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The Real Turkish Heroes Of 1915

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  • The Real Turkish Heroes Of 1915

    THE REAL TURKISH HEROES OF 1915

    February 10, 2015

    By Raffi Bedrosyan

    Germany has decided to name several neighborhoods, streets, buildings,
    and public schools in Berlin and other German cities after Adolf
    Hitler and other Nazi "heroes."

    If the above statement were to be true, how would you react? How do
    you think Germans would react? How do you think Jews still living in
    Germany would react? My guess is that you, the Germans, and the Jews
    would all find it inconceivable, offensive, and unacceptable.

    And yet, it is true in Turkey, where it is acceptable to name
    several neighborhoods, streets, and schools after Talat Pasha and
    other Ittihat ve Terakki (Committee of Union and Progress) "heroes"
    who not only planned and carried out the Armenian Genocide, but were
    responsible for the loss of the Ottoman Empire itself.

    At last count, there were officially 8 "Talat Pasha" neighborhoods or
    districts, 38 "Talat Pasha" streets or boulevards, 7 "Talat Pasha"
    public schools, 6 "Talat Pasha" buildings, and 2 "Talat Pasha"
    mosques scattered around Istanbul, Ankara, and other cities. After
    his assassination in 1922, Talat was originally interred in Berlin,
    Germany, but his remains were transferred to Istanbul in 1943 by the
    Nazis in an attempt to appease the Turks. He was re-buried with full
    military honors at the Infinite Freedom Hill Cemetery in Istanbul. The
    remains of the other notorious Ittihat ve Terakki leader, Enver Pasha,
    were also transferred in 1996 from Tajikistan and re-buried beside
    Talat, with full military honors; the ceremony was attended by Turkish
    President Suleyman Demirel and other dignitaries.

    Is this hero worship misguided or deliberate? Is the denial of 1915
    only state policy, or is it wholeheartedly accepted by the Turkish
    public, brainwashed by the state version of history?

    Undoubtedly, there was mass participation in the genocide committed by
    the Ittihat ve Terakki leaders, resulting in the removal of Armenians
    from their homeland of 3,000 years, as well as the immediate transfer
    of their wealth, property, and possessions to the Turkish and Kurdish
    public, and to thousands of government officials. Yet, despite this
    mass participation and the hero worship, there were also a significant
    number of ordinary Turks and Kurds, as well as government officials,
    who refused to participate in the massacres and plunders. There
    is complete silence and ignorance in Turkey about these righteous
    officials who refused to follow government orders and instead tried to
    save and protect the Armenians. They paid dearly for their actions,
    often with the loss of their positions or even their lives as a
    consequence. This article will cite some examples of these real and
    unsung heroes.

    Konya governor Celal Bey

    Celal Bey was the governor of Konya, a vast central Anatolian
    province and a hub for the Armenian deportation routes from north
    and west Anatolia to the Syrian desert. He knew exactly what the
    Armenians' fate would be along these routes, or if they survived the
    deportations and reached Der Zor; he was previously the governor of
    Aleppo and had witnessed the atrocities there. Celal Bey had attempted
    to reason with the Ittihat ve Terakkileaders, saying that there was
    absolutely no Armenian revolt in Anatolia, nor in Aleppo, and that
    there was no justification for the mass deportations. However, one of
    his subordinates in Marash inflamed the situation by arresting and
    executing several Marash Armenians, triggering a resistance by the
    Armenians. As a result, Celal Bey was removed from his governor's
    post in Aleppo and transferred to Konya. Once there, he refused
    to arrange for the deportation of the Konya Armenians, despite
    repeated orders from Istanbul. He even managed to protect some of
    the Armenians who were deported from other districts and arrived in
    Konya. By the time he was removed from his post, in October 1915,
    he had saved thousands of Armenian lives. In his memoirs about the
    Konya governorship, he likened himself to "a person sitting beside
    a river, with absolutely no means of rescuing anyone from it. Blood
    was flowing down the river, with thousands of innocent children,
    irreproachable old men, and helpless women streaming down the river
    towards oblivion. Anyone I could save with my bare hands, I saved,
    and the rest went down the river, never to return."

    Hasan Mazhar Bey was the governor of Ankara. He protected the
    Ankara-Armenian community by refusing to follow the deportation orders,
    stating, "I am a vali [governor], not a bandit. I cannot do this. Let
    someone else come and sit in my chair to carry out these orders." He
    was removed from his post in August 1915.

    Faik Ali (Ozansoy) Bey was the governor of Kutahya, another central
    Anatolian province. When the deportation order was issued from
    Istanbul, he refused to implement it; on the contrary, he gave orders
    to keep the deported Armenians arriving in Kutahya from elsewhere,
    and treat them well. He was soon summoned to Istanbul to explain his
    subordination, and the police chief of Kutahya, Kemal Bey, took the
    opportunity to threaten the local Armenians--either convert to Islam
    or face deportation, he said. The Armenians decided to convert. When
    Faik Ali Bey returned, he was enraged. He removed the police chief from
    his post, and asked the Armenians if they still wished to convert to
    Islam. They all decided to remain Christian, except one. Faik Ali's
    brother, Suleyman Nazif Bey, was an influential and well-known poet
    who urged his brother not to participate in this barbarianism and
    stain the family name. Faik Ali Bey was not removed from his post
    despite his offers of resignation. He ended up protecting the entire
    Armenian population of Kutahya, except for the one who converted to
    Islam and was deported.

    Kutahya governor Faik Ali Ozansoy

    Mustafa Bey (Azizoglu) was the district governor of Malatya, a transit
    point on the deportation route. Although he was unable to prevent
    the deportations, he managed to hide several Armenians in his own
    home. He was murdered by his own son, a zealous member of the Ittihat
    ve Terakki Party, for "looking after infidels [gavours, in Turkish]."

    Other government officials who defied the deportation orders included
    Reshit Pasha, the governor of Kastamonu; Tahsin Bey, the governor
    of Erzurum; Ferit Bey, the governor of Basra; Mehmet Cemal Bey, the
    district governor of Yozgat; and Sabit Bey, the district governor of
    Batman. These officials were eventually removed from their posts and
    replaced by more obedient civil servants, who carried out the task
    of wiping out the Armenians from these locations.

    One of the most tragic stories of unsung heroes involves Huseyin Nesimi
    Bey, the mayor of Lice, a town near Diyarbakir. While the governor
    of Diyarbakir, Reshit Bey, organized the most ruthless removal of the
    Armenians in the Diyarbakir region--with a quick massacre, rather than
    lengthy deportation, immediately outside of the city limits--Huseyin
    Nesimi dared to keep and protect the Lice Armenians, a total of 5,980
    souls. Reshit summoned Huseyin Nesimi to Diyarbakir for a meeting, but
    arranged to have his Circassian militant guard Haroun intercept him en
    route. On June 15, 1915, Haroun murdered Huseyin Nesimi and threw him
    into a ditch beside the road. Since then, the murder location, halfway
    between Lice and Diyarbakir, has become known as Turbe-i Kaymakam,
    or the Mayor's Grave. The Turkish records document this murder as
    "Mayor killed by Armenian militants." In an ironic twist of history
    repeating itself, in October 1993 the Turkish state army attacked
    Lice, supposedly to go after the Kurdish rebel militants there;
    instead, they ended up burning down the entire town and killing the
    civilian population. This became the first case the Kurds took to
    the European Human Rights Court, resulting in a 2.5 million pound
    compensation against the Turkish state. At the same time, several
    wealthy Kurdish businessmen were targeted for assassination and
    murdered by then-Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller. One of the
    victims was a man named Behcet Canturk, whose mother was an Armenian
    orphan who had managed to survive the Lice massacres of 1915.

    Lice mayor Huseyin Nesimi Bey

    Governor Reshit was also responsible for firing and murdering
    several other government officials in the Diyarbakir region who
    had defied the deportation orders: Chermik Mayor Mehmet Hamdi Bey,
    Savur Mayor Mehmet Ali Bey, Silvan Mayor Ibrahim Hakki Bey, Mardin
    Mayor Hilmi Bey, followed by Shefik Bey, were all fired in mid- to
    late-1915. Another official, Nuri Bey, the mayor of first Midyat and
    then Derik, an all-Armenian town near Mardin, was also fired by Reshit
    Bey, and subsequently murdered by his henchmen. His murder was blamed
    on Armenian rebels. As a result, all of the Armenian males in Derik
    were rounded up and executed, and the women and children deported.

    The names of these brave men are not in the history books. If
    mentioned at all, they are labeled as "traitors" from the perspective
    of the official Turkish version of history. While the state and the
    masses committed a huge crime, and while that crime became a part of
    their daily life, these men rejected the genocidal campaign, based
    on individual conscience, and despite the temptation of enriching
    themselves. These few virtuous men, as well as a significant number
    of ordinary Turks and Kurds, defied the orders and protected the
    Armenians. They are the real heroes, and represent the Turkish version
    of similar characters in "Schindler's List" or "Hotel Rwanda."

    Citizens of Turkey today have two choices when remembering their
    forefathers as heroes: to either go with the mass murderers and
    plunderers who committed "crimes against humanity," or the virtuous
    human beings with a clear conscience who tried to prevent the "crimes
    against humanity." Getting to know these real heroes will help Turks
    break loose from the chains of denialist history over four generations,
    and start to confront the realities of 1915.

    http://www.horizonweekly.ca/news/details/61309

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