Maral Der Ohanesian's
Armenian Letter 5 : My Response to Your Letter 4
Dear Editor,
Here are my comments on your last response. They are as follows (in the same sequence as your titles and I added one at the end):
“‘DENY’ AND NATIONAL HONOR”
* You wrote: “Many Armenians cannot understand why the Turkish people do not accept their arguments, because they have unchangeable assumptions about the Turkish people.”
- This is not true, Armenians are not convinced by the Turkish argument, because they had witnessed the Ottoman abuse and Genocide first hand, I for one am 100% descendent of Ottoman citizen Armenians, all four of my grandparents were Ottoman citizen Armenians, and survived that abuse, and I don’t think that it is possible to anyone in my shoes to “believe” a denialist’s claims against her own family history!!
* You wrote “The Church and political parties in the Diaspora rewrote the history about the Turks.”
- The question that imposes itself here is, if you are right, then how come that history “Matches” with the other historical sources and official archives of WWI, of both enemies and allies of Ottoman Empire, and testimonies of Turks themselves?!
* You wrote “According to this history Turks may do anything bad to the Armenians and against humanity. Turks are infidel, Turks are dirty and they are thirst to blood.”
- In a speech he made in Baku , May 1992, in his last trip before he died, Turgut Ozal, the former Turkish PM, blatantly threatened the Armenians by saying:
“Let those Armenians not forget what we did to them. Let them behave themselves or else....”
Let me share with you some interesting statement made by a well educated Turk, in an open letter to the “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Armenian Diaspora” that was posted on a Turkish denialist site. Kufi Saydali threatened the Armenians openly, by saying:
“he who lives by the sword, must be prepared to die by the sword.”
Mr. Saydali continued threatening the Armenians by saying that if they won’t give up the Genocide claims, there will be a “strong” Turkish “Reaction.” He wrote: “
Don't you know that, to every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction? In fact, with the Turks, this opposite reaction is mostly not equal but much much stronger. If you don't believe me, ask your Greek friends, they can tell you more about it. They have tasted it in Inonu, Sakarya, Izmir , and more recently, in .”
So Dr. Laciner, do you still blame people for having the “monster” image in mind about the Turks?
* You wrote: “They needed to create enemy to unite the Armenians in the , , Europe and other countries.”
- The Armenians who survived in the past 5000 years do not need a common enemy for their solidarity. This is not a creation of an enemy. It’s a common experience shared by the “Survivors” and their offspring.In a masterpiece of a poem titled “An Evening Promenade”, written soon after he was released from prison, Nazim Hikmet, one of the finest Turkish poets, mentions his Armenian friend “Karabet” who:
“...shall never forgive, until his death
Those responsible for his [Karabet’s] father's slaughter
In the Kurdish mountains.
He still hates them...But [the poet concludes addressing himself]
Karabet loves you
Because he knows well
That you yourself have not forgiven
Those responsible for the shame brought on the Turkish people.”[1]
The stigma of the Genocide is the main reason for “innocent denials” of the Genocide when someone doesn’t know the truth of what had happened, but trying his best not to believe that it, in fact, was Genocide, like yourself. The worry of being classified in the same category with the Nazis is another reason for it. Just because of National Honor many Turks refuse to accept historical, universally accepted facts of the Armenian Genocide. Well, let me remind you, my friend, “National Honor” can not “Change” historical events, “National Honor” can not “defend” a bunch of criminals and “Convert” them to National Heroes. Turkish people should not be “proud” of criminals like Talat, traitors like Enver and butchers like Cemal. Turkish people should be proud with real heroes not a bunch of criminals who, for the whole world’s concern, are dumped in the cesspool of history. That’s why need to reconcile with its past before aiming at reconciliation with Armenians.
“TURKS DO NOT THINK ON THE PAST AND ARMENIANS?”
* You wrote: “We cannot construct a dialogue and I feel very bad when I try to speak with an Armenian. He/she insults you, and does not allow saying anything.”
- Can you blame any Armenian if he/she insults you in reaction to your insult of him/her?! Let me explain to you again, my friend, that brazen denial of the Armenian Genocide is an insult and offense to any Armenian whose parents had survived that Genocide. Please don’t blame any Armenian for not being able to withstand the re-victimization nor accepting your (unintentional maybe) insults, and for not having the patience to try and explain to you the facts that he/she knew first hand from his/her parents “the survivors”, because with the Genocide denial, one is re-victimizing the victims, by blaming them for it, and calling them liars.
* You wrote: “Hrant Dink plans to establish one in Istanbul .”
Well, Hrant Dink was given a six-month suspended sentence last week.
* You wrote: “There are many Armenian churches and communities in many Turkish towns including in the city I live now.”
- A statistical research ordered by the Ottoman Interior Ministry to Archbishop Maghakia Ormanian from the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople during 1912-1913, concluded that there were 2200 Armenian monasteries and churches in western Armenia [modern eastern Turkey], before 1914.
In 1974, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published data, according to which 197 of 913 Armenian monuments standing after the genocide could be saved by immediate reconstruction, while the rest were already destroyed.
In 1980, the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul declared that out of 2000 Armenian churches before 1915 there were six left, and that was only 6 years after the UNESCO report.
As for the present day Eastern Turkey or Western Armenia , there is “ONLY ONE” functioning church, in the “ONLY ONE” remained Armenian community in the “Whole” of what was once known “The Armenian vilayets” or “Ermenistan,” and that is in the area of Musa Ler / Musa Dagh.
How did All those Armenians Vanish?!
“GERMANS AND GENOCIDE”
* You wrote: “The Genocide maker image has cost a lot to . That is why the Germans have tried to find new genocides, so they could show all the peoples that they are not the alone.”
As I said earlier, the Official German archive for WWI is full of documents that prove the Armenian Genocide. German Academic Publishing House published few months ago a 500-page book by Wolfgang Gust titled “The Armenian Genocide, 1915/16: Documents from the Diplomatic Archives of the German Foreign Office”. In this book there are 235 published Official German documents clearly indicating that what had happened to the Armenians in 1915-16 was a premeditated, centrally organized massive crime against the Armenians.didn’t need to show the world that it was not alone as you concluded the reason for German recognition. In fact, if you had read the “Text” of the Armenian Genocide recognition by the German Bundestag (Parliament), in June 15, 2005, you would’ve known that what you are asserting is not true. Because Germany in this resolution, not only recognized the fact of the Armenian Genocide 1915, but also regretted its own responsibility (Germany’s responsibility) in the Armenian Genocide, even if that was by turning a blind eye to all these crimes by the Ottoman Empire. So recognized another Genocide in its History, and it wasn’t trying to improve its image by blaming others.
The opening part of ’s Recognition Resolution, was approved and supported by all the political factions in the Bundestag, including the ruling party, read:
“The German Bundestag honors and commemorates the victims of violence, murder and expulsion among the Armenian people before and during the First World War. The Bundestag deplores the deeds of the Young Turkish government in the Ottoman Empire which have resulted in the almost total annihilation of the Armenians in Anatolia . It also deplores the inglorious role played by the German Reich which, in spite of a wealth of information on the organized expulsion and annihilation of Armenians, has made no attempt to intervene and stop these atrocities.”
[2]
You wrote: “What I am trying to say that the Germans were Turks’ ally, yet they never fully supported the Turkish people in all areas.”
The German Government in WWI, as the German Bundestag (Parliament) acknowledged, had fully supported the Ottoman Empire, and did absolutely nothing to stop or intervene these atrocities against Armenians, in spite of it’s “Full” awareness of what was going on, and if Germany were to sympathize with Armenians because they were Christians, as you were implying, then it would’ve at least tried to stop the Ottomans from Exterminating the Armenian Population.
“OTTOMAN ARCHIVES”
* You wrote: “The ?stanbul Government tried its best to find the highest possible Armenian populations because of the tax.…. So there is no reason to doubt about the Ottoman figures.”
- Let’s have a word about the “Tax Collecting” procedure in the Ottoman Empire ’s late decades. In his account Seddik El-Demluji, while he was a government official in one of the Ottoman vilayets, explained how “ People look at it [the tax collecting offices] as a way to plunder people’s money. The responsible officer assesses the tax amounts without any legal calculation [according to what he desires] and then collect it with the force of law: that is prison, confiscation and torture … and the tax collectors had set the record for their bribery and they did even “purchase” their posts from the villayet’s Defterdar [treasurer], and each county’s price is calculated by the Defterdar according to it’s size and resources.” [3]
Historian Kemal M. Ahmed, refer to the inaccuracy of Ottoman records saying: “Their [Ottoman official’s] control over Kurdistan [Kurdish areas] was very obviously diminished, even their presence was completely unnoticeable in the mountainous areas, and among the strong [Kurdish] tribes.” [4]
As you can see how the Ottomans were collecting their taxes, and how it would not have been possible for them to have accurate records in all areas. Thus counting more people didn’t mean more taxes, since the tax amounts were assessed differently according to the tax collectors’ desire.
* You wrote: “In fact some of the Armenian leaders asked for independence. The problem was that they asked the Russians and the European powers to establish a separate country.”
- You haven’t provided any evidence for your claim, and Armenians never claimed autonomy, but only reforms. In the treaty of Berlin 1878, the Armenians were asking for “reforms” and not autonomy, those reforms were democracy, freedom of press, a parliamentary system, they were demanding to improve the lives of Armenians, as well as Turks, and Arabs. The same demands that the Turks themselves were asking for. And do not forget that the Ottoman Government had accepted and signed the Treaty of Berlin, thus pledging to apply these reforms “according to article 61 in the treaty” in the Armenian provinces.“
DECLINING ARMENIAN POPULATION”
* About Dr. Shaw’s figures you wrote “So I cannot see any problem with Shaw’s figures. By the way the was a census study was started in 1905 and it concluded in 1914.”
So as you say, the “actual” census started 1905, and the population figure was concluded after 9 years in 1914, right? Then where did Dr. Shaw come up with those two figures from, claiming that the first was 1906 census, and the second was 1914 census?!
Now let me re-quote you about Dr. Shaw’s numbers from your letter 3, you wrote “In 1906 the population of Muslims was 15.518.478, and the population of Armenians was 1.140.563. In 1914 Muslim Ottoman population reached to 15.044.846 and the Armenian population was 1.229.007, according to Prof. Shaw.”
So according to you and Shaw, there are two figures for only “one” census, 1905’s, but how can this be possible? Therefore one of those two numbers must be fabricated?!And again let me remind you, that the number of the victims doesn’t prove whether genocide was committed or not!
* You wrote: “You say that the Turkish Government donates 3 million dollars to Institute of Turkish Studies in Washington . You give no proof.”
Of course I do have proof. Like I would jeopardize my credibility and say something like that without a proof!! I am not a Liar you know.
The proof you can find in the very same Institute of Turkish Studies (ITS) website, in it’s published in 82 pages “
ITS Report 1982-2002 ,” this report “clearly” admits that it was founded by the Turkish government, and is still financed until today by annual income from the foundation “Gift” of the Turkish Government, page 14 reads:
“The Institute of Turkish Studies was established in 1983 through a one-time gift from the Republic of Turkey invested in a trust fund. The annual income derived from this trust fund constitutes its primary funding base.”
So as the Institute admits, it is TOTALLY dependant on Turkish Government’s Money with Dr. Faruk Logoglu, the Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey to the U.S. (page 12), as the Institute’s Honorary Chairman. In the section of “Purpose And Objectives,” you can read that one of the main purposes of this institute is “To support the publication of books and journals that contribute to American scholarship on Turkey, and to broaden the understanding and knowledge of Turkish history, society, politics, and economics in the United States” (page 8).
In the section of “Annual Grant Program,” the institute proudly declare that:
“The grants awarded to individuals and institutions during the past twenty years have made a major contribution to the promotion of scholarship and knowledge about in the . ITS graduate research and dissertation-writing grants have played an important role in the training of many scholars of Turkish studies who are currently teaching in various American universities” (page 20).
In the same page ITS admits that:
“To date, the Institute has awarded 968 grants for a total value of $2,314,262. The grant program for the 2002-2003 academic year provided support for 25 projects (14 individual and 11 institutional) in the amount of $107,000.”
A lot of details are provided in the website: how many and which “Universities” received monetary grants from ITS, which projects were funded by ITS money, who was in charge of these projects, which college professors received money from ITS, how much and how many times they received money from the ITS, etc. The report also stated that:
“ITS has been a major source of funding support for conferences, workshops, and lecture series on topics related to the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey in the American academia.” (page 66)
As for Dr. Stanford J. Shaw, of UCLA, the ITS report declared that he received monetary grants from the institute, thus Turkish Government, for “Six” consequent academic years, from 1985 to 1991. And the details are as follows:
1985-1986 - Stanford J. Shaw ( Republic of Turkey databank at University of California , Los Angeles ) p.79.
1986-1987 - Stanford J. Shaw ( Republic of Turkey databank at University of California , Los Angeles ) p.80.
1987-1988 - Stanford J. Shaw (Development of an online database of bibliographic and text materials on and the Ottoman Empire ) p.80.
1988-1989 - Stanford J. Shaw (Produce photocopies of British intelligence reports for “History of the Turkish War of Independence, 1918-1923”) p.81.
1989-1990 - Stanford J. Shaw, Research on “Jews of the Ottoman Empire ” and “Turkish War for Independence.” p.38.
1990-1991 - Stanford J. Shaw, Research on Status and Experience of Turkish Jewry in 20th Century. p. 38.
Interestingly, Dr. Shaw had “stopped” publishing new books on the Armenian Genocide after 1991!! What does that tell you about Shaw’s work?! Totally financed by Turkish money, admitted by Turks themselves.
Now, the earlier published reports of the Institute of Turkish Studies (ITS), the institute used to mention the $3 million foundation money of it, which was set by the Turkish Government. The Boston Globe newspaper had published more details on the subject in 1995, in an article titled “Turkish endowment gifts to U.S. colleges spur debate over study of Armenian massacre,” it reported that: “For 10 years, Lowry directed the Institute of Turkish Studies in Washington, a lobby set up in 1982 with $3 million from the Turkish government and annual funding from Ankara. A 1992 institute report cites its own "key role ... in encouraging the government of to embark upon a plan of endowing a series of chairs in Turkish studies at major American universities".” [5]
* You wrote:“Armenian lobbying institutions spend more than 60 million dollars each year to undermine Turkish interests in the world.”
-I gave you the proof you need. Now, it’s Your Turn to tell me what proof you have to support your claim of the “astronomical” figure of $60 million that Armenians supposedly spend each year?!
Last month, a board member of some Turkish denial site, the so-called "Turkish Forum,” Hanimefendi Fatma Sarikaya, published a translation and summary of article titled “Money spent by the Armenian lobby in ” authored by Senol Kantarci, an Assistant Professor at Erzrum University , claiming that Armenians had spent $7 million on the lobbying in the in one year. In answering that baseless claim, Harut Sassounian exposes Kantarci’s lies in his column titled: “
Turks scare themselves by claiming Armenians spend millions on lobbying.” I strongly recommend that you read it, before making such far-fetched claims in the future.
* You wrote: “More than 520.000 Turkish and Kurdish were massacred by the Armenian extremists.”
In your earlier message you stated that according to the Ottoman records, there were “Only” 1,200,000 Armenians in 1914, and as we all know, the Ottoman archival documents published in 1983 stated that “800,000 Armenian women, old men and children were deported.” Are you trying to convince me that the 400,000 Armenians who were “supposedly” left in Turkey after the deportation, according to Ottoman records, (who were of course not all revolutionaries, if there were any left, and they were not all able bodied men, as we both agreed earlier that able bodied men were all driven to war fronts), so after we exclude all that, you are trying to convince me that “supposedly” those few hundred thousand women, old men and children killed 520,000 Turks?! How on earth that can be possible?! I hope you see now how much the denialists’ claims are contradictory.
FATE OF ARMENIAN CHILDREN IN THE GENOCIDE OF 1915
* You wrote: “If you accept that many Armenian children were adopted by the Turkish families and many Armenian women were married with the Turkish people you should have realized that the Turkish people cannot be racist.”
- Although I had used the word “absorbed” rather than “adopted,” that doesn’t mean there were no adopting incidents. As Armenians can not forget the criminal atrocities that were perpetrated against them, Armenians also can’t forget the righteous and kind Turks and Kurds and Arabs who spared their lives, challenging the “Governmental Orders” and threats of not hiding any Armenian within their households. Many Turks, Kurds and Arabs had saved lives of their Armenians neighbors and friends, or even strangers, an act of kindness that no Armenian will forget. You are right. The Turkish “People” are not racists, but the Ittihadist government was. Chanting the slogan, “ for the Turks,” they decided to get rid of the largest Christian minority who was refusing to be “Turkified” to fulfill their “Pan-Turkic Empire” dream.
But, all of the kidnapped, sold and adopted Armenians were raised as Turks after some nominal rituals of conversion to Islam, including circumcisions and name changes, thus, lost their identity and absorbed into the mainstream of Turkish society. I don’t think that it is needed to point out here that they were not willingly converted into Turks and Muslims, for they were helpless children.
The Ittihadist government needed to do a complete job in extermination of all Armenians, without sparing anyone’s life. Those who miraculously survived this genocide always remember the soldiers shouting to each other: “Kill them, kill them all, so no one will come to take their revenge in the future”. Accordingly, the Ittihad leaders decided to rely on “bloodthirsty murderers” (kanli katil) as instruments of massacre. Thousands of felons and repeat criminals were selected and released from the various prisons of the Ottoman Empire for massacre duty; they were to show no compassion or mercy for women, children or the infirm.
One would be mistaken if he thought that all Armenian children’s lives were spared during the genocide, because for a sane human being, it is too heinous to kill an innocent harmless child. But children killings and torture was, in fact, another chapter of this massive crime against my ancestors.
For example, in his account, Signor Gorrini, the Italian Consul-General at Trabzon, in a detailed report called attention to the fact that:
“The children [were] torn away from their families… placed by hundreds on board hip in nothing but their shirts, and then capsized and drowned in the Black Sea and the river Degirmendere- these are my ineffaceable memoirs of Trabzon memoirs which still, at a month’s distance, torment my soul and almost drive me frantic….”
More confirmation to that testimony came from Turkish officials themselves. The most poignant testimony on drowning operations was provided by the Turkish deputy of Trabzon province, Hafiz Mehmet, who by profession was a lawyer. In a postwar speech, in December 11, 1919, in the Chamber of Deputies of the Ottoman Parliament, he revealed that he personally saw how, one day, Armenian women and children were loaded onto barges at the port city of Ordu in Trabzon province and drowned in the high seas. He then stated that the local people were lamenting with the words, "God will punish us for what we did." At the 15th sitting of the Trabzon trial series 1919, Turkish Ordu merchant Hüseyin, appearing as a witness, confirmed this very operation of drowning. In its Verdict, the Tribunal with emphasis referred to these operations of mass drownings targeting as they especially did "male and female infants" (zükur ve inas cocuklari) with the help of "repeat criminals" (cerayimi mükerrere).
During the proceedings of the Turkish Military Tribunal in Spring 1919, some two dozen Turks, including physicians, military officers, governmental officials, and merchants, in the course of twenty sittings, testified orally and in writing to the methods used to dispose of children. [6]
Two Turkish MDs, Dr. Ziya Fuad, Inspector of Health Services, and Dr. Adnan, the city's Health Services Director, testified based on evidence gathered from local Turkish physicians that Dr. Ali Saib, Director of Public Health of Trabzon province, systematically poisoned Armenian infants brought to the city's Red Crescent Hospital and ordered the drowning at the nearby Black Sea of those who resisted taking his “medicine.” Another method Dr. Saib applied in a house full of Armenian infants was “the steam bath.” Through the installation there of an army “etüv” contraption, babies were exposed to suffocating hot steam and thereby instantly killed. Father Laurent, the French Capucin Father Superior in Trabzon , testified through an interpreter that he personally saw the corpses of the dead poisoned children being squeezed into large, deep baskets on the hospital grounds, like animals from a slaughterhouse, and then dumped into the nearby sea.
That same Red Crescent Hospital had been reduced to a pleasure dome, where the province's governor-general, Cemal Azmi, was keeping fifteen young girls [7] , to be used for frequent sex orgies. This fact had prompted Customs Inspector Nedim to denounce the governor. [8] and Turkish Lieutenant Hasan Maruf to expose the additional fact that “After committing the worst outrages the government officials involved had these young girls killed.” In a separate study, a young Armenian who had befriended the governor's son in Berlin , where the governor had taken refuge right after the war to escape prosecution in , provided additional data on this episode of lethal debaucheries. During one of his boastful narrations about this debauchery, Governor Azmi told the following to the young Armenian, whom he believed to be a Turk as the latter had by then assumed a complete Muslim Turkish identity, including the Turkish name Mehmet Ali, a thorough study of the Kuran, and circumcision: “Among the most pretty Armenian girls, 10-13 years old, I selected a number of them and handed them over to my son [who was then 14 years old] as a gift; the others I had drowned in the sea.” [9]
The sexual abuse during the Armenian Genocide was not limited to young Armenian females. A Swiss pharmacist who throughout the war remained in Urfa and traveled extensively in the area asserts that widespread homosexual rape occurred both in connection with genocidal killings and in Turkish homes where young Armenian boys were kept as adoptees. As he reported, “Turkish officers, especially, inflicted unbelievable and unspeakable acts of bartering upon Armenian girls, but nobody can imagine the magnitude of crimes of unnatural sex inflicted upon hundreds, yes thousands, of Armenian boys.” He also stated that “long after the killings had stopped, rapes, acts of deflowering virgins and other forms of sexual violations, especially of young boys, continued.” [10]
Other examples of abusing and torturing children involved rape before murder. In Ankara province, near the village of Bash-Ayash , two rapist-killers - a brigand, Deli Hasan, and a gendarme, Ibrahim - raped twelve boys, aged 12-14, and subsequently killed them. Those who were not dead at once were tortured to death while crying "Mummy, Mummy." [11]
The German M.D. H. Stoffels, staff physician, reported to the Austrian consul in Trabzon that on his way to Mosul he came across in Mush (and Siirt in the same province) “a large number of formerly Armenian localities, where in the churches and houses he saw charred and decomposed corpses of women and children” (verkohlte und verweste Frauen- und Kinderleichen). [12]
Need I say more about the fate of the innocent Armenian children and young girls whose only crime was being Armenian…?!
Allow me here to share my own grandfather’s experience, he was 10 years old in 1915, he lost both of his parents and his 6 sisters who were killed during the deportation, he was “kidnapped” and “sold” four time, from one family to another. Through out that time my grandfather’s name was changed to “Hussein” and he was forbade to speak Armenian or even to think of declaring his Armenian origin in front of anyone. For two years, he lived as a slave to the last family that had bought him. Two dry pieces of bread were his only food for the entire day. He looked after the man’s sheep from early morning until dark. For months, he planned his escape. He ate one piece of bread and sold the other one. He finally managed to save enough money to buy a train ticket and escape to an Arab country. Then through a humanitarian organization, he managed to find his older brother after years of separation. This child, who grew to be my grandfather, couldn’t get over the pain of orphanhood and suffered for the rest of his life from the mistreatment that he had endured as a youngster. I remember seeing him crying whenever he remembered those childhood days, until the last days of his almost 8 decades of life. With physical and spiritual scars my grandfather survived, and he formed a new Armenian family. If he hadn’t manage to escape that Turkish family, I might have been a Turk today, as well as my 6 other siblings and cousins, and for generations to come!!
In his article titled “Would you wish to be an Armenian in 1915?” [13] Ahmet Altan wrote:
“No one is denying that Armenians were murdered, right? It may be 300,000, or 500,000, or 1.5 million. I don't know which number is the truth…. What I do know is the existence of the death and pain beyond these numbers…Those numbers cannot describe the murdered babies, women, the elderly, the teenage boys and girls….”He continues: “When I see the shadow of this bloody event on the present world, I see a greater injustice done to the Armenians. Our crime today is not to allow the present Armenians even to grieve for their cruelly killed relatives and parents. Which Armenian living in today can openly grieve and commemorate a murdered grandmother, grandfather or uncle? I have nothing in common with the terrible sin of the past Ittihadists, but the sin of not allowing grief for the dead belongs to all of us today… Even in those terrifying times there were Turks who risked their lives trying to rescue Armenian children. We are the children of these rescuers, as well as the children of the murderers. Instead of justifying and arguing on behalf of the murderers, why don't we praise and defend the rescuers' compassion, honesty, and courage?” Encouraging the Turks to follow the steps of their righteous grandparents who rescued the Armenians he wrote: “There are no more victims left to be rescued today…I still believe there is something yet to be rescued from all these meaningless and pitiless arguments, and that something is called ‘humanity.’”
Regards,
Maral Der Ohanesian
Notes:
[1] Nazim Hikmet, Poems, in Eastern literary Armenian, translated by Gevork Emin, Yerevan :Haypethrat , 1986, p. 112. Revised from the original Turkish by K.I.Pilikian.
[2] German Bundestag Printed matter 15/5689 15th electoral period June 15, 2005
[3] Saddik El-Demluji, “Emaret Behdean” , Mosul 1952, p. 80-86.
[4] Kemal M. Ahmed “ Kurdistan in The Years Of The First World War” 2nd ed. 1984, p. 83
[5] The Boston Globe, “Turkish endowment gifts to colleges spur debate over study of Armenian massacre” Nov 24, 1995 - 21:51 EST. http://users.ids.net/~gregan/globe.html .
[6] Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Turkish Military Tribunal's Prosecution of the Authors of the Armenian Genocide: Four Major Court-Martial Series," Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring 1997), pp. 39-42 on The Trabzon Series.
[7] Turkish Military Tribunals, Court-Martial 10th sitting, April 12, 1919.
[8] Ibid. 16th sitting.
[9] Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Documentation of the World War I Armenian Massacres in the Proceedings of the Turkish Military Tribunal," International Journal of Middle East Studies. Vol. 23, No. 4 (November 1991), p. 574, note 55; Arshavir Sheeragian, Gudagun Err Nahadegneroun (The Testament of the Martyrs). Beirut , 1965, pp. 262-263.
[10] Jacob Künzler, Im Lande des Blutes und der Tränen. Erlebnisse in Mesopotamien Während des Weltkrieges “In the Land of Blood and Tears. Experiences in Mesopotamia During the World War”. Berlin-Potsdam, 1921, pp. 77, 87. In the new edition, edited by Hans- Lukas Kieser, Zurich , 1999, pp. 99, 108-109.
[11] Haigashen Darekirk (Haigashen Annual). Vol. 1, 1922, p. 328. The names of four of the victims are listed in this source.
[12] Austrian Foreign Ministry Archives. 12 Türkei/380, folio 909, May 26, 1917
[13] Ahmet Altan “Soykirim... 1915 yilinda bir Ermeni olmak ister miydiniz?” Gazetem, 9 Mayis 2005, http://www.gazetem.net/ahmetaltan.asp. JTW, 10 November 2005
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