire wanted to build a huge Muslim empire ` but the
Armenians' Christian civilisation stood in its way.
When the First World War broke out Armenia was divided between the
Russian and Ottoman empires, which were on opposite sides of the
conflict.
Armenians on the Russian side formed volunteer battalions to help the
Russians fight the Turks and persuaded separatist-minded Turkish
Armenians to join them.
The Ottoman government responded by ordering the `deportation' of
the entire Turkish Armenian population to Syria and Palestine. It
formed `Special Organisation' units to implement mass killings.
Winston Churchill described the massacres as `an administrative
holocaust' and `a crime planned and executed for political
purposes'. Years later, Hitler's bid to exterminate the Jews would
bear startling similarities to the Armenian massacre, right down to
the number of people that could most efficiently be crammed into a
cattle truck.
The `deportation' began on the night of April 24, 1915. The date
is seared in blood into the Armenian calendar, marked annually by
Armenians around the world.
It is unlikely ever to be erased, whatever becomes of the French
`genocide bill'.
Mass slaughter: Many Armenians were killed, others died on forced marches