1. Political Leaders of the Armenia Genocide The Armenian
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1. Political Leaders of the Armenia Genocide The Armenian
1. Political Leaders of the Armenia Genocide The Armenian Genocide was masterminded by the Central Committee of the Young Turk Party (Committee for Union and Progress) which was dominated by Mehmed Talât [Pasha], Ismail Enver [Pasha], and Ahmed Djemal [Pasha]. They were a racist group whose ideology was articulated by Zia Gökalp, Dr. Mehmed Nazim, and Dr. Behaeddin Shakir. The Armenian Genocide was directed by a Special Organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa) set up by the Committee of Union and Progress, which created special "butcher battalions," made up of violent criminals released from prison. http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/facts/genocide.html Mehmed Talaat Pasha Ismail Enver Ahmed Djemal 3. Speech of a person who was present during the genocide. Noyemzar Alexanian From Armeniapedia.org The Armenian Genocide: Noyemzar will never forget By Linda J.P. Mahdesian They came looking for rope. On a spring morning in 1915, the villagers of Baghin, Palou - an Armenian territory occupied by Turkey - awoke to the sight of the Kurdish cavalry surrounding them. "Nobody knew what was happening at first," says Grandma, my Armenian grandmother-in-law. "The Kurds were hired by the Turks to do their dirty work," says Avedis Mahdesian, my Armenian father-in-law. He's doing the tough job of translating her rapid-fire anguish into English. Sitting at the edge of the couch in her tiny living room, Grandma's telling me the story of her life. With only the cloudy afternoon light sifting through the windows, it feels like a day for which funerals are made. It seems fitting, almost planned. For the life story of an 88-year-old Armenian woman named Noyemzar Alexanian - and for most Armenians of her generation - is a story of death. The soldiers went from house to house asking for rope. After that they took the males, 15 and older and collected them. "They used the rope to tie their hands," says Grandma. The men and teen-aged boys were taken to a distant field and stabbed to death. "I remember my father and three other people from Baghin being taken away to be killed by the Kurds, and my mother is yelling, `Please help! Please help!' as they're taking him away. A friendly Kurd later told my mother that my father begged to be shot, not butchered," says Grandma. The 6-year-old Noyemzar watched the white shirt of her father as he was led up a mountainside by the soldiers. The white shirt became a white dot, and then it was gone. Baidzar Khimatian took her four children - her daughters Noyemzar, Satenig and Zevart, her son, Markar - and her mother to a friendly Kurdish family's house in a nearby village. One day they heard a knock at the door. A Turkish soldier entered and ordered all the Armenians - women and children - into a caravan to be taken away and killed. Before being herded into the caravan, Baidzar gave two gold coins to a friendly Kurd and persuaded him to keep two of her children, Noyemzar and Satenig. In the panic and confusion, little Zevart disappeared. "She's lost," says Grandma, raising her hands in a plea. As the caravan arrived at the village where they were to be killed, Baidzar pleaded with the Kurdish leader of that village to spare her life and the lives of her son Markar and her mother. The leader agreed. He spared the lives of many other Armenians, including numerous families from Baghin. The Khimatian family was still divided between two villages, almost 10 miles apart. They could only visit by getting permission from the Kurds. Noyemzar was only 6, yet she was the mother to her little sister, Satenig, who suffered from chronic stomach problems. "She died in that Kurdish village," says Grandma, stroking the couch cushion. One day, her brother, Markar, and his friend, Hovagim Hagopian, came to take Noyemzar to visit her mother. Along the way, Hovagim told her, "Learn the way so you can escape from where you are." After a Kurd brought Noyemzar back to where she was staying, she made up her mind to escape the next day. "It was a cloudy, rainy day, like this," says Grandma, motioning toward the window. "I ran and ran and ran." This 6-yearold, frightened girl ran for miles across wolf-infested fields and mountainous landscapes and miraculously reached the village where her mother was staying. Baidzar's brother, Hovsep, who worked in the village, came to their house one day and told his sister that the Kurds had beaten him. "My mother gave gold coins to my uncle so he could escape to Kharpert," says Grandma. Markar also escaped to Kharpert, a town with orphanages for the children of refugees. By this time, Noyemzar was about 8 years old. Her mother asked for permission to visit Markar and Hovsep in Kharpert, and told little Noyemzar to escape to her aunt's house in another village. Fifteen days later, Noyemzar's aunt found a friendly Kurd to take her young niece to Kharpert. The year was 1919 and the Turkish government was relocating the Armenian refugees out of Turkish-occupied territories, including Kharpert, and into Syria. Noyemzar, Baidzar, Markar, and Baidzar's mother were herded once again into wagons, bound for Aleppo, Syria. They stayed only a few weeks before being herded into caravans to orphanages in the villages near Beirut, Lebanon. Eventually her mother and brother and grandmother tracked her down, with their sites set on America - via Marseilles, France, and Havana, Cuba. Fifteen-year-old Noyemzar and her family arrived in Cuba on Aug. 31, 1924. Before that year, the United States had no quotas on the numbers of Turkish citizens 4. A list of popular movies at the time period (US) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Adam and Eve 1918 Battle of Hearts 1918 Crisis, The 1916 Cupid Angling 1918 Heart of My Heart 1912 Male and Female 1919 Peter Pan 1924 Seeing America 1916 Sirens of the Sea 1917 Smouldering Fires 1925 Temple of Venus 1920s Undine 1915 Wanderer of the Wasteland 1923 The Floorwalker 1916 http://www.rinkworks.com/movies http://www.movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmorgraphy.html http://usparks.about.com/cs/movielocations1/l/blmoviesqz.htm#Q 5. Armenian food Lavash is the type of bread that most Armenians have on their table when they have food. Armenian Pizza Armenian Gata Armenian Nazook Baklava http://www.armenianteens.com/armenian/armenian-food.php 11.Internation communities response to the issue The international community condemned the Armenian Genocide. In May 1915, Great Britain, France, and Russia advised the Young Turk leaders that they would be held personally responsible for this crime against humanity. There was a strong public outcry in the United States against the mistreatment of the Armenians. At the end of the war, the Allied victors demanded that the Ottoman government prosecute the Young Turks accused of wartime crimes. Relief efforts were also mounted to save the starving Armenians. The American, British, and German governments sponsored the preparation of reports on the atrocities and numerous accounts were published. On the Other hand, despite the moral outrage of the international community, no strong actions were taken against the Ottoman Empire either to sanction its brutal policies or to salvage the Armenian people from the grip of extermination. Moreover, no steps were taken to require the postwar Turkish governments to make restitution to the Armenian people for their immense material and human looses. http://www.armenian-genocide.org/genocidefaq.html#What 6. Language(s) spoken in the country/region where the genocide took place: a. Armenian, an indo-European language spoken predominantly in Armenia. b. Turkish, a Turkic language spoken by the Turks. http://www.armenian-genocide.org 7. Wars and Military conflicts occurring during the Armenia Genocide a. World War1 b. Beginning of the USSR Genocide c. Italy and Bulgaria war Summary The Armenia Genocide World War One gave the Young Turk government the cover and the excuse to carry out their plan. The plan was simple and its goal was clear. On April 24th 1915, commemorated worldwide by Armenians as Genocide Memorial Day, hundreds of Armenian leaders were murdered in Istanbul after being summoned and gathered. The now leaderless Armenian people were to follow. Across the Ottoman Empire (with the exception of Constantinople, presumably due to a large foreign presence), the same events transpired from village to village, from province to province. The remarkable thing about the following events is the virtually complete cooperation of the Armenians. For a number of reasons they did not know what was planned for them and went along with "their" government's plan to "relocate them for their own good." First, the Armenians were asked to turn in hunting weapons for the war effort. Communities were often given quotas and would have to buy additional weapons from Turks to meet their quota. Later, the government would claim these weapons were proof that Armenians were about to rebel. The able bodied men were then "drafted" to help in the wartime effort. These men were either immediately killed or were worked to death. Now the villages and towns, with only women, children, and elderly left were systematically emptied. The remaining residents would be told to gather for a temporary relocation and to only bring what they could carry. The Armenians again obediently followed instructions and were "escorted" by Turkish Gendarmes in death marches. The death marches led across Anatolia, and the purpose was clear. The Armenians were raped, starved, dehydrated, murdered, and kidnapped along the way. The Turkish Gendarmes either led these atrocities or turned a blind eye. Their eventual destination for resettlement was just as telling in revealing the Turkish governments goal: the Syrian Desert, Der Zor. Those who miraculously survived the march would arrive to this bleak desert only to be killed upon arrival or to somehow survive until a way to escape the empire was found. Usually those that survived and escaped received assistance from those who have come to be known as "good Turks," from foreign missionaries who recorded much of these events and from Arabs. 8. photojournalists/reporters who covered the genocide a. Dmitiri Baltermants b. Alexander Rodchenko c. Boris Ignatovich http://www.skistudio.com