

A Century of Silence: A Family Survives the Armenian Genocide - diodorus
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/05/century-silence

======
gokhan
As a Turk, I'm glad that this issue will be most probably solved in 2015. I
hope that, from the kids of 1915 to the kids of today, the darkness of 1915 on
the hearts of Armenians to be relieved by the international community with
naming those days according to Armenians' wishes. Based on the current
ideological and political climate in Turkey, the idea of a genocide in our
past cannot even be discussed but WTF, we will hopefully change someday and
face whatever it is.

~~~
arjn
I'm glad to see some reasonable views from Turks here. I personally dont think
anyone should have to apologize for anything that happened during that era,
but certainly there should be recognition of it.

------
fatihpense
One more anecdote about changing names of places. Turkey sometimes change
names that has in fact Turkish origin according to an famous historian in
Turkey.

I agree with the article Turkey has a long road ahead to reach an environment
where cultural diversity is really desired. And it is upset that it lost many
cultures already.

However, this article feels too hateful for me. I could read an article with
similar arguments about how Armenians piled weapons that they get from Western
countries and attacked villages behind frontline of war with Russians and
Ottomans planned to migrate them, however there were illness and bandits
because there was already an ongoing war. These are arguments but most of the
time there is hate and generizations how bad and evil the other side is
attached to these arguments... Really, is it going anywhere?

It is sad but I think It will be political material for use in the future too.
The people of the world will watch us arguing childishly and they will say to
themselves "oh look another middle east dispute, how interesting!"

Turkey and middle east has been home for many civilizations in its history and
I hope people learn to celebrate all of the historical heritage and different
cultures. I hope.

------
platform
The article states that there was recent change in Turkey where the referring
to the Armenian genocide is now longer a criminal offense

" ... For nearly a century, the Turkish state has denied the Armenian
genocide—until recently, you could be prosecuted even for referring to it—and
so any inquiry into such things would have been fraught. ..."

However, I cannot find a reference to the legislative change in Turkey.

In fact, my search turns somewhat opposite direction

a) Turkey's foreign ministry a year ago actively opposing Australian state-
level recognition of the genocide (Austalia does not recognize it at federal
level)

[http://theconversation.com/turkey-the-armenian-genocide-
and-...](http://theconversation.com/turkey-the-armenian-genocide-and-the-
politics-of-memory-20747)

b) Denying the Armenian genocide cannot be made in to a criminal offense.
While denying Jewish genocide can be made into the criminal offense

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/17/us-switzerland-
tur...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/17/us-switzerland-turkey-
genocide-idUSBRE9BG0O820131217)

My ethnic ancestry happen to be both of these prosecuted groups.

Establishing, in my own mind, a parity in recognition of these horrific events
of the past, is not a rewarding journey for me. Emotionally, I just cannot
imagine being in the place of my grand and grand grand parents who personally
witnessed this.

But at a logical level, it seems that modern Turkey would not be held back
from the world stage, by recognizing the tragic mistakes of the Ottoman Turkey
of the past.

------
zura
We also shouldn't forget the genocide of Circassians by Russian empire.

[http://www.circassian-genocide.info/](http://www.circassian-genocide.info/)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Circassians...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Circassians#Genocide_question)

------
arjn
While Armenians bore the brunt of the Ottoman brutality, there were Assyrian,
Syriac and Orthodox Greek massacares/genocides too but for some reason these
are much less known and rarely talked about.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_genocide](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_genocide)

~~~
DrinkWater
The main reason is that the Armenian people do a lot more lobby work in that
regard. They also have their own country, unlike the Syriac-speaking people
(that includes "Assyrians"). That gives the cause way more backbone.

~~~
arjn
I suppose you're right. There are many more Armenians around than there are
Assyrians/Chaldeans. In general though, this area has important histories that
are seemingly ignored.

------
ruricolist
Now I understand why I was never able to find out anything about where my
great-grandfather came from -- very likely it was one of those little villages
that were simply wiped out.

------
talian
Funny, how all these sad stories easily make their ways even among
intellectual people.

"Our duty is to make Turks out of all the non-Turks within the Turkish
country, no matter what. We will cut out and throw away any element that will
oppose Turks and Turkishness." There's no such quote from İnönü. But when lies
are supported with such strong words, suddenly people start respecting them.

These lies are made up by kurd-islamists in recent years, and other groups
such as armenians are also trying to grab a bite from Turkey, by taking kurd-
islamists side and supporting their lies. These lies can easily be traced back
to kurd-islamist so-called historians' books, but one can go no further than
that, for there's no supporting evidence on their claims even in their books.

But as always, if you repeat the same lies over and over again, people will
believe it.

~~~
arjn
Ah.... one of those :)

So lets understand what you're trying to say here.... that none of this
happened, that all the Armenians, Greek Orthodox people, Assyrians and Syriac
Christian peoples just dropped dead of their own accord. And the Ottoman
authorities had nothing to do with it .... right ? Thats what you're saying ?

~~~
talian
Interesting, it was armenians first, but then Greek Orthodox people, Assyrians
and Syriac Christian are also added to list huh?

Nobody suddenly dropped dead i guess, but deportation is one thing, genocide
is another. Deportation of armenians were ordered by von Schellendorf, for the
armenian separatist gangs were causing way much trouble on the eastern side,
assaulting on mostly kurdish villages, as well as turkish villages. During
deportation, kurds tried to take revenge of these assaults. Deportation,
illnesses and such seems to have claimed some lives too. You can find some
more details on these assaults in Soviet Russias military reports in 1915,
such as Brigadier General Leonid Bolhovitinov's.

The interesting thing is: sad stories do not seem to require proof. For
example, if a million is dead, then it should have been easy to find mass
graves on the route. Where did a million corpses go, did barbaric ottomans eat
them?

Another interesting thing is: you are in the middle of a world war, and you
suddenly give up fighting the enemy, and start wasting your arms and forces on
a million of unarmed civillians, seems logical huh?

These sad stories are nothing but stories that mostly have roots in some event
but grew more and more in peoples mouths in years, like religious fairy tales.
People love drama, and when the story is touching, they do not seem to look
for any proof for believing.

~~~
arjn
They're not "added to the list" , they were always there, you just don't want
to acknowledge it.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_genocide](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_genocide)

There is tons of proof, from both Turkish/Ottoman and external sources, not
matter how much you deny it.

~~~
talian
Turkish sources are open for inspection for years. Please provide some solid
proof, other than your relatives' stories.

~~~
arjn
Heh! , My relatives ? You're sound like a troll jumping to conclusions

------
capnmal
It is still a debated piece of history. Yet there is proof of Armenian's
barbaric killing spree of the area.

~~~
arjn
No, its not a "debated" piece of history. It happened and there is an
overwhelming body of proof.

~~~
talian
Nope. There's no "overwhelming" proof. Only sad stories, and a blue book (THE
TREATMENT OF ARMENIANS IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 1915-1916) made up by Toynbee et
al. as a war propaganda, yet even the victors of 1st world war did not even
respect the propaganda book, so no claims about genocide were made after the
war ended(1918). Isn't it interesting that, imperialists trying to conquer a
middle eastern country, does not even try to support genocide claims on that
country, to get more public support world wide?

~~~
shepardrtc
My grandfather having to be dressed up as a little girl and smuggled out of
the country is proof enough for me. They killed the men and forced the women
to march until they died, in case you didn't know.

~~~
talian
And my grandfather believed that an invisible man was watching our every move.
But despite my grandfather, I don't believe such invisible man exists. People
tend to easily believe in stories that are told over and over, but some people
prefer the stories that sit on some kind of solid proof. Is there any kind of
solid proof an so-called genocide, other than sad stories heard from
relatives? Look for hodjali massacre: Armenian love bugs massacred the
azerbaijanis. You can easily find solid proofs on hodjali massacre. But is
there anything on so-called armenian genocide other than heart breaking
stories?

Long story short: armenians tried to take advantage of the world war and
conquer the eastern anatolia by assaulting on kurdish and turkish villages.
Von schellendorf ordered deportation of armenians. Kurds tried to take revenge
of the assaults. Please do find solid proofs for your story, other than "my
grandfather was this and that".

~~~
DanBC
At least 300,000 - but probably more than a million - Armenians were killed.

> There is general agreement that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died when
> the Ottoman Turks deported them en masse from eastern Anatolia to the Syrian
> desert and elsewhere in 1915-16. They were killed or died from starvation or
> disease. The total number of Armenian dead is disputed. Armenians say 1.5
> million died. The Republic of Turkey estimates the total to be 300,000.

> According to the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the death
> toll was "more than a million".

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6045182.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6045182.stm)

So what are you saying? That people were not killed, or that they were not
killed as part of a genocide?

