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The Gold Coast Bulletin (Australia)
November 22, 2014 Saturday
Raising forgotten ghost of murder
by JOHN AFFLECK
ADOLF Hitler wanted no mercy shown as Germany invaded Poland in 1939,
telling his generals the Death's Head units were being sent to kill
every Pole - men, women and children.
"Only in such a way will we win the lebensraum (territory for
expansion) that we need," he said.
"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Who indeed? How many Australians today know of the scope and nature of
the mass deaths among the Armenians in Anatolia, now most of modern
Turkey?
Hitler was referring to the slaughter of up to 1.5 million Armenians
in a process that began on April 24, 1915, on the eve of the landing
of the Anzacs at Gallipoli.
As Robertson writes, the imminence of the Allied invasion in the
Dardanelles triggered the order that went out that night in the
Ottoman capital of Constantinople (now Istanbul) to round up 250
Armenian intellectuals - professors, community leaders and political
activists - who were taken away and secretly killed, followed by
orders to deport Armenians from Anatolia into the deserts of Syria.
Within days reports had reached the US that up to half a million had
perished in what was believed to have been a calculated campaign of
ethnic cleansing.
What ensued, Robertson writes, were death marches and other incidents
in which more than half the Armenian race was destroyed over the next
few years.
Christian Armenians' hopes of equality in the Ottoman Empire had been
boosted when army officers staged a coup in 1908, bringing to power
the Young Turk movement that wanted to modernise the country and rid
it of the decadence of the Ottomans. But a propaganda campaign began,
presenting the Armenian population as a threat to security.
Robertson should be familiar to most readers. He is an
Australian-born, London-based Queen's Counsel, a leading human rights
lawyer, a UN war-crimes judge and an author whose forays into media
have included the television series Hypothetical in the 1980s.
With the centenary of the Armenian deaths looming in six months,
Robertson explores the case for having the slaughter declared genocide
despite the protestations of the Turkish government, which strongly
disputes that the events of 1915-23 were genocide, and denialists who
claim it did not happen, or that the number who died was more like
600,000 than 1.5 million and that it was just one of those things in
war.
He talks of accounts of mass drownings and decapitations, rape of
women and boys, the killing and abduction of children, and
descriptions of the Euphrates "not just running with blood but
changing its course because its waterways were blocked by dead
bodies".
Britain and the US equivocate on the genocide issue, not wishing to
alienate a NATO ally.
Some state governments in Australia have declared what happened was
genocide, but the Federal Government has not, concerned at threats to
ban MPs from centenary commemorations at Gallipoli.
This is despite Treasurer Joe Hockey's familial links to Armenia. His
grandfather was Armenian and in a 2010 interview, Mr Hockey - then in
Opposition - urged the Rudd government to recognise the genocide
immediately.
"The relationship between modern Turkey and Australia will always
continue to be influenced by the unresolved matter of the Armenian
genocide," he said at the time. But he had no doubt Turkey would "seek
retribution against Australia should we join with other principled
nations in recognising the genocide".
When Mr Hockey made those comments, the second secretary at the
Turkish embassy in Canberra, Umut Ozturk, labelled claims of genocide
as "totally groundless" and "a systematic campaign of defamation
carried out by Armenian lobbying groups living in various countries
all over the world".
But Robertson does not back off in his condemnation of what occurred
and his fervent belief it was genocide.
The fate of the Armenians is touched on also in Peter FitzSimons'
book, Gallipoli.
FitzSimons paints a picture of the fate of one of the architects of
the Armenian massacre, Talaat Pasha, who as interior minister had
ordered the arrests of the intellectuals on April 24, 1915, and then
used a temporary deportation law in May that year to initiate the
marches and slaughter.
At war's end Talaat fled to Berlin and lived under an assumed name
until, on March 15, 1921, he felt a tap on the shoulder and turned to
be confronted by a young Armenian man, Soghomon Tehlirian, whose
parents and sisters had died in the massacre.
Left for dead and taken in by a Kurdish family, Tehlirian had survived
and escaped, eventually making his way to Germany to start a new life.
Historians suggest agents of Britain and Russia alerted exiled
Armenians to Talaat's location.
In FitzSimons' account, Tehlirian's quest to track Talaat down was
given impetus from beyond the grave when, two weeks before their
encounter, Tehlirian dreamt of his mother who told him: "You know
Talaat is here and yet you do not seem to be concerned. But you seem
quite heartless and are not my son." When he found his quarry,
Tehlirian put a pistol to Talaat's head and fired. A German court
found Tehlirian innocent on grounds of temporary insanity due to the
trauma he had suffered.
FitzSimons tells of an exchange between the judge and Tehlirian, taken
from the trial transcripts of April 16, 1921.
Presiding Justice: What did you think of what you had done?
Tehlirian: I felt a great satisfaction.
Presiding Justice: How do you feel about it now?Tehlirian: Even today,
I feel a great sense of satisfaction.
From: Baghdasarian
November 22, 2014 Saturday
Raising forgotten ghost of murder
by JOHN AFFLECK
ADOLF Hitler wanted no mercy shown as Germany invaded Poland in 1939,
telling his generals the Death's Head units were being sent to kill
every Pole - men, women and children.
"Only in such a way will we win the lebensraum (territory for
expansion) that we need," he said.
"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Who indeed? How many Australians today know of the scope and nature of
the mass deaths among the Armenians in Anatolia, now most of modern
Turkey?
Hitler was referring to the slaughter of up to 1.5 million Armenians
in a process that began on April 24, 1915, on the eve of the landing
of the Anzacs at Gallipoli.
As Robertson writes, the imminence of the Allied invasion in the
Dardanelles triggered the order that went out that night in the
Ottoman capital of Constantinople (now Istanbul) to round up 250
Armenian intellectuals - professors, community leaders and political
activists - who were taken away and secretly killed, followed by
orders to deport Armenians from Anatolia into the deserts of Syria.
Within days reports had reached the US that up to half a million had
perished in what was believed to have been a calculated campaign of
ethnic cleansing.
What ensued, Robertson writes, were death marches and other incidents
in which more than half the Armenian race was destroyed over the next
few years.
Christian Armenians' hopes of equality in the Ottoman Empire had been
boosted when army officers staged a coup in 1908, bringing to power
the Young Turk movement that wanted to modernise the country and rid
it of the decadence of the Ottomans. But a propaganda campaign began,
presenting the Armenian population as a threat to security.
Robertson should be familiar to most readers. He is an
Australian-born, London-based Queen's Counsel, a leading human rights
lawyer, a UN war-crimes judge and an author whose forays into media
have included the television series Hypothetical in the 1980s.
With the centenary of the Armenian deaths looming in six months,
Robertson explores the case for having the slaughter declared genocide
despite the protestations of the Turkish government, which strongly
disputes that the events of 1915-23 were genocide, and denialists who
claim it did not happen, or that the number who died was more like
600,000 than 1.5 million and that it was just one of those things in
war.
He talks of accounts of mass drownings and decapitations, rape of
women and boys, the killing and abduction of children, and
descriptions of the Euphrates "not just running with blood but
changing its course because its waterways were blocked by dead
bodies".
Britain and the US equivocate on the genocide issue, not wishing to
alienate a NATO ally.
Some state governments in Australia have declared what happened was
genocide, but the Federal Government has not, concerned at threats to
ban MPs from centenary commemorations at Gallipoli.
This is despite Treasurer Joe Hockey's familial links to Armenia. His
grandfather was Armenian and in a 2010 interview, Mr Hockey - then in
Opposition - urged the Rudd government to recognise the genocide
immediately.
"The relationship between modern Turkey and Australia will always
continue to be influenced by the unresolved matter of the Armenian
genocide," he said at the time. But he had no doubt Turkey would "seek
retribution against Australia should we join with other principled
nations in recognising the genocide".
When Mr Hockey made those comments, the second secretary at the
Turkish embassy in Canberra, Umut Ozturk, labelled claims of genocide
as "totally groundless" and "a systematic campaign of defamation
carried out by Armenian lobbying groups living in various countries
all over the world".
But Robertson does not back off in his condemnation of what occurred
and his fervent belief it was genocide.
The fate of the Armenians is touched on also in Peter FitzSimons'
book, Gallipoli.
FitzSimons paints a picture of the fate of one of the architects of
the Armenian massacre, Talaat Pasha, who as interior minister had
ordered the arrests of the intellectuals on April 24, 1915, and then
used a temporary deportation law in May that year to initiate the
marches and slaughter.
At war's end Talaat fled to Berlin and lived under an assumed name
until, on March 15, 1921, he felt a tap on the shoulder and turned to
be confronted by a young Armenian man, Soghomon Tehlirian, whose
parents and sisters had died in the massacre.
Left for dead and taken in by a Kurdish family, Tehlirian had survived
and escaped, eventually making his way to Germany to start a new life.
Historians suggest agents of Britain and Russia alerted exiled
Armenians to Talaat's location.
In FitzSimons' account, Tehlirian's quest to track Talaat down was
given impetus from beyond the grave when, two weeks before their
encounter, Tehlirian dreamt of his mother who told him: "You know
Talaat is here and yet you do not seem to be concerned. But you seem
quite heartless and are not my son." When he found his quarry,
Tehlirian put a pistol to Talaat's head and fired. A German court
found Tehlirian innocent on grounds of temporary insanity due to the
trauma he had suffered.
FitzSimons tells of an exchange between the judge and Tehlirian, taken
from the trial transcripts of April 16, 1921.
Presiding Justice: What did you think of what you had done?
Tehlirian: I felt a great satisfaction.
Presiding Justice: How do you feel about it now?Tehlirian: Even today,
I feel a great sense of satisfaction.
From: Baghdasarian