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ARMENIA: NEVER FORGET
Diamondback Online, University of Maryland
April 23 2013
by Lauren Mendelsohn
In the midst of World War I, in a humble region of Europe between the
Black and Caspian seas, more than a million innocent people died - not
of warfare, but of brutal torture, starvation and murder. And hardly
anyone even knows. That is why today, April 24, has been set aside as
Remembrance Day for the Armenian genocide.
Here in the U.S., schoolchildren learn about the Holocaust during
their world history studies and also frequently read about it in
English classes. Many of you have probably visited the Holocaust
Museum in Washington, and unless you're completely oblivious, you are
likely aware that there is genocide occurring this very moment in
parts of Africa. Movements and groups have formed all over the world
in an effort to stop these atrocities from continuing.
But this sense of global consciousness was absent from our mindset up
until just a few decades ago, and the ability to gather information
about other nations and the plight of their people was much more
limited. Thus many horrific events, such as the genocide of the
Armenian people, went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world for
many years.
Armenia is a tiny country nestled in the Caucasus Mountains. For
centuries, the people there had lived under Turkish rule during the
Ottoman Empire. The Turks were Muslims, while Armenia is full of
Christians - it's officially the oldest Christian nation, in fact.
After being absorbed by their more powerful neighbor, the Armenians
were treated as second-rate citizens by their rulers and were denied
many civil and economic rights. More serious problems began to arise
in the late 1800s, when Turkish nationalism spread and the new Young
Turk regime felt the Armenian minority should be wiped out.
In 1915, Young Turk officials murdered Armenian leaders, leaving the
people without guidance. Armenian men were forced to give up their
heritage and religion and become Turkish soldiers during World War I,
where they were killed in battle, or by Turkish officials, if they
were lucky enough to survive.
Meanwhile, the elderly, women and children were led on death marches
to the Syrian Desert. They were tortured, raped and starved along the
way; most died before even reaching their "final destination," where
those remaining were killed. The atrocities didn't cease until the war
ended, but by then more than 1.5 million innocent people had perished
and more than two million had been displaced from their homeland. Some
lucky ones, including my ancestors, escaped to America.
I'll bet you didn't know about that. That's because it's not even in
history textbooks - at least not the ones I remember. As an Armenian,
I find it appalling that this atrocity can be left out of the books. I
don't care what the publisher's reason is for not including it, be it
ignorance or political bias - current U.S.-Turkey relations should not
impact our right to know the truth about the past. There is no excuse
for ignoring a monstrous massacre such as this.
In trying to justify his treatment of the Jewish people during the
Holocaust, Adolf Hitler once infamously said, "Who, after all, speaks
today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" Today I speak about it,
in the hopes that now you will, too, so that something like this will
not happen in the future. Let us prove Hitler wrong by taking this Day
of Remembrance to honor those who have lost their lives simply because
of their religion or ethnicity. And let us never again allow the human
race to forget and repeat our mistakes.
http://www.diamondbackonline.com/opinion/article_ff00206e-ac72-11e2-a473-001a4bcf6878.html
Diamondback Online, University of Maryland
April 23 2013
by Lauren Mendelsohn
In the midst of World War I, in a humble region of Europe between the
Black and Caspian seas, more than a million innocent people died - not
of warfare, but of brutal torture, starvation and murder. And hardly
anyone even knows. That is why today, April 24, has been set aside as
Remembrance Day for the Armenian genocide.
Here in the U.S., schoolchildren learn about the Holocaust during
their world history studies and also frequently read about it in
English classes. Many of you have probably visited the Holocaust
Museum in Washington, and unless you're completely oblivious, you are
likely aware that there is genocide occurring this very moment in
parts of Africa. Movements and groups have formed all over the world
in an effort to stop these atrocities from continuing.
But this sense of global consciousness was absent from our mindset up
until just a few decades ago, and the ability to gather information
about other nations and the plight of their people was much more
limited. Thus many horrific events, such as the genocide of the
Armenian people, went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world for
many years.
Armenia is a tiny country nestled in the Caucasus Mountains. For
centuries, the people there had lived under Turkish rule during the
Ottoman Empire. The Turks were Muslims, while Armenia is full of
Christians - it's officially the oldest Christian nation, in fact.
After being absorbed by their more powerful neighbor, the Armenians
were treated as second-rate citizens by their rulers and were denied
many civil and economic rights. More serious problems began to arise
in the late 1800s, when Turkish nationalism spread and the new Young
Turk regime felt the Armenian minority should be wiped out.
In 1915, Young Turk officials murdered Armenian leaders, leaving the
people without guidance. Armenian men were forced to give up their
heritage and religion and become Turkish soldiers during World War I,
where they were killed in battle, or by Turkish officials, if they
were lucky enough to survive.
Meanwhile, the elderly, women and children were led on death marches
to the Syrian Desert. They were tortured, raped and starved along the
way; most died before even reaching their "final destination," where
those remaining were killed. The atrocities didn't cease until the war
ended, but by then more than 1.5 million innocent people had perished
and more than two million had been displaced from their homeland. Some
lucky ones, including my ancestors, escaped to America.
I'll bet you didn't know about that. That's because it's not even in
history textbooks - at least not the ones I remember. As an Armenian,
I find it appalling that this atrocity can be left out of the books. I
don't care what the publisher's reason is for not including it, be it
ignorance or political bias - current U.S.-Turkey relations should not
impact our right to know the truth about the past. There is no excuse
for ignoring a monstrous massacre such as this.
In trying to justify his treatment of the Jewish people during the
Holocaust, Adolf Hitler once infamously said, "Who, after all, speaks
today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" Today I speak about it,
in the hopes that now you will, too, so that something like this will
not happen in the future. Let us prove Hitler wrong by taking this Day
of Remembrance to honor those who have lost their lives simply because
of their religion or ethnicity. And let us never again allow the human
race to forget and repeat our mistakes.
http://www.diamondbackonline.com/opinion/article_ff00206e-ac72-11e2-a473-001a4bcf6878.html