Why Remember the Armenian Genocide?

“Are you aware that there was an Armenian Genocide?” Five years ago, Zogby pollsters asked Americans that question. Fewer than 35% of the respondents answered “yes.’ Almost half of the respondents were totally unaware, and the rest were unsure. For those of you who know about it, today’s column is a time to remember. For those who have never been told about it, today is a time to learn.

The Genocide took the lives of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923. April 24, 1915 commemorates the day when about 250 Armenian leaders were arrested and taken to a remote prison. There they were executed without trial.

Armenians are an ancient people from eastern Turkey who were converted to Christianity by St. Bartholomew, one of Jesus’ twelve apostles. By 301 A.D., Armenia became the first kingdom in the world to adopt Christianity as its religion. Later, as Islam gained control of the region, a series of treaties allowed Armenia to remain a pocket of Christianity in a Muslim world. By 1555, it was a semi-autonomous state within the Ottoman Empire.

A new era came about in 1908 when the Committee of Union and Progress (the “Young Turks”) came to power in the Ottoman Empire. Many Armenians thought that this would bring them full independence as a nation. The Young Turks had other plans.

Fearing that the Christian Armenians would rebel against the new government, they created an organization of criminal gangs called chetes. At the outbreak of World War I, in August, 1914, they sprang into action.

Within weeks Armenian males between the ages of 20 and 45 were conscripted into the army leaving their homes and families unprotected. A week later 56,000 Turkish troops were garrisoned in Christian schools and churches of the region.

By late September Armenians in the empire were forced to turn in all weapons from firearms to kitchen knives while their Turkish neighbors were armed. Communications with the outside world were cut off. Then the slaughter began.

Bands of chetes began looting, violating women and children and murdering Armenians. Mass public executions of Armenian soldiers, who had been conscripted into the army only months earlier, further terrorized the Armenian population. Over the next several months Armenians who had been deferred in the first draft were conscripted nonetheless. By March of 1915 those Armenians serving in the army were stripped of their weapons and uniforms.

Orders were sent from Constantinople to expel Armenians from any government posts—elected or appointed. The remaining Christian schools and churches were requisitioned as barracks for the Turkish army. The homes of many Armenians, together with horses, carts and other travel equipment were also seized by the army.

The April 24th arrest and subsequent execution of Armenian politicians and intellectuals in Constantinople unleashed the slaughter on an even greater scale. In place after place, community leaders were arrested and executed. Then, the remaining population was rounded up and forced to march to their deaths in the Syrian desert.

While the world was focused on the fighting in Europe, the most ancient Christian people in the world were being systematically exterminated. In eight years, 75% of Christian Armenians were killed, while many thousands were uprooted and scattered. Historians and academic institutions that study genocide have come to a consensus that the systematic massacres and deportations of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire formally constitute the 20th century’s first genocide.

The genocide of the Christian Armenians set a precedent that would soon be followed on an even larger scale by the Nazi regime. A week before invading Poland, Adolph Hitler reportedly told his commanders, “…I put ready my Death's Head units, with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of the Polish race or language. Only thus will we gain the living space that we need. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?”

Had the world risen in defense of the Armenians, it would have significantly changed the calculus of Hitler and his henchmen. Who knows the lives that might have been saved had the world not turned a blind eye to the treatment of the Armenians?

The extermination of six million Jews in Germany is not adequately answered by the mere condemnation of Hitler and the Nazis. We must look more deeply at the apathy of the world and the evil in every human heart—regardless of ethnicity. Ultimately, the reason to keep alive the memory of the world’s first genocide is to guard ourselves against evil in its every form, against every creed, and in every place.