Link for videos and replies: http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2011/05/3258-famous-turks-speaking-about.html
Part 1: Diverse people, not all identified making statements)
00:00:07 The Turkish government is convinced that the Armenians never underwent a genocide
R: What legal court’s verdict convinced you that Armenians underwent GENOCIDE?
00:00:18 For nine decades, they deny that it never it happened
R: What legally valid documentation you can show that it ever happened?
00:00:23 It’s shocking. We have no problem recognizing the Genocides in Darfur, Kambodscha, Rhuanda or the Holocaust
R: Sure, Holocaust is the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Recognition of rumors for the most serious crime “genocide” is nothing more than LYNCHING!
00:00:32 Why is it only this Genocide?
R: Because it has no evidence, no process, no defense, no legal verdict!
00:00:37 It is incredible that the Noble Prize recipient Orhan Pamuk should risk 3 years in prison for only starting discussion on this subject
R: Historical truths cannot be asserted by “novel writers” who do not have the faintest knowledge on this subject, but uttered to be awarded with Nobel!
00:00:51 [Bernard-Henri Lévy] They deny facts, they erase their traces, they deceive.
R: Who erased what, when, how? Why must innocents accept LIES for FACTS?
00:01:06 [Cem Özdemir, Politician] This is the last big taboo of Turkish politics. It shows that the governing people are afraid that their population could learn about these facts.
R: Ask Cem Ozdemir what is the “source” of his “idea which is WRONG”? Did he ever read Liman von Sanders, Von Schellendorf newspaper articles or ever saw the secret agreement of Aug.2,1915 by which GERMANS WERE COMMANDER IN CHIEF of OTTOMAN ARMIES and it is them that ENFORCED THESE MEASURES?
00:01:20 [R.T. Erdoğan – Turkish PM] Something like a genocide is foreign to our society. It is not ever possible that we recognize it
R: True! Hundreds of foreign documents prove the ARMENIAN refined cruelties!
00:01:30 [US President Obama] For all those who are not conscious of it, the genocide of the Armenian people has happened.
R: Did anyone show Obama the US Senate Near East Relief report dt. 22.04.1922 or US Senate Doc.151, Nov. 19, 1919 or Nat. Archive Doc. 184.021/175 proving the very opposite or US Documents or League of Nations decree 21.9.1929?
00:01:37 At a debate in the US Congress an important ally, viz. Bush, is up in arms.
R: Did you ask US Congress if they ever knew these documents plus many others?
00:01:46 It is the height of hypocrisy not to recognize the genocide of the Armenians just because an ally of the US doesn’t like it to be mentioned.
R: Height of indecency is to name a LIE produced in 1960s (after the NAZI Armenian troops were accepted in USA as “displaced persons”)! This is some accusation that had no “reason, time, place, numbers, murder tools, stadium size graveyards, neutral eye witnesses, documents, legal investigation or any documentary debate as GENOCIDE!” It is a HUGE PALAVER or distortion!
00:01:56 [TV anchor] The White House fears Turkish reactions that could destabilize Iraq
[Title] AGHET
00:02:09 A Genocide.
R: These are new scenarios. Regrettably even Turks do not know the multitude of foreign documents, apart from thousands in Turkish archives.
00:02:15 Hrant Dink, one of the best-known journalists for the Armenian minority, was murdered in cold blood in front of his Newspaper office.
R: More than 100.000 Turks marched on streets protesting this murder by a 17 year old fanatic and he is on trial! But why the films makers make no mention that more than 42 Turkish diplomats, overall 70 innocent persons were killed in more than 250 acts of terror by ASALA and that all of them are treated as heroes!
00:02:37 On 1/19/2007 the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered in cold blood in the street of İstanbul.
00:02:46 The offender, a 17 year-old, tries to justify the murder by stating that Dink had offended the honor of Turkey. The murderer has not been convicted yet.
R: The murderer is in prison, loathed by all Turks, but Armenian killers are in top positions as heroes.
00:03:01 A Pandora’s Box was opened in Turkey because Dink had the courage to speak of genocide.
R: This is wrong! Dink did not propagate genocide; on the contrary he was saying that “this is a matter between Turks and Armenians to settle”. He was killed because he said that “the dirty Turkish blood in veins will be changed with clean Armenian blood”. If he had spoken of blood’s Rh, nothing would have happened!
00:03:17 Over and over Dink has called attention to the Genocide in which more than one million Armenians has murdered
R: Wrong again. To kill 1 million persons in about 100 days of relocation, you must kill 10.000 every day and bury them in hand dug stadium size graveyards! Where are the graveyards or corpses? Not even Hitler could kill 10.000/day in camps!
00:03:24 A Genocide, which Turkey denies for 95 years and its mentioning, is a punishable offense
R: Lie! All books praising genocide by Turkish or foreign writers, sell freely in most bookstores; they are amply available to all readers!
00:03:31 Many Turks are accused of this. Dink, too, was dragged before the court many times.
R: Wrong! You are sent to court if you speak-write-slander-insult-disgrace persons without evidence! Dink was tried for “insulting” and he was found “not guilty”!
00:03:37 [Delal Dink, Hrant Dink’s daughter]: He always said: “Don’t assume that they are denying the facts. What they are denying is something about which they don’t know anything.
R: Dink had not read the Armenian and other documents which I read and base my books. His daughter is too young to have read and learned hundreds of thousands pages!
00:03:47 So he started telling them what happened
00:03:51 He would say: “What I want isn’t for the politicians to acknowledge it. I want the entire population to know what happened and who did it; because I want to know that it will not happen again”.
R: I do not remember any such provocative statement from Dink! I demand proof!
00:04:05 Since Dink’s murder an increasing number of people are requesting an open discussion of the genocide
R: Yes, but they do not come to our conferences nor accept us in theirs!
00:04:12 But the overwhelming majority of the population, though, is influenced by the official Turkish history making and sticks to the officially propagandized government version.
R: I defend what I have “referenced and documented from anti-Turkish or neutral sources”. The “officials have Turkish and Russian documents”. I speak based on Armenian-German-American-British-French-Russian and OFFICIAL documents plus hundreds of newspaper clips or excerpts! I have no ties with any organization!
00:04:23 [Cemil Çiçek, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey]: When you talk about genocide, this is the most serious calumny that one can ever bring against a nation.
00:04:31 We, the Turkish people will never accept such a charge. We have the cleanest past. No one has the right to make such accusation against us.
R: Yes, he speaks the truth. Why any one should have the right to make such base accusations without any LEGAL VERDICT or even displaying the reasons?
00:04:44 An opinion shared by the Turks in Germany. They demonstrate against any attempt to call the genocide by its name.
R: Turks in Germany talk with their instincts (even ambassador and politicians)!
00:04:53 In the last years several European parliaments, including those of France, Switzerland and Germany, have condemned the genocide of the Armenians.
R: Since when “political Parliaments” serve in lieu of “International Tribunals” and are authorized to take “unilateral political decisions for a few votes” without even asking an opposite view from Turks, not even their own opposing scholars?
00:05:03 Many Turks feel offended by this. They put this issue under a taboo. But the voices of those who ask for a review of history are no more to be ignored.
R: The slanders and unilateral blunders of other parliaments or “lynching without trial” shatters our trust in “global ethics and justice”! Turks are not even permitted to speak in France or Switzerland! I can say “I do not believe in God” and I am not penalized, but “I cannot say I do not believe in an unproven genocide” and I am punished for telling my personal opinion! What a stupid-shameful paradox? However, France Senate recently voted the law to be anti-constitutional!
00:05:14 [Cem Özdemir, Federal Chairman of The German Greens/Alliance 90 Party]: This process will not leave Turkey untouched.
R: Mr. Ozdemir should first start learning what “he really does not know other than hearsays” before giving sermons just because of his political position!
00:05:17 Turkey will be obliged to change radically its history writing. I want the genocide to be known and discussed in every Turkish TV stations and newspaper, so that the genocide will finally have to be recognized.
R: Yes, let us discuss and write history based on irrefutable documentations. Send me an invitation for any debate on any Turkish-German or other TV. I will be there < if I am welcome and given a visa >!
00:05:39 But meanwhile, the Turkish government sill clings to its position
R: Turkish Government (and I) demand PROOF and LEGAL VERDICT! Is that much?
00:05:43 and for most of the states, the land on the Bosphorus seems to be too important to press Turkey to recognize the Armenian genocide
R: What do you really mean by this illogical, degrading Dashnak style literature?
00:05:50 because that could upset such an important economic and military factor and a major partner in the NATO.
R: It looks that Germans and Germany need a scapegoat, to rid themselves from the TRULY ASSERTED CRIME OF GENOCIDE, in which 22.000 Armenian Nazi soldiers assisted them! Do not tell me that you do not know even this much?
00:06:00 [Markus Meckel, deputy Foreign Policy speaker of the German Social Democratic Party until 2009] This is about a partner who is very important in the NATO alliance. But that is precisely the reason why we should speak frankly.
R: Please advise Mr. Meckel to read Sanders, Schellendorf and Treaty of Aug.2,1915 as a German and realize Germany’s equal or top responsibility!
00:06:12 Too little being done. Too little is spoken clearly by not openly stating one’s own perception. R: Please invite me when you have courage to see documents and talk!
00:06:23 There is in fact no one in Western Europe who does not know beyond question that was such a genocide.
R: Is “justice asserted by numbers”? Was Hitler right when all Germans said Heil Hitler? Who ever raised his hand or voice in opposition? Wrong logic Sir!
00:06:30 Turkey uses its geopolitical clout again to stop all discussions, threatens foreign leaders with severing diplomatic relations or canceling weapon contracts
R: Wow! Typical Dashnak language and slanders! None of the accusing countries have “politely or friendly asked” any opinion or comments from Turkey!
00:06:41 and the Western governments regularly give in… while the relatives of the victims of the Armenian genocide vianly wait for many decades for the recognition of the historical truth
R: United Nations International Court of Justice is at Den Haag! Why parliaments prefer to make declarations instead of going to Court… if they are right? Or are they afraid that their case will be refused, like the European Human Rights Court?
00:06:53 [Samantha Power, foreign policy adviser to US President Obama]: You tell your story, and not only Turks but also the American and the other Western governmet answer: “This is not possible. It could not have happened.”
R: Samantha Power is just one of the many “big mouth talkers”. Those who insist that it happened should first show me 100 stadium size graveyards dug by hand with 10.000 corpses every day, and none of which was ever found! Colonel Maksud Shaikh, named his book: “LIES, LIES and MORE LIES”! Was he wrong?
00:07:10 Imagine what that would fell like. You survive a genocide and live with a history you know to be true but are told that none of it happened, or that your opinion is too subjective, too emotional.
R: This is a story invented after 1960s to prevent assimilation of Armenians and enable unification under Church and Organizations who “built a Money Machine”!
00:07:28 I think it’s devastating
R: This is not a drama play. We are discussing serious crime and need SERIOUS Proof!
00:07:33 Every year on April 24 thousands of Armenians from all over the World go in pilgrimage to Erivan, capital of Armenia
R: They do not even know that on that day only 235 ring leaders were arrested and sent around Ankara and most of them returned within 3-6 months!
00:07:43 April 24, 1915 is the day on which more than 95 years ago the attempt to totally exterminate their folk started
R: Blatant palaver!
00:07:52 The Armenians, oldest existing Christian nation, call this day Aghet“, meaning the catastrophe.
R: Ahaa! What HISTORICAL TRUTH has to do with “oldest or new Christian” nation? Don’t you imply that Christians are always innocent and right?
00:08:01 They mourn at a monument that isn’t at all far from the land of which their ancestors were citizens and where the genocide took place – Turkey
R: Many fictitious monuments have been erected for brainwashing and psychological input! “Bring proof for TRUTH” instead of man made mourning monuments!
00:08:12 [Arthur Abraham, World Boxing Champion from Armenia]: One has to accept the truth; people have stand up and do something so that Turkey also accepts it.
R: Since when boxing rings substitute International Tribunals?
00:08:30 It’s a sad feeling, like experiencing the death of someone in one’s own family.
R: All deaths are sad to all families!
00:08:37 Remembering the photographs everyone has seen, with the murdered people, the women and children and so on. This is sad for us and the genocide has to be recognized.
R: There are too many “doctored photographs” but “most written evidence” asserts that the Armenian bands performed unequaled, never seen or heard barbarities!
00:09:02 After the fight I said: “I dedicate this fight to the people who died on this day, 24th April”.
R: Simple talk, thinking the viewers are stupid, to be easily impressed!
00:09:22 Mourning on this day mixes with pain and rage.
R: They are the only nation that finds joy by “hating other persons they never met”!
00:09:27 The about 3 million Armenians in the tiny Armenian Republic and another 5 million spread all over the World
R: Total population of Armenians in the World is about 5 millions, only about 2 millions left in Armenia trying to survive living on “promises and hatred”, and land grabbing from neighbors.
00:09:34 …cannot understand how Turkey can deny what happened in plain view. They feel abandoned by all to fight by themselves the Turkish, version of history.
R: There may be an Armenian (distorted) version of history. I am defending TRUTH only documented by non-Turkish or pro-Turkish sources.
00:09:45 [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister of Turkey]: Word is around of murdered Christians, murdered Armenians. On which basis is this being said?
R: He is RIGHT. Who ever submitted one piece of valid document?
00:09:55 It is absolutely unacceptable to accuse the Turkey without proof of a massacre said to have taken place in 1915
R: If you are so sure why you do not go to International Court or sit to discuss by showing evidences bilaterally?
00:10:03 No matter how many times it is repeated, we will not accept it.
R: Only cowards make false confessions under torture, for things they did not do!
00:10:08 Let them bring proof, then we sill deal with it. I say it very clearly.
R: Yes, why you run away? Show whatever serious evidence you have, if any!
00:10:39 In the political archive of the Foreign Ministry in Berlin one finds thousands of documents, reports, letters, notes, secret memorandums, all collected by Germany, the ally of Turkey in World War I
R: Yes, show them! I show you just a tiny bit of German responsibility documents!
Show the Turco-German secret treaty of Aug.2, 1914 and let the world see who was the Commander in Chief. Show also written statement of generals Sanders and Schelledorf… You try to impress by numbers, I am simply specific!
00:10:54 These documents, hidden for a long time in order not to harm Turkey, leave absolutely no room for doubt about the reality of the genocide.
R: Don’t hide, show them if you are not lying or afraid of exposing YOUR CRIMES?
00:11:10 There are situation reports by German and American diplomats, but also reports and descriptions by Swiss, Danish and Swedish doctors,
R: Read Posting 692 and article of Swedish officer H.J. Pravitz who was there for over a month on horseback!. Tell Danes to look into 1910 Copenhagen Socialist Dashnak manifest. Ask all three countries “why they did not sent their arbiter judges in early 1919, when the beaten Ottoman Empire tried to form a “neutral court”. They all refused to take part at that time, but now open their big mouths for something they did not want to eyewitness or evidence!
00:11:17 …missionaries, newspaper correspondents and nurses who lived in Turkey in the first years of the 20th century and recorded their observations.
R: Do you expect Christian missionaries to evidence against Christians (yet some notes exist). All news was distributed by Reuters in London and they had to be anti-enemy. Yet, we have almost 100 articles or contradicting newspaper clips clearly proving that Armenians attacked Turks and joined all enemies.
00:11:30 The authors of these notes on brittle paper yellowed by age have been dead for many decades. We will hear them again, 95 years after the genocide.
R: Pitiful dramatization of empty words!
00:11:44 Actors will be lending their voice to the historical witnesses for the first time.
R: Historical evidences (more than 3300 postings, over 300 articles, over 200 authentic source books, several videos, and slide shows) and my first book “The Genocide of Truth” can be unloaded or printed by anyone since early 2008 at the blog “Please prove on the blog what is untrue! (Armenians-1915.blogspot.com)
00:11:57 [Leslie A. Davis, US Consul in Harput, 1915-1918] What I had to tell our Embassy was not only about the harshest measures taken by any government until now, but also one of the greatest tragedies of the history of humankind.
R: Leslie Davis (strong Christian advocate) Commercial Council in Harput (who never had even one commercial transaction) was NEVER OUT of HARPUT, did not see anything but hear from his Armenian interpreters. His book was printed by a Greek Publisher, who left out the big revolution and incidents at Van and Bitlis, right next door, probably because the contents did not serve Armenians. Davis wrote that Armenians are coward, will do anything for money, will easily change their religion. He confirmed that Protestants and Catholics were permitted to return to Harput after end of August 1915! But these are all by-passed!
00:12:12 [Henry Morgenthau, US ambassador in the Constantinople, 1915-1918] These people were dragged out of their homes almost without notice and were forced to march in direction of the desert.
R: Magenta came to Istanbul at the end of Nov.1913, and left in early Feb. 1916! The huge contradictions between Morgenthau’s book and his diary are given in 60 pages in my last book and are enough to show that he never saw anything and he was goaded by his Armenian secretaries (Andonian and Schimavonian) he took along to USA. Somewhere in the movie it is said that they were given 5 day notice. So, above statement of dragging etc. is belied in another part of the movie.
00:12:21 Thousands of women and children died, victims not only of hunger and exhaustion but also directly of the inhuman cruelty of their guards.
R: Skilled gendarmes were in the front, new replacements found were ordered on July 31,1915 “not to use abusive language and to take care of the belongings” or else! Did Hitler issue any such orders? Guards did no cruelty, 48 of them died trying to defend columns from Kurdish etc. brigands, but some of them surrendered against larger forces. Groups that were attacked are less than 10%
00:12:37 [Alma Johansson, nurse at the Swedish Mission in Mush, 1901-1915] Can you understand what it means to watch this massacre and not being able to do anything and having to stay alive oneself?
HJ Pravitz who was saw everything in 1915 and traveled the area on horse reported miseries, but no attacks, no floating corpses etc.
The American Board of Missionaries’ Report dated 1916 about Harput, almost thanks Turks and Enver pasha for his treats!
00:12:49 [Katharina Schüttler as Beatrice Rohner, nurse at the Swiss Mission in Aleppo, 1899-1917] And so they died of hunger and maltreatment. Everywhere one saw homeless, orphaned children.
R: 195.000 Armenians died of hunger, epidemics etc. under the Armenian Republic Rule between May 28, 1918 – Dec. 2, 1920 in ARMENIA! Reference: PM Katchaznuni and historian Lalaian. Armenians shared the consequences of war blockade by British and starvation even in the armies. Muslims died or were killed even much more!
00:13:03 Witness depositions, long ignored, lie also in diplomatic and military archives in France, Denmark, Sweden, Armenia and the US.
R: Armenians will never open their blood soaked archives. Others are welcome to open and see first the documents in my last book ISBN 978-605-5500-07-08.
00:13:13 Like the ones in Berlin, they describe in detail the bestiality of Armenian genocide.
R: Bestiality was bilateral but much heavier done by Armenian volunteers etc.
00:13:31 These notes document exactly the chronology of an unimaginable crime.
R: Above referred book contains a documented chronology, no one can refute!
00:13:44 [Actor for Leslie A. Davis, US Consul in Harput, 1914-17] It was not a secret that the plan’s objective was the annihilation of the Armenian people.
R: P.160: from Leslie Davis’ book: ”It is not that I am in anyway a champion of Armenian race. It is not a race one can admire or among whom I should choose to live. But whatever the faults of the Armenian people may be the proof that some of them have been involved in a revolutionary plot. The punishment inflicted upon these people is so severe…”
Sir, why do you make unilateral and selected references only? Aren’t these lines there also? Why you skip these words?
00:13:52 But the methods showed more barbarism planned in cold blood, and were also much more efficient than I had assumed was ever possible.
R: I have no record of above quote, if true! (P.164): “I understand that many Turks have been killed while travelling”! Criminals did not differentiate Turks or Armenians!
00:14:02 Corpses were on the ground everywhere, in every street
R: This is a fabrication, Davis never wrote that he saw corpses everywhere!
00:14:08 The whole country was a big morgue
R: Another lie, there is no such mention of “morgue”; he did not go out of Harput, he wrote what his Armenian translator-interpreter told him.
00:14:12 Or, more correctly said, a slaughterhouse.
00:14:21 When you see how old men and women, 70 and 80 years old
00:14:29 …blind, lame and sick
00:14:33 … innocent mothers and children
00:14:36 …helpless infants, no yet weaned
00:14:39 … were all murdered or led away to be murdered in cold blood; it is impossible 00:14:43 … to find any plausible reason that would justify this kind of drastic measure
R: These are unfair dramatizations distorting the truth element of documentary!
The film makers did not make even ONE single reference to the sufferings and alike or worse calamities of Muslims, for whom there was NO RELIEF SENT!
Sukru S. Aya, Istanbul May 3, 2011 (Other Sections will follow in due course. AGHET film makers are invited to write the blog, for “any corrections” on my comments.)
AGHET Part 2
[Armin T. Wegner, German medical officer in Turkey, 1915-16] The Turkish people as a whole cannot be accused of being the perpetrator of the Armenian genocide
R: Wegner worked in hospitals, did not go out to the country side. He took photos of suffering persons but some were “posed or arranged” for eventual “theme usage”!
00:00:22 Few have wanted this crime and few have known it, tolerated it or even approved of it.
R: This was not a planned crime, but military war measure ordered by Germans but of course with several unintended failures owing to time, means, shortages and inexperience!
00:00:29 The official reports of German consuls in Asia Minor document it..
R: Frankly I did not see “any of German consuls’ reports” against their ambassador’s order! Apparently even they were not aware of the “secret agreement of Aug.2, 1914”!
00:00:34 The number of Turkish provincial officials who refused to obey the orders of their government in the capital was not so small
R: We have no numbers, but we know that a few objected orders, because of short notice and lack of manpower and logistics to implement!
00:00:46 In the 16th century the Ottoman Empire, whose capital was Constantinople, expanded over several continents
00:00:55 The Armenian people were divided among three empires during historical times: Persia, Russia and the Ottoman Empire…
00:01:03 … where Armenians were at home in 6 provinces of Eastern Asia Minor
R: The French-Armenian (Land Distribution) Report of 1.3.1914 indicated the number of Armenians in 6 provinces as 580.000 (less than 20% of the total population in the area).
00:01:09 About two million Armenians lived in Turkey at the start of 20th century.
R: WRONG! The Report indicated Armenian population in the Empire, to be less than 1.3 millions. This number is confirmed by several other sources as maximum 1.4 or 1.5 millions.
00:01:14 As Christians they had, like all other none Muslim religious minorities, certain religious and cultural freedoms.
R: These freedoms/rights were granted by Sultan Edicts as early as in 1453, when the city was taken!
00:01:21 They did, however, pay high special taxes and undergo discrimination
R: WRONG! They paid a small “poll tax” as a non-Muslim monotheist believer; did not pay other/income etc. tax (but paid to Churches etc) and were EXEMPT from military service.
00:01:27 They had a measure of self-government but were not legally equal to the Moslems and were treated like second class citizens.
R: Law and internal conflicts were settled by Patriarchs-Rabbis “internally” that had authority to imprison their own communities; such punishments were carried out by Ottoman state! Economically they were superior; many of them occupied very high state positions!
00:01:36 The Armenians complained about their status and asked, in vain, for politic and social equality of rights
R: WRONG! Armenians were not accepted by Byzantines in Constantinople before 1453. It was Sultan that gave them Patriarchate and all other rights Greeks/Jews had! They were crème de la crème, at top positions, professions, traders, pashas, ambassadors, ministers
00:01:44 A majority of them were peasants, workers and traders
R: True for those living in countryside villages, but Turks were mostly poor farm workers!
00:01:48 In the cities, though, a well-to-do Armenian upper class did develop
R: True, like Greeks and Jews…But Turks (except few in state service) were still very poor!
00:01:57 [Oscar Heizer, US Consul in Trebizond, 1915-1917]: Some of them came from distinguished circles and were used to riches and luxury
R: True !
00:02:05 There were people from all walks of life, priests, traders, bankers, jurists, mechanics, workers
R: True, they (and Greeks or Jews) performed all arts, were the economy’s backbone.
00:02:13 Against the many promises to the Armenians that they would be members of a community of equals, they were repeatedly made victim of pogroms…
00:02:21 … committed with the support and approval of the authorities
R: WRONG! They were already the TOP! Victimization and pogroms happened in Russia with Jews! The Ottoman State made major constitutional improvements in 1839, 1856 and 1876 and Christians were given almost equal and even better rights; but they were never content. Armenians and Greeks each had 12 representatives in the Ottoman Parliament!
00:02:23. Already in 1895, 200.000 Armenians had been murdered under the pretext that they had protested against their high tax burden and asked for equal rights
R: WRONG! Armenians were paying a special ransom “hafir” to Kurds, for safety of their villages and flocks. Then they decided to stop paying Kurds saying that they already pay to the State which should protect them. They revolted, Kurds reacted; deaths are less!
See American newspapers of 1895, also the commentary of Reverent Cyrus Hamlin!
00:02:34 In 1908 a revolution took place in Turkey
00:02:38 Army officers and Liberals living in exile, called the Young Turks, promised equality to the minorities
R: Young Turks & Dashnaks had made an accord in 1907 to overthrow the Sultan. Dashnaks were to help Young Turks and they were to give them in return, autonomy in 6 vilayets!
00:02:46 In reality, though, their ideology was very different
R: Young Turks was a new “Opposition – Reformist Party”; Armenians cooperated with them!
00:02:50 [Samuel McClure, Armenian Correspondent in Constantinople, 1915-1916]: In 1908 the Young Turks took over the government.
00:02:55 This small group came with a new doctrine that consisted in the phrase: “Turkey to the Turks”
R: This is a blatant distortion of a simple rumor for parliamentary elections to follow by which even terrorist of 1896 Armen Garo, was elected to the Parliament in 1913!
00:03:04 This idea was not result of religious fanaticism even though it did satisfy the red-hot national feelings of the religious Moslems
R: During elections many lies and promises are used by politicians at all times, everywhere!
00:03:04 The government was essentially interested in robbery and power
R: Nonsense! All three CUP leaders were decent patriotic persons; of course they wanted POWER! Robbery? It existed in most communities and political parties. CUP court-martialed over 1600 cases, 67 were hung for violations, and only 400 were found not guilty!
00:03:21 The party of the Young Turks was called the Committee for Union and Progress
00:03:26 The old Sultan was deposed and replaced by his brother, now at the head of a constitutional monarchy
00:03:33 The Young Turks wanted to create a racially pure Empire and announced their intention to also cleanse the Moslem World from domination by infidels
R: Ottomans were NEVER RACISTS (like Germans or others)! Many books prove the very opposite but some politicians may have said (?) such things to “form as national unity”!
00:03:43 The further loss of Christian areas during the Balkan War in 1912 weakens the once powerful Ottoman Empire …
R: After “racism” now we have “religion factor”. Moderator should have explained how the Empire of Muslims ruled over so many Christian countries for over 600 years successfully!
00:03:51 … a shame for which the Young Turks held responsible the Christians in their own country, too
R: Balkan Christians were provoked and fully supported by Imperial Powers (Russia, Britain, France, Austria and USA) whereby 5 millions Muslims immigrated to Anatolia; 2 millions of them were killed by revolutionists and acts of terror!
00:03:55 Three generals (“Pasha“ in Turkish) made up the triumvirate in power
00:04:01 Enver Pasha at the War Ministry
00:04:05 Jemal Pasha at the Navy
00:04:09 and Talat Pasha, the powerful Minister of the Interior and head of government
R: Enver was very young, patriotic, daring but not prudent; Djemal Pasha was the greatest protector of Armenians; he had made orphanages for Armenians even before war started. Talat pasha was an average clever patriot, “best friend of Dashnakist Armenians” until Hunchak Armenians from Bucharest tried to kill him. They were caught, confessed, and hanged. After this experience Talat’s confidence in Armenians, reversed.
00:04:16 [Harry Stürmer, Constantinople correspondent of the “Kölnische Zeitung”, 1915-1917]: He came from relatively modest conditions
00:04:19 He started as mail carried on the Adrianople line, then telegraph operator
00:04:30 This is not a bad thing in itself
00:04:32 On the contrary… it shows his energy and intelligence
00:04:36 His high intellectual capacity, however, did not protect him from the typical Grand-Turkish disease and a bigoted belief in the most narrow-minded chauvinist illusions
R: WOW, what a shameful slander for a very simple but decent person. He had scolded his wife when he was served “white bread” at his very modest home. He later became P.M. but when he fled to Germany after Mudros Treaty 30.10.1918 (without stealing money from treasury) he had to put his gold cigarette box at a pawn shop, to get a few Marks to survive. He was killed in the middle of the street by an Armenian fanatic and the “German court found the killer not guilty”! Germany was not at fault for not protecting (?) and the tribunal did not want to hear General Sanders and Bronsart who knew everything! Shame!
00:04:52 He was like poisoned by a fanatical lust for vengeance.
R: He was a very clever, responsible, civilized, patriot… Vengeance? Why, from whom?
00:04:57 [Samuel McClure] My impression was always, that Talat Pasha was the absolute dictator of Turkey
00:05:04 I conducted two interviews with him
00:05:06 outwardly he gave the impression of being strong and powerful
R: Talat pasha was a strong member of the triumvirate. Dictator? No! Patriot? Yes!
00:05:10 He was like one of those big American party bosses
R: How and why he should have known “American party bosses”? He only spoke French!
00:05:15 He was a born leader
00:05:20 I have met all the political leaders of the Powers during the World War and I must say Talat Pasha was the strongest man between Berlin and Hell
R: Narrator degrades Talat Pasha “involving him with hell”! Cheap brainwashing talks!
00:05:34 World War I, 1915: The Turks have resisted a Russian advance into the interior. At the same time, England starts an offensive in the Dardanelles Straits
R: Why narrator did not say that Armenian volunteers fought alongside Russians and were great help to Russians? They even took Van city in mid April 1915, declaring a Republic!
00:05:45 Turkey fells encircled and threatened by a Christian Europe Exception for the German Empire, its ally in the war
R: Decision for portioning Ottoman Empire was taken in 1912 by Russia-Britain-France! Germans were not true allies; they took advantage of Turks’ weakness and pulled them along in WW-1 to split the Russian army in two fronts!.
00:05:55 [Tracy Atkinson, nurse at the American Mission in Harput, 1902-1917]: The Germans, the Turks and the Devil himself had contracted an alliance
R: Again cheap biased words. I have “many references” from German and American missionaries for the opposite! Dr. Atkinson, head of Harput Hospital died of typhus! I do not know if Tracy Atkinson was his wife! When Enver visited the Harput hospital in mid 1916 and learned that Dr. Atkinson died, he called his 12 year son, and took one of his own medals from his military uniform and pinned it on the shirt of son Atkinson, in honor of his father! Is it possible that nurse Atkinson did not see this incident written in the 106th annual report of American Board of Missioners? (Posting 3125/ armenians-1915.blogspot.com)
00:06:02 The German Emperor during his official reception in Constantinople
00:06:08 On his right is the Turkish War Minister Enver Pasha. In competition with the Western Powers for influence over the Middle East, Germany was wooing the Ottoman Empire for an alliance.
00:06:18 In exchange Germany was to modernize the Turkish Army something supposed to restore the old power and glory of the country
R: Following Balkan War defeats, (officers not graduated from military academies) and old generals were pensioned! Reform of the Army was given to Germans. French were to modernize gendarmerie; British were to restore the Navy, received orders for two modern battleships paid with the donations of the people. All this was before WW-1!
Germany was after imperial benefits. The Berlin – Bagdad Railway was so planned to pass from petrol areas. Each side of the track 25+25 km was special “German benefit” zone.
00:06:25 The Armenians’ plight was not a valid topic for the Germans
R: Germans were chief commander of the Army; they ordered clearance of all war zones and logistic-communication lines; sabotages engaging armies had to be stopped. Bronsart’s signature on Ministry of War letter can be seen below! He was General Staff and deputy of Enver Pasha! https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dczrctxm_132g9jt2kgf&interval=5&loop=true
I also have another written confirmation by an American professor who lived the war!
00:06:29 The military and economic interests did not allow any conflict with Germany’s ally
R: German officers received high salaries, they gave orders; even their meals were special. When Turks themselves were starving, train loads with grain was being sent to Germany!
00:06:35 Germany’s behavior was doubtless cowardly
R: Cowardly? Why, How? Germans needed Turkish soldiers to die in their place!
00:06:41 We had the Turkish government over a barrel Military as well as financially and politically
00:06:49 We could have insisted on basic principles of humanity
R: Yes, but is this a serious documentary based on CONFIRMED realities, or a Rambo movie where the White man is always “humane and right”! What a palaver or shallowness?
00:06:55 Enver Pasha, and even more the Interior Minister and de facto dictator Talat Pasha, had no choice but to obey Germany unconditionally
R: Yes, this was one of the conditions for credit of 5 million gold liras to Turks at 6% interest. This sentence also shows that Germans were higher than Talat pasha! Then, how come you hold Turks responsible alone for the “relocation saga”?
00:07:09 Doubtless they would have followed any German measure on the Armenian question
R: Yes, they obeyed the orders of the Commander in Chief, Liman von Sanders!
00:07:15 [Raphael Lenkin, jurist and peace researcher, 1900-1959] The Turkish government calculated that, with Germany as an ally, it would not have to incur any retaliatory measures for the annihilation of the Armenians.
R: Raphel Lempkin came into stage after 1946-1948; he did not even know that Nazi Armenian soldiers had rounded up his fellow Jews sending them to death camps! Possibly he knew nothing about Turks until some Armenians gave him some strings, after which the world forgot to inquire the Armenian Legion (22.000) in the Nazi Army, which evaporated!
00:07:27 One was positive that Germany would win the war and protect its ally, Turkey, from retaliation by Russia and the Western Powers
R: Sure, Ottomans believed that they would win the war with Germans, and deported Armenians could return back. (Some 300.000 did return after Mudros Treaty of 30.10.1918)
00:07:36 So the crime was prepared in a systematic way
R: Armenians in the West, and families of those working in State Administrations (railways, customs even army cipher rooms) were not touched. Protestants and Catholics were permitted to return after Aug. 1914. Families in Syria returned after the Mudros Treaty, (30.10.1918) when French-British Forces took control and when most Turkish troops were dismissed in accordance with the Treaty!
00:07:40 The Russian army entered Turkish Armenian areas in 1915
R: Russians assisted by Armenians entered Eastern Anatolia next to Erzurum in Nov.1914 and not in 1915!
00:07:46 Enver Pasha led the counteroffensive in person.
R: What a historical documentary? Enver and Bronsart planned a counteroffensive during Christmas (Dec.25, 1914) but Gen. Liman von Sanders was against it. Bronsart von Schellendorf was next to Enver in the front lines among soldiers. Both barely escaped falling prisoners to Russians, by half an hour! Many Turkish generals became prisoners!
00:07:51 Soldiers of Armenian origin fought on both sides
R: Most Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman army had already gone to Russians with their arms. There were no Armenian soldiers in the infantry platoons! The rest of them were sent into labor battalions to fix roads, behind fronts and did not need or have arms.
00:07:55 The camping ended in a devastating loss for Turkey
00:08:00 90,000 Turkish soldiers died in a few weeks
R: Most of the 90.000 strong Ottoman Army died of hunger and cold because of the Armenian Resistance at Bardiz Pass, delaying unorganized Turkish forces until Russians came back. Read Garekin Pasternadjian book (Posting 2187) see photos! Don’t distort when you make such an ambitious documentary without a minimal research of history!
00:08:04 The scapegoat for the Young Turks was an Armenian-Russian plot, a Christian brotherhood
R: This was not a “Christian brotherhood”! It was promise of 6 + 2 provinces to Armenia by Russians supported by Britain and France.
00:08:12 This was the only possible explanation in their mind for the Turkish defeat
R: Historical documentary with knowledge of elementary school! Are readers all dupes?
00:08:15 The Turks now saw an opportunity to accuse all Armenians as enemy.
R: Shame Gentlemen, you did not even read Pastermadjian or Dasnabedian or Lalaian books! You just followed a script handed to you by Dashnakist fanatics or genocide traders!
00:08:21 [Jakop Künzler, Deacon and paramedic in Urfa, 1899-1922] Doubtless they profited from the war, because the Western Powers except the US were not reachable, being excluded as enemies
00:08:38 No one had time to deal with the Armenian question
00:08:45 The Young Turks spread the rumor that the Armenian soldiers in their army had deserted to the Russians to stab Turks in the back
R: Sirs, the ignorance of simplest realities written in so many ARMENIAN plus anti-Turkish sources, display the unbelievable shallowness of the scenarios and speakers used! These are even in the headlines of New York Times etc. newspapers! (See Chapter 5 of “The Genocide of Truth Continues but Facts Tell the Real Story) 0:08:54 A stab-in-the-back legend with fatal consequences
R: Very true with many evidences and boastings of Armenian heroism! See League of Nations Gazette 21.9.1929 and report of F. Nansen to the Assembly.
00:08:58 Thereupon thousands of Armenian soldiers were arrested, tortured and murdered
R: There is NOT one document to prove this (???) LIE. Why murder the Armenian soldiers when needed as “manpower” to fix roads and complete the Baghdad railway? How stupid?
00:09:00 [Harry Stürmer] Only with tricks like these could they proceed to the systematic annihilation of the Armenian people
R: Did Stürmer visit on horse the area, like Captain Emory Niles and Sutherland did?
These Americans travelled more than 1500 km and wrote in their official report that it was the Armenians who killed Muslims with “refinements of cruelty” and burned their villages! Why he made no mentioning of Swedish officer Pravitz or General Harbord’s report? George A. Schreiner (Assoc. Press) was at Dardanelles and Istanbul. He wrote that “massacres” were only rumors and that “news had to degrade Muslims”!
00:09:09 The Turkish government adroitly manipulated World public opinion and discovered, better said invented, local plots
R: Unproven general biased talks without any logic or evidence. The World Press received news from ”Reuters” (Wellington House) British Propaganda office, only!
00:09:20 [Johannes Lepsius, Manager of the Armenian Help Organization] The governor of the town of Van, Enver Pasha’s brother-in-law, prepared an armed attack on the Armenian neighborhood.
R: Another mess up of shallow knowledge: Johan Lepsius, was a fanatic Protestant Pastor who stayed in Istanbul for about one month in autumn of 1915. Armenians had taken the Van City in mid April 1915 and 120.000 Muslims were exiled and killed. During this time he received copies of missionary reports from U.S. Ambassador Morgenthau and Armenians working in the US Embassy! In late April 1915, British-Anzac forces were landing at Dardanelles. Everything is written in the book of Garekin Pastermadjian on the internet! These distortions are ridiculously contradictory” to minimal factual history!
00:09:27 The Armenians fortified their neighborhood to protect their families from the coming massacre.
R: Armenians leveled the Muslim section (you can see it today), delivered the key to the coming Russian general and soon Aram Manookian declared “Van Armenian Republic”. The Van Revolt was the last straw that forced German Chief Command and Ottoman Government to move everyone from war zones and to leave Armenian volunteers without any local aid.
Muslims in the war zones were also deported without exception; they had no provisions or camps!
00:09:35 They had no connection whatever with Russia.
R: How can you deny hundreds of documents, photographs? What is your SOURCE?
00:09:38 They defended themselves during 4 weeks against the Turkish troops who besieged and shot them
00:09:44 In the confusion of the Russian-Turkish fights, the Turkish troops attacked the Armenian inhabitants of Van…
R: Reversal of all historical records, books and documents! Shameful distortions!
00:09:51 … pretending to have to defeat a revolt
R: Cheap palavers – Read the National Geographic of those years! You are denying all neutral documents with stomach sickening lies seducing your viewers!
00:09:55 The Armenians resisted bitterly… Thousands died
R: It was the Armenians who revolted, Turkish troops abandoned the city. Russians came a few days later after Armenians killed nearly all Muslims in the area. See Posting 2610 on Armenians-1915.blogspot.com. Read Pastermadjian’s “Why Armenia Should be Free”.
00:09:59 The fights subsided as the Russian troops beat the Turks and entered Van
00:10:05 For the Turks it was one more “proof” of a Russian-Armenian plot
R: No need for proof; Just read a little history before writing purposely wrong scenarios!
00:10:11 [Martin Niepagei teacher in the German school of Aleppo, 1913-1916]: They used an absurd pretext to kill ten thousand innocents for a single supposedly guilty one.
R: Another Palaver: Aleppo was final railway terminal. In my book there is a photo showing Armenians welcome in Aleppo with band at station! It is an Armenian photo taken by AGBU!
00:10:18 … to justify the savage treatment of women and children
R: Dramatization ballast words. Did Muslims fare “any better”? Did they get any RELIEF?
00:10:21 [Walter Roessler, German consul in Aleppo]: While their ally, Germany, considered that even a polite remark would be misplaced
00:10:28 It started with deportations, the official pretext being that of securing the border area to Russia
00:10:35 The authorities said that the Armenians would find a “new homeland” in Syria then a part of the Ottoman Empire – a lie
R: Read my book; see Ambassador Morgenthau’s diary note of Sept. 26, 1915 when he met Armenian Patriarch Zenop Bezjian, who had just returned from Der-Zor. It is written that their group was not attacked, they settled and doing business but of course needed some money for the coming winter! These are written facts that you should have read before making a documentary based on lies…
00:10:42 The first Armenian families were then sent on a march that led them in guaranteed death.
R: Armenian families were let take their ox-carts, animals with them. The poor ones were provided ox-carts. They were permitted to travel on “single track railway-badly needed by army”. Nowhere “death was intended”! Army troops used the same roads by foot marching!
00:10:49 The Turkish government, meanwhile, intended to annihilate the entire Armenian people
R: What a palaver and sick logic! Why they left all Protestants-Catholics plus some 120.000 leaving in the western Anatolia, where they could do no harm?
00:10:55 [Harry Stürmer] In this case, of course, they could not use the excuse of the evacuation of an area as part of war operations, as most of these people lived hundreds of miles away from the Eastern front and the Dardanelles both
R: Simple “ballast words” to impress by dramatization!
00:11:10 They had to invent another pretext for the measure
00:11:13 This is how they suddenly and miraculously discovered a universal conspiracy among all Armenians of the whole Empire
R: Fabricated palaver!
00:11:22 The Turkish population was being incited to murder.
R: All Turks aged 16 – 45 were in the army. Who was going to kill; women or children?
00:11:25 “In order to prevent further defeats in war”, so it says officially…
00:11:29 … it was now necessary to eliminate “the Armenian menace” in the whole country
R: Simple fabrications unfit for a serious documentary!
00:11:35 An ex post facto legalized deportation law that did not explicitly name the Armenians imposed on the local commanders the duty of relocation the population of towns or townships where they suspected espionage or treason
R: Everyone in the war zones (including Muslims) were evacuated and there were no tent camps with kitchen to feed Muslims who were trying to take refuge in roofless mud houses eating grass when they could find…
00:11:53 [Alma Johansson] AS Holy War was invoked; demonstrations and inflammatory public speeches took place: “Because we are warring against the Christians we must extirpate the Christians from the country”.
R: Cheap Christian fanatic missionary dramatization. Many neutral eye witnesses wrote the opposite!
00:12:06 The Turks expected the Russian troops to reach Mush of further. “But” they said “before that happens we’ll slaughter the Armenians”
R: This comment is fabricated by some totally ignorant who “did not read any history”!
00:12:20 [Harry Stümer] The arrests in Constantinople started on April 24 -25
R: Armenians were given advance notice but the Patriarchate took it as a bluff since they had already captured Van and “landing was expected any moment”. 235 Armenian notables known to be “Dashnak collaborators” were arrested on April 24th night and sent by train towards Ankara, where very few was put in prisons, most of them were kept in houses but they had to report to police every day. Most of them returned to Istanbul within 3-6 months!
00:12:27 More than 850 persons – Orthodox, Protestants and Catholics were deported, including approximately 10 bishops, 40 doctors and 10 lawyers, but also very many from the lower middle and working classes
R: Number arrested and deported in Istanbul was 235 by names (Read Ara Sarafian book)
00:12:44 There were very few Turks with whom one could speak at all about the Armenians
R: Why Turks should care about “traitor Armenians” when the country was attacked in 3 fronts?
00:12:50 Even the world-wise confused everything and most speeches regularly ended with: “All Armenians must be destroyed; they are traitors”
R: Bravo, this palaver I am hearing for the first time. It reminds me ending with “Heil Hitler”!
00:13:05 [Walter Roessler] In its semi-official statement this government averred that,…
00:13:11 I quote: “The Ottoman Government extends its benevolent protection to all honest and peaceful Christians living in Turkey”
R: Above statement is from the official decree. In the few reports of Roesller I saw nothing contrary because he was reporting to Baron Wagenheim, German ambassador in Istanbul who was the signatory of the secret treaty with Turks dated Aug.2, 1914.
00:13:23 I could not believe my eyes when I read this declaration and I cannot, to this day, find an expression appropriate to describe the abyss of such a monumental lie.
R: I would have liked to know the source of this remark, contradicting Wagenheim!
00:13:34 The Turkish government will not be able to deny its own responsibility for all that happened.
R: Can the German government deny their agreements, orders, and signatures?
00:13:41 It has perpetrated this chaos willingly and with premeditation
R: In war time, traitors are shot. During WW-II, when a German soldier was shot in Paris, immediately 50 French were rounded on the street and shot right there!
00:14:13 [Henry Morgenthau] The police ordered the Armenians to go, as suddenly as, say, the Vesuvius erupting over Pompeii
R: My study on Morgenthau is quite extensive with 60 pages of contradictions between his book and diary. I do not remember any Vesuv or Pompeii. The book was penned by Burton Hendrick, a Pulitzer Prize winner. The drafts were supplied by his Armenian secretaries.
00:14:31 Women were dragged away from the washing place…
R: In some other part you say that deportees were given only 5 days, usually it was 10 days. Now you dramatically lie that women were dragged from washing places! Shame!
00:14:35 … children from their bed
00:14:37 … the bread remained partly baked in the oven and the food half-eaten on the table
00:14:50 Schoolchildren were taken from their schools with the textbooks left open at the page they were reading
00:14:58 Men were forced to leave their plows in the ground and their animals wandering in the hills
R: These are all illogical, unconfirmed fabrications which are nowhere written nor had any cause to have happened, other than degrading TURKS even by inventing shameful lies!
Sukru S. Aya – Istanbul
(Note: These comments may be compiled by me in a future book, and hence are not for reproduction by third parties. However, readers may comment counter opinions and send them to Armenians-1915.blogspot.com for open posting)
AGHET Part 3:
00:00:00 Men were forced to leave their plows in the ground and their animals wandering in the hills
R: Huge LIE! Below 01.21 you mention that they were given only 5 days for evacuating; but here you speak of plough. People were permitted to take their animals with them. What a fiasco in a movie?
00:00:06 These people were pulled out of their houses without any advance warning
R: Base lie. “Temporary Relocation was done under law”. Camps with kitchen-infirmary-priest were set in one day walking distance.
00:00:19 [Alma Johansson] The arrested Armenian men were locked in wooden blocks
R: ??? Why they were arrested? Where they should have kept them, in the open air?
00:00:26 Their feet were shoed with nails like horses
R: WOW, what a huge palaver! Is it possible to nail shoes on human flesh? Are we so stupid?
00:00:30 Their beards, eyeless, fingernails and teeth were pulled out
R: Such tortures are explained as done by Armenian volunteers on Muslims. See US and Russian documents.
00:00:38 They were hanged feet up…
00:00:44 … and so forth
R: Guilty ones may have been tortured; but was Abu-Garib etc. prison tortures any better?
00:00:50 Many died during these tortures, of course, but a few survived to receive medical care from the missionaries; that is how we got to see these wound
R: Exploitation and generalization of vague, unproven scenarios, degrading the documentary!
00:01:05 A few days, rumor of what was happening started going around…
00:01:10 … but no one could believe it
00:01:21 But on June 28, 1915, an official order was issued to all Armenians to leave the city within 5 days
R: Aha! You contradict the very first statement. Law was put in force on May 27, 1915. So they expected this for the whole strategic areas.
00:01:34 Anyone who doesn’t know the situation in this isolated area cannot even imagine what the consequences of such an order would be
R: Muslims, everyone in the area were made go (by order of German Commander in chief). Hence, innocent persons suffered for the crimes committed by their “heroic sabotage activists”!
00:01:43 As horrible as it sounds, a massacre would have been more human than the deportation
R: What a stupid dramatization? Is killing is better than resettling people in other safe areas?
00:01:53 Some people can always survive a massacre, but in a country like Turkey a deportation of this magnitude meant guaranteed death, much more cruel than just being murdered
R: Nonsense logic! Deaths during relocation hardships, were less than 10%.
00:02:21 [Hampartsoum Sahakian, survivor born in 1898 in Sivas] As soon as the public crier had announced the deportation, Turkish gendarmes separated the people, men on one side and the women on the other.
00:02:37 The drove us like sheep
R: Contradiction of above 5 day notice!
00:02:40 They took us away from our houses and fields
R: Empty words of dramatization and pity!
00:02:46 Many Moslems, Turks and Arabs disagreed with a shake of the head and could not hold their tears
R: Generalization! there were no Arabs in the parts of Anatolia, where people were relocated!
00:02:54 They still could not understand how their government could order such cruelty
R: Of course they felt pity; they took care of many children left with them!
00:03:10 To be dragged out of their houses, there was no need for the Armenians to be guilty of a plot against the government, or anything else
R: People were ordered to move on certain time from certain place as group with ox carts, etc.
00:03:20 Being an Armenians was enough to be treated like a delinquent and to be deported.
R: Innocent Armenians were deported also, so that there was no logistic supply left to volunteer bands!
00:03:28 On 25 May 1915 England, France and Russia described the events in the Ottoman Empire as a Crime Against
Humanity
R: These countries were enemies and were fighting at Dardanelles. They issued such a propaganda ultimatum before the law, to misguide the World and cover their aggression.
00:03:38 A concept used for the first time ever
R: This was a propaganda movement drafted when they landed at Gallipoli!
00:03:41 The US at that time was still neutral, not in was with Turkey
R: USA “officially” always remained neutral! In “reality” they were together with the Allies!
00:03:46 They protested directly with Talat Pasha against the brutal measures of this government
R: Diary of Morgenthau has no such statement. He was at banquet with Talat Pasha the night 235 Armenian ring leaders were arrested and sent towards Ankara. He learned it much later!
00:03:53 After exchanging the usual compliments we came to the business part of the conversation
00:04:00 Talat Pasha said to me: “I have called you so that I can explain today to you our position on the Armenian question…
00:04:12 Our rejection of the Armenians is based on three clear reasons…
00:04:18 First of all, they have enriched themselves at the cost of Turkey…
00:04:25 In the second place, they have decided to dominate us and found their own nation…
00:04:31 Third, they have openly encouraged our enemies…
00:04:38 They helped the Russians in the Caucasus…
00:04:40 And our defeat is to be explained in large part by their action…
00:04:47 We have therefore reached an irreversible decision to render them harmless before the en of this war”
R: Despite distortions, I see nothing untrue in above words,as if they were “tape recorded in 1914”!
00:05:06 These measures consisted of nothing less than the deportation of the entire Armenian population…
R: Wrong! Armenians in Istanbul-Izmir or working in public services were not moved. Protestants and Catholics were permitted to return after end of August, since they were seen “not dangerous”!
00:05:13 not only out of our province but all six Armenian provinces…
R: There was NO ARMENIAN province. These were areas where Armenians were less than 20% but had declared to be “Armenian Provinces”, like Mount Ararat is where Noah landed in Armenia!
00:05:20 This was an enterprise larger than anything that had already been attempted so far in human history
R: Yes, normally they should have used Russian method and pus Armenians towards Russia, to die between cross fire!
00:05:37 [Johann Mordtmann, German General Consul in Constantinople, 1915-1918] An intimate co-worker of Talat Pasha has confirmed to me orally…
R: Date, place, time? Talat Pasha talked to Ambassadors, not to consuls in general!
00:05:42 with the map of Asia Minor in his hand, that the government had decided to extend even further the operations to deport the Armenians
R: Trebizond, Sivas, Mamuretul-Aziz were targets of Russians and logistic cross roads!
00:05:52 The Armenians in the provinces Gernik, Trebizond, Sivas and Mamuret-ul-Aziz were now also to be deported to Mesopotamia…
00:06:02 and this could not be justified by invoking any military precaution
R: Read TurkishArmenians blog posting 3140, Robert F. Zeidner “Tricolors over the Taurus”!
00:06:03 The aim was rather, as confirmed to me by Talat Pasha personally, to annihilate the Armenians
R: Talat Pasha was “best friend” of Dashnaks. WHO, made such a stupid confirmation? Why? When?
00:06:21 [Henry Morgenthau] I said to Talat: “Let us suppose that a couple of Armenians have effectively committed treason
00:06:28 Is this really reason enough to uproot an entire people?
00:06:33 Does it justify the fact that innocents, women and children, must die?”
00:06:38 He answered: “These things are inevitable.”
R: These conversations were added by ghost writer Burton Hendrick, as if was copying a sound recorder. Innocents had to suffer because of the crimes done by “their heroic adventurers”!
00:07:27 [Oscar Heizer] The sobs and cries of the women and children was heartbreaking
R: Dramatization of normal situations.
00:07:32 The German consul told me: “I don’t believe that the Armenians will be allowed to return to Trebizond…
00:07:39 not even after the end of the war”
R: He was wrong! Armenians returned to Trebizond-Samsun area after Batum Treaty of 2.6.1918! When Mustafa Kemal went to Samsun on 19.5.1919 he cabled “Armenians are happy at their works”
00:07:41 [Jacob Künzler] It wasn’t an easy task for the Young Turks who had decided and systematically eradicate a million people
R: These are shallow unconfirmed slanders. What evidence do you have for “decision to eradicate?”
and “where is one million” when only 6-700.000 (Boghos Nubar at Paris Conf) were deported!
00:07:52 The deportations continued for a whole year
R: Unforgivably WRONG! Relocations started June – ended November, before winter 1915!
Maximum walking distances was about 400 – 600 kms. This distance you can walk in 20 days!
00:08:07 It is impossible for me to describe the panic that the deportation order started in Harput.
R: LIE! US Consul Davis did not say such things in his books. Protestants and Catholics started to return in September!
00:08:15 Everyone who had to leave town tried to find some money to take on the journey,
R: Many left their money with US Consul Davis!
00:08:24 The Turks naturally profited from this situation that allowed them to obtain every possible thing almost free
R: Yes, many things were sold for much less than actual value!
00:08:36 Theft and plunder also happened on a hitherto unseen scale.
R: Exaggerations’! Was the plundering of Bagdad Museum more understandable and humane?
00:08:48 Turkish men and women entered the houses of Armenians and took whatever there was.
R: In war areas, Turks were also deported. Turks mostly showed excellent neighborhood!
00:08:55 The scenes reminded one of greedy vultures hurling themselves on the carcasses of of those dying by the roadside
R: Documentary or horror movie? Why do you want to misguide viewers with such cheap words?
00:09:08 The Armenians realized that they were going to their death…
00:09:14 and they had every reason to feel like that
R: Empty words of dramatic boosting!
00:09:27 [Oscar Heizer] Furniture, bedding, everything valuable was brought to the large buildings in town…
R: Those who wanted could deposit their valuables in the cathedral, under state protection.
This is enough proof that State foreseen return of immigrants after war with victory!
00:09:32 No effort was made to put those things in any kind of order, while fictionally this property was being put under the guardianship of the Government.
R: Read book of Pastermadjian. All were safe until Russian General Kalendine entered Erzurum Cathedral and he looted… Thereafter other Russian officers looted what was kept safe!
00:09:41 To expect that anyone would take any pains in view of future restitution was simply ridiculous
00:09:52 It is a fact that the Turks never thought of relocating the Armenians anywhere.
R: Yes, they never thought; but after Armenian factor at Sarikamish Disaster, occupation of Van and exile-murder of 120.000 Turks in April, plus fifth column sabotages when Allies had landed in Gallipoli
They had no choice but to get rid of “behind the back stabbings by over 20.000 volunteers”!
00:10:00 They knew that the overwhelming majority of these people would never reach the theoretical place of arrival
R: Slander! Report by US Aleppo Consul to Ambas. Morgenthau before we departed in early 1916, gave detailed counting in 10 camps with about 500.000 Armenians alive in those camps!
00:10:07 The real intent of the deportation was plunder and destruction
R: Shameful lie! Un evidenced documentary palaver!
00:10:26 [Johannes Lepsius] The Constantinople government ensured the successful extermination of the Armenians by putting the provincial governors, mayors and provincial councils in charge of the enforcement
00:10:38 Civil servants who refused were removed
00:10:42 Terror was used against the Turkish population, who often disapproved of the government’s measures, as well as government employees and military personnel.
R: Lepsius was a fanatic Protestant Pastor, he was not welcome by German Ambassador but became good friend of Morgenthau and his Armenian secretaries, who gave him copies of missionary reports and hearsay stories. He did not go out of Istanbul, where he stayed one month to collect “rumors only”!
00:10:50 [Walter Roessler] Not one, but many civil servants are said to have been killed because they did not act pitilessly against all Armenians, without exception, in their district
R: Gentlemen, you do not write history or documentary by unproven words “are said”!
00:11:14 We planned for two or three missionaries to be allowed to accompany the deportees on their journey in order to assist them
R: Again palaver! How many missionaries were to accompany how many hundred thousands; why!
Columns were protected by gendarmes, many had priests with them!
00:11:22 But the request was rejected.
R: Palaver! Who made such a request from whom with what authority? What’s your source?
00:11:28 The people were told that their relocation place was Urfa
R: Urfa is a fertile place on Euphrates, very old city!
00:11:34 So we bought some of their objects and gave the money to those who had nothing to sell
00:11:45 We packed bread in rucksack for those being deported and distributed it
R: American and British reliefs were permitted in 1916, guarded by famished Turkish soldiers.
Did Turks had any bread or anyone giving them a sack of flor from “relief”?
00:11:54 At first we cried so much that it seemed that we couldn’t do anything else during our whole life than cry.
00:12:06 But one gets used even to the horror and then we couldn’t cry anymore
R: Cheap dramatization words.
00:12:28 [Armin T. Wegner] This crime was so tremendous that during the war an echo of it reached all countries, except the heart of Germany.
R: Armin Wegler never went out of the city, he simply took photos of starving people!
00:12:39 However Berlin was informed in detail of all the events
R: Berlin was the “Commander in Chief” who ordered “clearing up of back lines of supply”!
00:12:42 But Jemal Pasha, here seen on horse nor any other member of the Turkish government, ever felt the need to justify anything to their ally, Germany
R: Djemal Pasha was unhappy that the people were sent in his zone and he had to find food and accommodation. He was the greatest help to destitute Armenians providing jobs and orphanages.
00:12:52 The latter accepted the crime without a single word: Realpolitik
R: Djemal Pasha had over 1600 court martial hanged some 67 for wrong doings. He was not happy with what was going one and he could not help, but accepted nothing!
00:12:58 [General Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein, 1st German-Turkish Expeditionary Corps, 1915-1917] We Germans, soldiers and civilians, found it inconceivable that the German government did not distance itself from the Turks…
R: von Kressenstein was the “General Staff” of Djemal Pasha who planned the unsuccessful attack to Suez Canal where British were expecting Turks!
00:13:08 but on contrary, through its silence, involved us Germans as morally somewhat complicit
R: Strange comments by right hand of Djemal Pasha who knew everything from the first day!
00:13:16 It is not without reason that our enemies have accused us of tolerating the massacre by our silence
R: Massacre? Where, when, how, document, neutral eyewitness or generalization of bilateral killings?
00:13:22 [Count Paul Wolff Metternich, German Ambassador in Constantinople, 1915-1916] What the Turks did was our doing
R: Matternich came as ambassador after Wangenheim died. He hardly learned anything!
00:13:26 It was done with our officers, our guns and our money
R: German officers were only involved in high commands, not accompanying gendarmes!
00:13:31 Without our help the operation would have collapsed
R: Germans did not help the relocation process… They only made the “military request and order”!
00:13:36 There was no real need to act shy with the Turks
R: It was Germany that asked alliance (and death) of Turks in this World War!
00:13:41 We should instilled the fear of consequences to the Turks in order to deal correctly with the Armenian question
R: Empty ballast words that do not speak logic and facts!
00:13:50 Our “remarks” had irritated more than helped in any way
00:13:55 I had warned at that time: “Dare we not do take a firmer stand because of our military involvement, with nothing else left to us to do than watch helplessly while our ally continues to massacre?”
R: “Massacre” is a rumor like “genocide”. Deaths of epidemics and starvation “some bilateral killings and retaliation”(mostly between Armenians and Kurds) is a FACT and SAD CONSEQUENCE of WARS!
00:14:06 [Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Cancellor of Germany, 1909-1917] In my opinion, publicly reproaching an ally during a war, as proposed by Ambassador Metternich, would have been a measure hitherto unseen in history
R: Evidence that Ambassador’s actions were not liked by Cancellor! What more proof is needed?
00:14:18 Our only objective was to keep Turkey on our side to the end of the war, no matter if the Armenians were exterminated or not
R: The objective was to WIN the WAR… anyone in the way had to be eliminated!
00:14:27 It was clear to me that in case of a longer war we would very much need to Turks
R: Unclear statement – no comment!
00:14:33 That’s why I could not understand how Metternich could ever propose such a thing
R: Unclear statement – no logical answer…
AGHET Part 4
0:00:26 [Hampartsoum Sahakian] We walked for one hundred ten days, almost without a pause
R: If you walk only 10 km/day, in 110 days you walk 1100 km four times of longest marches.
00:00:32 The old or sick, who could not walk, lay themselves on the road to die or they were killed by the gendarmes.
R: Every house had at least one ox cart. Those who paid travelled on single track train needed for army transports with shortage of coal for locomotives. Gendarmes had orders “not to use bad words”. These are illogical fabrications for unintelligent viewers.
00:00:43 The gendarmes pushed us. We were hungry
R: Gendarmes were also hungry! A certain distance had to be covered in one day for next stop!
00:00:47 They didn’t even allow us to drink anything
R: Why would they do that for those who carried their water or filled at next stop!
00:01:03 The Armenians of Eastern Asia Minor were first deported in the direction of Urfa.
R: Most Armenians (300.000 or more) in the East went to Caucasus with Russians when they had to evacuate Van and conquered areas.
00:01:09 The Armenians population of Constantinople and Western Turkey were directed in the direction of Aleppo.
R: Wow! This statement alone proves the size of HUGE LIE! In 1917 Greek and Armenian grocers in Istanbul were selling one bread and bottle of water for one golden ring to the destitute White Russians who had anchored on the Bosporus running away from communists.
00:01:17 From these two towns the people were pushed to Deir Zor or in the Syrian desert or to the Mesopotamian steppe.
R: AGBU photos show Armenians met with band at Aleppo railway station. Dair Zor was arable empty land on the river Euphrates. They told Morgenthau “that they had settled for business”!
00:01:26 The so-called relocation was just a death march into nothingness
R: Paradoxical unproven dramatization to impress the “simple minded viewers”!
00:01:32 [Beatrice Rohner, Swiss missionary sister] The condition of the deported beggars all description
R: Muslims too were beggars, they had no camps to feed them or tents to rest!
00:01:36 They went in multitudes and ate the grass growing in the fields.
R: In several places Muslims too ate grass (when they found) because there was no food!
00:01:41 Whenever a camel or any pack animal died, they threw themselves on it and battled for it as if it were a consliness.
R: Muslims and gendarmes too needed to eat. In this case they did not share the bodies!
00:01:51 The Turkish government has tried, with intent, to bring about the destruction of the largest possible portion of the Armenian people by means borrowed from Antiquity.
R: Strange analogy! Turkish government had asked support of Dashnak Armenians in August 1914 at the Erzurum in return of autonomy in 6-provinces, but they chose Russians-British and French.
00:02:05 These were means unworthy of a government desiring an alliance with Germany
R: So, Germans who gave the top order was worthy, but those who carried were unworthy?
00:02:11 This job was done not only by Kurds but in most cases by the gendarmes who accompanied the deportation, …
R: Aha, confirmation that most attacks were done by Kurds! 48 Gendarmes died in defense!
00:02:21 and the armed groups called “chete” formed by former convicts who had been released with the only objective of murdering Armenians
R: “Chetes” were bandits, looters, and some army and prison fugitives doing their own banditry!
00:02:05 Kurds and bandits attacked us, plundered us and kidnapped the girls and young women
R: Yes, this (only) is unfortunately true for roads passing areas they were strong!
00:03:29 I still remember that my stepmother was pregnant
00:03:35 They killed her
00:03:40 They pushed a sword in her belly, pulled out the child …
00:03:46 and started laughing when they saw it was a boy
00:04:03 They threw him on the ground
00:04:09 I can’t forget these images
R: If ever true, singular case cannot be generalized and hardly possible. Killing pregnant Muslim women and betting on sex of child has been mentioned in many documents, but done by Armenians!
00:04:17 The road leads the deported through steppes and mountains and along the river Euphrates
R: This is true but everyone including army used the same roads. Nothing happened to those who did not cross through Kurdish majorities, or who travelled by train or raft on the river!
00:04:22 Only very few German military personnel dared try to save the life of an Armenian and they stood powerless in the face of their ally’s insane statements
R: Bravo! Credit German humanity, debase Muslim inhumanity! Laughable propaganda.
00:04:36 When Turks killed the men during the march, they used the excuse that they had to protect themselves against insurgency
R: More than 1600 persons were put on court martial, 67 hanged: State tried the best which was not enough under war conditions in three fronts, shortage of manpower and everything!
00:04:46 About women and children who were raped and kidnapped the Turks invoked the pretext that could not control the Kurds and gendarmes
R: Cannot be this the truth? Few gendarmes did not fight against crowded chetes, but some died!
00:04:56 When they let the deportees die of hunger, the pretext this time was that the logistic difficulties of the march were such big that they could not cope with it
R: Not all kitchens could feed the large groups; Army suffered equally. Embargo of sea-ports was imposed by Allies before war started; they aimed to win by starving enemy. The documentary makes no mention of this fact, nor that after Mudros Treaty (30.10.1918) the feeding and healthcare responsibility passed to Allied Occupation Army!
00:05:24 [Takouhi Andonian, survivor, born in 1900 in Bitlis] My mother and brother were very sick
00:05:28 So they were left behind under a tree
00:05:31 It made no difference, they were to die earlier or later
00:05:37 And then another chaos began
00:05:40 They took the young girls. Many tried to escape and hide
00:05:47 Finally I collapsed somewhere… all alone
00:05:54 I also saw many girls to whom “it” happened, who then threw themselves in the river Euphrates
00:06:11 I didn’t do that
R: Individual case, more than 50.000 soldiers froze like statues and died of hunger-sickness because of the Armenian resistance at Sarikamish. The “throwing into river or from cliffs” is an old dramatic story. Swedish Officer Pravitz who traveled the area at that time saw no floating bodies!
00:06:17 The sun was already setting and I was still lying on the ground
00:06:21 I thought that at night the wolves could come and mangle me
00:06:26 So I got up and continued to walk
R: Dramatization based on stories; and may be true but this was “not an overall order”!
00:06:36 Fact is: the men were murdered, the girls were kidnapped for harems and households, and the women robbed and left behind helpless
00:06:46 One didn’t know what’s next
R: Harem stories out in the mountain villages? Turks aged 16-45 were all in the army, there was no men around to think of sex. But all Armenian “volunteer-brigands” were young and took advantage!
00:06:55 In June 1916 the Armenians’ persecution in the Eastern provinces entered its late stage
R: By end of 1915 before winter all major groups were moved and resettled.
00:07:03 The Turkish government didn’t let itself be distracted from implementing its program…
R: Turkish government “achieved in saving the rear of the army” despite the unavoidable dramas.
00:07:10 not by our requests…
00:07:12 or the intervention of the American Ambassador and the Pope…
R: See my book: Pope Benedict tried to stop war when it started, but Britain refused because they wanted to “starve their enemies”. Ambassador Morgenthau had left Istanbul first week of February 1916. He had never visited a church or met any Christian Patriarch when he was Turkey!
00:07:19 or the threats of the Entente…
00:07:23 and last of all by any consideration for public opinion in the West.
R: Ingrained opinion that Christians are always innocent and right and Muslims barbarous, continues!
00:07:37 [Ernst Christoffel, director of a home for the blind in Sivas and Malatia, 1904-1919] There are cattle cars on the Baghdad Railway for transporting sheep and goats
00:07:44 They are divided in an upper and a lower space, so that both these low spaces can be filled with animals
00:07:58 One could not stand or even crouch in the overcrowded cars
R: May be one or two exceptions, but Armenians “bought tickets to go by train” so they took what was available and escaped the long march and chance to be killed by chetes!
00:08:04 Men, women and children, healthy and sick people were driven in this way for days
00:08:12 The Baghdad Railway, a German project, was build from Constantinople to Baghdad under German supervision
R: Why you don’t say that 50 km large band next to railway track was German benefit area and Armenians was the labor force and even station managers!
00:08:19 For approximately 100.000 Armenians of Western Asia Minor it became a sure way to go to their death
R: This is a huge invented lie. Individual arrests of collaborators are not even mentioned in books
00:08:28 They had to pay the tickets themselves
R: Yes, so they knew in advance the “class of available railway car”, used also by army!
00:08:32 Thousands were transported every day, including the very sick
00:08:37 The dead were simply dropped at the stops
00:08:41 Also corpses were found between the stations
R: Exaggeration, palaver! Most of the operators and mechanics working for railways were either Armenian or Greek and they were engaged until the end of the Republic’s victory (1922)!
00:08:48 The Baghdad Railway’s engineers reported much more horrible things when they came home
00:08:55 They reported that corpses of raped women were lying about on the rails, many of these with sticks shoved in their anus
R: Wow! Dramatic scenarios! Show me documents, date, name, where, reported by whom!
00:09:31 the director of the Baghdad Railway, a Swiss, told me that he had become quiet hardened after seeing a lot in life…
00:09:40 but he had not thought anything like this to be possible
R: You need not to be a Swiss to envisage “war dramas”! (Algiers, Vietnam and many more)
00:09:43 So one will understand why Jemal Pasha issued a severe ban on photographing the deported
R: My book has photo of Armenians welcome at Aleppo railway station by “band”!
00:09:51 According to the military order, photographing Armenians was counted as a crime equivalent to the photographing of war installations.
R: Yes, this is a general war measure. But how Armin Wengler made such a big album?
00:10:03 A few German soldiers, however, managed to document photographically the misery of the deported and bring these documents out of the country.
R: See my book to compare uniforms and shoes of Turkish soldiers versus Armenian soldiers and volunteers. Liman von Sanders wrote that “Turks could not properly dress an inspected unit”!
00:10:11 These are shocking witnesses that document with precision the first genocide of the 20th century
R: Where are the documents and official document to prove any order of annihilation? Are you a “Monarch” to “decide about genocide” based on rumors, “but no legal proceedings?”
00:10:21 Most frightening of all was the sight of a crowd of orphans, increasing every day!
R: Morgenthau wrote about orphanages by Djemal Pasha in Mersin. General Harbord thanked Turks for their efforts. US Senate Resolution dtd.22.4.1922 (Near East Relief) almost thanks Turks for taking care of 64.000 orphans and informed that about another 50.000 were being fed by the Relief Workers
00:10:27 A series of holes in the ground had been dug for them on the border of a tent camp, covered with old rags
00:10:34 They sat under these rags, heads together, boys and girls of every age, …
00:10:40 desperate, becoming like animals, …
00:10:42 without food, without even the lowes from of human assistance…
00:10:48 huddled together in the cold night
00:10:53 Their children’s eyes were inscrutable and desperate with suffering
00:10:58 Even though their gaze was numb they seemed to carry the bitterest indictment of the whole world
R: Exaggeration-distortion-fabrication and dramatization to hide prejudiced commentaries.
00:11:16 The German consul in Mossul, Mr. Holstein, reported having seen, on many sections on the road from Mossul to Aleppo, …
00:11:25 so many chopped-off children hands that one could have paved the roadway with them
R: If Mr. Holstein saw and reported the “road paved with children hands” you must PROVE, otherwise Dear Filmmakers, you are a bunch of biased Christian fanatics to degrade Turks to show Germans (Nazis) as human right defenders. This is a “shameful – base brain washing”!
00:11:32 Many other facts and further examples, as bad as the ones I have reported or even worse, are to be found in the reports of the German consulates of Aleppo and Mossul
R: You could have shown some original texts as evidence, instead of scenario narrations!
00:11:44 Children’s homes, orphanages and hospitals of the Western missionaries were the last station of the deported
00:11:52 The mission nurses and doctors tried desperately to at least save the surviving children from dying
00:11:59 They realized that the survival of as many children as possible was the only chance of survival of the Armenian
people itself
R: How would they have survived if Turks did not do their best, when they were dying of hunger and epidemics themselves? How can you distort a humane matter as “survival of Armenian race”!
00:12:08 The behavior of the Turkish government with regard to orphanages, hospitals and schools must be mentioned here…
00:12:16 which were managed by German and Armenian (? Or American ?) Associations to help the Armenian population
R: I never heard of German orphanages, they were either Turkish or American Relief!
00:12:24 The authorities threatened the few places that were not yet closed with deportation of the Armenian staff and the orphans or students, or other repressive measures
R: Government needed strong roofed building to serve as hospitals for wounded soldiers and used even mosques and schools. American Colleges and Churches were not used. Some American hospitals were used for soldiers only. After mid 1916, most missionaries (not all) were provided with transport carts and protection, safely brought to Istanbul and permitted to go. Some did not want it; they said “it was their right to stay under capitulatory rights”. However, the Government abrogated all capitulations (including Germany) when they entered WW-1 in November 1914!
12:38 This intention of the Turkish government is obvious in that it rejected and tried to systematically block every assistance by missions, nurses, or just Europeans who lived in Turkey
R: Nonsense! See my last book, Armenians blog posting 3125, annual Report of U.S. Missionary Organization dated. 22.9.1916. Read and judge the incompetence of producers for such an ambitious documentary.
00:12:50 The American government’s offer to carry the deported to America, at American government expense on American ships, was also rejected
R: Such an offer made by Morgenthau was turned down by US Secretary Lansing – not Turks!
00:13:10 The Turkish government gave an order that took away almost 1,000 Armenian children
00:13:24 The last I saw of them was that special train that carried them,…
00:13:36 and so a pall of obscurity fell on them and me
00:14:02 Of those who lived in our home for the blind, almost all died of beating or hunger, or disappeared
00:14:09 Of the only six survivors three came back
00:14:15 I had news about very few of the others.
R: These are undocumented random remarks. Turks “did not impair relief activities” (after 1916) famished soldiers protected relief supplies distributed to Christians only. In Beirut or Aleppo where there was no war, 10% of people died of hunger and epidemics. Morgenthau wrote that in the Sivas hospital mortality rate of Turkish soldiers was 80%. In the army back lines it was over 30%.
The film makers if they were truthful, competent and neutral, they should have told the viewers that during the short life of the Dashnakist Armenian Republic, June 4, 1918 to Dec.2, 1920, 195.000 Armenians died in Armenia under their own government; Kurds were reduced by 98%, Muslims by 77%. Read Armenian historian A.A. Lalaian’s book, do a little homework please!
00:14:22 The crippled Mariam Badji hungered to death, …
00:14:28 also little blind Levon
00:14:33 Blind Khatın is said to have drowned in Gölçik…
00:14:41 The Gölçik is a mountain lake near Mesere in which thousands of Armenians have been drowned
R: This is another vague statement, based on grand-ma stories. My findings are that “Mezre or Mezra” is the name of a mountainous plateau close to “Gumushane”, half way between Trebizond and Erzurum, but that was not a road! Regarding “lake” “Golcuk” this is a very small picturesque lake in the Bolu province totally out of the way and some 500 km apart. The lake is so small that it cannot even take one hundred bodies! How easy and irresponsibly you can make such “impossible and unconfirmed stories” and present them in a dramatic tone? Gentlemen; this is a great disrespect not only to history and a nation, but also considering all your viewers as complete stupid! (There is no lake in the area of Mezre-Mezra, unless they again made a huge geographic mistake.)
CONCLUSION at the end of Part IV:
The more I read the English subtitles of this “mosaic of illogical – unconfirmed incidents”, I am disgusted to see a shameful FIASCO presented and marketed as a piece of documentary. I am afraid that Parts 5-6-7 to follow when done, (in about 1-2 weeks) may be even worse than the first four parts.
Answer to: (98.118.69.48) Worcester, Massachusetts, United States said…
Somebody ought to respond to these reviews and I am waiting for it
I am also waiting for “logical – irrefutably documented” evidences to exhibit that my remarks are wrong and the grand-ma distortions tell the truth!
Respectfully and regretfully,
Sukru S. Aya – Istanbul
AGHET Part 5: Counter Comments:
Commentator’s saying: “This impressive film, hides the first hand responsibility of Germany and tries to show Germans as good-hearted Christians, that could not stop the atrocities done by their Muslim ally, unjustly to the peaceful – innocent (all) Armenians. The paradox is that hardly any factual evidences are shown (other than talks), and only a small fraction of the matter is shown SELECTIVELY and hence it is a trial to turn rumors into facts and show that Germans, at all times had no part or responsibility. The slide show of my first book “The Genocide of Truth” has a photo and signature of General Bronnsart von Schellendorf, (General Staff and aide of War Minister Enver Pasha) while Commander in Chief General Liman von Sanders (his aide was Izzet Pasha) requests was an order agreed between Amb. Wagenheim and Grand Vizier Sait Halim Pasha in their accord of 2.8.1914!
00:00:05 [Count Paul Wolff Metternich] I have seriously discussed the Armenian question with Enver Pasha and Jemal Pasha.
R: Date, time, place? Djemal Pasha should have been in those days in Damascus area, and even most Armenians admit that he was very helpful and care taking, to the extent to some time provide food from army kitchens to destitute camps.
00:00:15 They hid behind the necessities of war and said that ringleaders must be punished…
R: Yes, they punished! Over 1600 court martial, 67 hanged, 400 let go, rest in prisons!
00:00:20 in response to an accusation that hundreds of thousands of women, children and old people were dead.
R: Yes, but war deprivations! German Marshall van Der Goltz died of “typhus” because he could not wash and could not keep his underwear clean. Later U.S. Ambassador Elkus, could not go back in time, because he too was infected with “typhus” for similar reasons! Infected lice did not choose between nationalities or faiths!
00:00:26 [Walter Roessler] The Turkish government damaged both itself and us, its ally.
00:00:33 It threatened the only road to Egypt with a danger of pestilence and blocked it with tens of thousands of people…
R: Confirmation of my remark; they still did not block the road despite higher risk to army!
00:00:45 … when it could have been any day needed for troop movements.
00:00:50 In the middle of WWI, the Turkish government ignored important strategic considerations.
R: Empty ballast words! Turks were puppet of Germany in “all top strategic” matters!
00:00:59 The deportation of the Armenians had the highest priority for the government.
R: Yes, because they had cut all supply and communication lines and engaged armies.
00:01:05 Men were murdered first.
R: All Ottoman citizens aged 16 – 45 were drafted in the army, except Armenian volunteers and deserters who joined Russia when war started. Who, where, when murdered Armenians of what age and for what reason? Turkish gendarmes were ordered “not to use abusive language and take care of their goods”! Show me the document sir; I can show you a long list of murders committed by Armenian volunteers in over a hundred towns, with dates, place and even some names of the victims amounting to some 550.000 Muslims!
I have not seen any such precision among other Rossler reports!
00:01:10 Women and children finally reached the town of Urfa, where they were concentrated in a camp,…
00:01:17 where they waited, empathic and desperate.
R: The “concentration camp patent” belongs to Westerners. My book has photos of “transfer and resting camps” with tents, infirmary, priest, kitchens but with very little food to feed. Concentration camps are beyond barbed wires with sentinels and no outside connection. Camps for deportees had none of this and it was free to go to town and back!
00:01:25 [Jakob Künzler] Urfa was the place of passage for hundreds of thousands of people on the way to the Mesopotamian steppe.
00:01:33 The deported here grew constantly sadder and more desperate.
R: Even today moving some 6-700.000 persons mostly on foot and roads in a short time is a huge logistic problem. Were Turks to perform miracles for Armenians only?
00:01:42 There were no men left at all among the deported.
R: Strong young men had either gone to the enemy lines, or were used by Turks to repair roads as part of their compulsory military service.
00:01:47 They consisted only of women and children 4-12 years old.
00:01:55 Only small fractions of initially very large groups reached Urfa.
R: Dramatization of individual incidents; Patriarch Bezjian had told Morgenthau that their group reached Der-Zor without any attacks and they already “had settled” to do business!
00:02:17 As I arrived to the camp bringing bread, a woman called to me: “Why do you bring bread?…
00:02:25 What should we do with bread? We are going to death. Bring us poison, so that we can die right here.
00:02:30 Let them not transport us further. We know what is waiting for us if we reach the steppe.”
R: Blah!…Gentlemen, is this a serious documentary or a scenario of dramatization?
00:02:39 The milk of women with infants was totally dried up. Other food did not exist.
R: You could have added that German officers in the army were getting much higher salaries and that their menu was special for them only. You could have said that the British embargo on all sea-ports had an effect and that Relief Distribution by American and other relief organizations after 1916 was permitted and embargo was lifted only for relief to Christians. I have notes that “when possible… typhus patients” were given milk and yogurt, instead of soup. Were the Germans in the European front much better? I read that they attacked Italian lines knowing that “there was food” for their stomachs!
00:02:48 A few women had the courage to throw their children in the well to free them more quickly.
R: Dramatization and fabrications to impress dupes!
00:02:39 Sitting in rows in the court they cried as long as they could, when the crying ended, they gasped for breath a few times until death freed them.
R: This is presented as a generalization! Did they die by crying etc. or were they murdered?
00:03:21 [Karen Jeppe, Danish director of orphanage in Urfa and Aleppo, 1903-1935] It was a death alley from the city walls of Urfa to the desert plain.
00:03:32 An alley well-planted, not with fresh green plants but human corpses at every stage of decomposition.
R: Place, date? Was she in or out of Urfa! Sounds another dramatization of few incidents!
00:03:46 Some fell immediately outside of the city gates.
00:03:51 Some were bastinadoed to drag themselves a few hundred feet further where they collapsed.
00:04:04 They could not be put on their feet by any torture known to man.
00:04:10 So they finally left their life in order to free themselves from suffering.
R: Bestinado beating is done in prisons; cannot be dragged to streets. It sounds like an illogical scenario to misguide viewers who watch without much need to think and evaluate!
00:04:18 [Alma Johansson] It was almost unbearable.
00:04:23 We met several groups of Armenian women and children on the way. Their appearance was desperate.
00:04:31 The gendarmes riding with them told openly what they did to the poor people during the journey.
00:04:40 To the question, what is to become of them, they answered: “If no one else kills them and they don’t die by themselves, then we’ll have to kill them.”
R: Scenarios of imagination! Can they provide even one document or neutral eye witness that gendarmes “themselves killed the groups” they were “ordered no to use bad words”?
00:04:53 For people who didn’t die of hunger, thirst, or one of the very frequent attacks, the death march ended in the steppes of Mesopotamia, or the Syrian desert in Deir Zor.
R: Only some were settled in Deir Zor; Djemal Pasha let them settle around Aleppo, Urfa, Diarbakır, and provided jobs for thousands of them, not following the strict law restrictions!
00:05:09 [Jakob Künzler] In Deir Zor, a township near the Euphrates, a large concentration camp for Armenians from all areas of Turkey had been set up.
00:05:18 When I was there it had approximately 60,000 people, mostly wandering skeletons.
00:05:26 Distorted by hunger, they had only little left of the human.
R: Did Muslims or soldiers appear much healthier with red cheeks? You could have compared with some photos from Dachau, Auschwitz etc. so viewers could decide between Jews left hungry and Armenians who could not be fed properly by Turks, since themselves were eating grass!
00:05:43 [Beatrice Rohner] Right by the entrance of the camp that I visited was a pile of unburied corpses.
00:05:50 Directly next to that were the tents of the living, suffering of severe diarrhea.
00:05:56 The filth in the tents was indescribable.
R: Sorry Frau Rohner! Did you expect to see a picnic or scout camp (if true)?
00:06:13 [Wilhelm Litten, manager of the German consulate in Tabriz, 1914-1918] The Turkish burying detail worked from early morning until late night, without being able to finish its job.
R: To kill and burry 10.000 bodies every day (?); the German consulate should have clarified how many could be buried per day!
00:06:20 And elderly gendarme told me that he had been there already 25 days.
00:06:25 He said he approved the punishment of the Armenians because some had worked against the government.
R: Are we writing history based on words of one old gendarme or grandmas?
00:06:31 However, it would have been better, he said, to shoot them instead of killing them slowly by torture.
00:06:38 He said he couldn’t take it anymore, he was sure to lose his mind if he had to continue seeing such limitless misery.
R: Isn’t this very normal for a human?
00:06:55 [Armin Wegner] I once found a pile of mixed human rests in a ravine.
00:07:03 White skulls still covered with hair,…
00:07:06 a pelvis,…
00:07:09 the delicately bowed ribs of a child.
00:07:15 In that moment blunt despair brought tears to my eyes,…
00:07:24 as if I had to destroy every hope, every seed of love everything that bound me to life.
R: Armin Wegner did not go out of the city. He should have said, where, when and give evidence with a photograph he was so skilled! This is not something one can easily believe!
00:07:50 [Wilhelm Litten] Everywhere in Turkey where desert sand is next to inhabited areas, the same scenario must have repeated itself, with hundreds of thousands people dead.
R: You cannot make history on assumptions such as “must have repeated…”
00:08:02 I read from notes I had then taken:.
R: She needed to give date and place because foreigner missionaries usually travelled with guards.
00:08:08 “1 pm. A woman lies dead on the left of the road, naked, wearing only brown stockings on her feet, body distorted, arms buried…
00:08:19 1.30 pm, on the right an old man with a white beard, lying on the back….
00:08:26 Two steps down a boy, naked, on the face, part of the gluteus torn out…
00:08:02 2 pm, five fresh tombs……..[reading continues]
R: Even if it were to be true, you cannot generalize single incidents!
00:09:28 [Henry Morgenthau] One day Talat Pasha came to me with a question, the most astonishing I have ever heard:
00:09:36 “The insurance companies New York Insurance and Equity Life, also of New York, have done excellent business with the Armenians…
00:09:44 I would like you to bring these companies to send us a complete list of their insured and the amounts…
00:09:54 As the heirs are now also dead, we, the government, are the beneficiaries.
00:10:04 Could you please do that?”…
00:10:07 Of course I refused.
R: In my last book, there are 60 pages explaining the contradictions in Morgenthau’s book versus what ne noted in his diary; His book is an open distortion of his own diary; read! Is it normal that a “minister goes to visit an ambassador, instead of asking the ambassador to come to see him.”
00:10:13 In 1918 the victorious allied powers occupied Constantinople.
R: Yes, Many Armenians returned after the 30.10.19118 Cease Fire, but strangely no one mentions that the “responsibility for feeding the destitute, passed to Victorious allies”?
00:10:18 German and Turkey were loser of the First World War
00:10:21 The young Turks were deposed.
R: Young Turks dissolved their party on Nov.1, 1918 and some of them fled to Germany!
00:10:23 The Parliament, long under their heel, now called those responsible for the genocide to account.
R: In Feb. 1919 the defeated Ottoman Government tried to set up a neutral tribunal and made official invitations to Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Holland and Denmark but they all replied negatively. These documents are in printed books for several years! Why don’t you learn?
00:10:29 Turkish tribunals sentenced the principal actors to death in absentia, as they had managed to escape.
R: These were Kangaroo Courts set up urgently (after refusal of a neutral investigation) to please the victors!
00:10:37 Enver Pasha,…
00:10:41 Jemal Pasha…
R. Djemal Pasha escaped to Tiflis, where he was killed by an Armenian!
00:10:44 and head of government Talat Pasha
00:10:47 escaped with German help on a German warship.
00:10:52 Talat Pasha went to Berlin where he lived with his wife under an assumed name, in obscurity but comfortably.
00:11:01 Germany continued to protect him and keep mum about the crimes of its ally.
00:11:12 But on March 15, 1921, Talat Pasha was shot to death in downtown Berlin.
R: So, Germany “did not protect him properly, although they had invited him”! Germany too had surrendered and hence there was no alliance left!
00:11:20 The killer, immediately captured, declared that even though he had just killed a man, he was not a murderer.
00:11:28 The death of the former Turkish head of government created an international sensation.
R: Germany carried a Kangaroo court, found the killer innocent, and did not even listen to Generals Liman von Sanders and Bronsart von Schellendorf. Why you did not show on the screen “what these generals said and wrote” in German papers about these patriots? Why do you shamefully hide history and documents from your viewers, even for murders openly committed in Berlin? Shame, for this type of justice and excuse!
00:11:33 Decades later it became known that the killer belonged to a secret Armenian group aiming to eliminate the organizers of the genocide.
00:11:44 The action of young Soghomon Telerian ensured that the genocide became finally known in Germany in the early 1920es.
R: What a stupid logic and justification? Now, you relieve Germany for war dramas that were not even named genocide at that time, just because Turks executed ORDERS!
00:11:55 [Armin Wegner] The pistol shot of the unknown Armenian student Telerian and his trial unveiled again to the World again…
00:12:03 and for the first time to the German people, the bloodiest chapter of World War I.
00:12:10 And the truth becomes apparent- the systematic annihilation of the Armenian people by the government of the Young Turks.
R: What an unethical, shameful excuse not to punish a criminal, but declares a “nation guilty”?
00:12:19 The trial took place in the Tiergarten tribunal in Berlin.
00:12:24 German diplomats were not authorized to testify.
R: Wow! What kind of funny tribunal was it? Why those who lived the incidents and knew the victim and what had happened “was not permitted to talk” by the judge? Were soldiers diplomats too? What a shame of ethics, human rights and universal justice?
00:12:27 The German Foreign Office tried to block the trial from becoming one of the genocide, which risked to involve the responsibility of the German government.
R: The German Foreign office (of the new beaten government), did not only prevent the main witnesses to speak, but they cheated the World (by appearing on the Victor’s side) when they were the first ones responsible!
00:12:36 The jury found Telerian not guilty after only three days.
R: Bravo to “past German justice”… and present continuation under this shameful distortion!
00:12:41 [Armin Wegner] The power of the facts that came to the light in the three-day trial was so overwhelming…
00:12:46 that the jury reached a Not Guilty verdict even though there had been an open, violent killing.
00:12:55 So, against all the attempts to make it non-political, the trial and the acquittal made World history.
00:13:05 Without saying it in so many words, the jury recognized that a genocide cannot be left unpunished.
R: Why you quote words of small a guy Armin Wegner but leave out top generals Sanders and Bronsart ?
00:13:13 Raphael Lemkin, a student, followed the trial from Poland.
R: I have no evidence that he was in Berlin at the trial and it proves nothing other than brainwashing the uninformed viewer!
00:13:18 Years later, being affected by gained knowledge at that time, he was to draft the UN Convention on Genocide.
00:13:24 [Raphael Lemkin] Telerian had appointed himself to executor of mankind’s conscience.
00:13:29 Can anyone do that? At that moment, the murder of an innocent nation gained more significance than anything.
R: Was a German court “authorized to declare a nation guilty, but another nation innocent” in a simple act of open murder? You shamefully approve… this open prejudice!
00:13:42 I didn’t have any definitive answers but was sure that the world had to legislate to stop this kind of racially or religiously motivated collective murder.
R: Sure… Then, why Armenia or any state does not make an international judicial claim to United Nations or the Human Rights Court in den Haag? You know you have “nothing but palavers” for evidence, and we have hundreds of irrefutable documents on Armenian killings! You can read my two books and see several important documents there! Read and learn facts
00:13:52 Sovereignty can not be misunderstood as the right to kill billions of innocent people
00:13:59 But after WWI one is far away from this realization
R: Sure, but when you revolt against your own state, you are killed on spot, without a trial! Attention, are we speaking of thousands or millions now becoming “billions”?
00:14:03 At the 1920 peace conference in Paris, the Armenians were promised an international condemnation of the genocide…
R: Shameful distortion! Buy and read chapter 3 of my newest book or at least refer to (Armenians-1915.blogspot.com) Posting 2519 of July 2008, with my verbatim excerpts from their Memorandum to Paris Peace Conference in Feb. 1919 in which they boast with all their fights and braveries for British, French and Russians, sacrificing their blood and submitting a map from the Black sea to Mediterranean for a huge area where they claimed they were 1.400.000 alive at that date. (So, they officially declared that there were no losses from 1914 population of 1.3 or 1.5 millions)! Don’t you know that some Armenians in French uniforms were fighting against Germans at Verdun… Photos are in Pastermadjian’s book.
Most remarkable demand is that they wanted this huge area cleaned of all non-Christians which was 80%!
Gentlemen, such extent of palavers and distortions “not telling the big and factual part of stories” and thinking that “all your readers-viewers are dupes”, or as “shallowly informed as your script writers”, is an exposed lack of respect not only to true history, but also to the common sense and level of knowledge of your decent viewers-readers, interested to learn!
00:14:13 but under the new Turkish head of state, Kemal Atatürk, Turkey was in 1923 once more the indispensable oriental ally of the Western Powers.
00:14:23 Strategic considerations were more important than humanity.
R: What humanity? US documents (and Russian General’s reports as well as several Armenian documents) speak of “Refinements of cruelty by Armenians to Muslims”?
00:14:27 Without resistance the conference participants in Lausanne gave in to Atatürk’s demand…
R: Sure, they lost the last gamble and did not want to die for Armenians reciprocally!
00:14:31 not to prosecute again the persons responsible for the genocide and not to recognize an independent Armenian state in Asia Minor.
R: Stop this cheap rhetoric of “genocide palaver”, admit facts. Armenians fought in 1914 – 1917 against Turks as Russia’s best allies (I have several Russian reports on Armenian deviltry done at that time). In Batum on, June 4, 1918 the new Dashnakist Armenian Republic surrendered and made Peace; they entered under Turkish Protection! They sent their delegation to Istanbul, received by Sultan on Sept.6, 1918; they were given best terms bilaterally to return and settle conflicts!. But after one month (fom 30.10.1918) Armenians broke the Peace, attacked Turks again, took Ardahan and Kars under British protection! Worst massacres (77 % Muslims) happened in this period; but they lost again against Turks and surrendered on Dec.2,1920 at Alexandropole, revoking Sevres Treaty. After this treaty some of the 300.000 Armenians which went to Russia when they retreated, came back. They were given 2 years to repatriate. More than half of the immigrants in Syria (deserts?) returned after the Mudros Treaty and re-possessed their properties under French-British occupation, and spread out throughout Turkey. But when French troops took over the occupation (of Cilicia etc) from British forces, the Armenian Legion in the French army again acted so brutally that this time the Turkish civilians rose in revolt because there was no Turkish state. This was the third war of Armenians against Turks but under French uniform. French troops could not stop this legion and lost control; after many combat deaths they made peace with the Ankara Nationalist Parliamentary Government on 20.10.1921 and evacuated Turkey in the next 3 months. Decent professional and innocent Armenians who had returned from Syria were asked to stay, but they (at least 200.000 or 300.000) decided to leave themselves (and punish Turks)! Armenians had no face or any right to say anything at Lausanne after so many treasons! Their big brothers Russia-Britain-France abandoned them like a paper towel no longer needed!
00:14:40 A return of the Armenians to their Turkish homeland was rejected by Ankara.
R: That is a lie: after Lausanne Treaty all previous citizens who wanted to return, were given a two years grace time. Some Armenians took advantage of this, but most went to west.
00:14:46 [Gen. Kress von Kressenstein] To get the Turks to accept a return of the refugees to their home in Asia Minor was vain.
R: Palaver!
00:14:53 The Turks insisted in hiding behind the old pretext that a return of the Armenians meant a danger for the Turkish army.
R: Another production of an excuse to support one of the so many palavers!
AGHET Part 6 – Counter Comments:
0:00:04 The survivors of the genocide were mainly women and children.
R: Is this abnormal as results of wars, in general?
00:00:09 They were kept as household slaves or in harems, helplessly open to abuse.
R: Did they fly also on carpets? Towns without men but “harems and slave girls”! How cheap?
00:00:04 The missionaries tried tirelessly to save whoever they could.
R: Missionaries were active in secondary cities and towns! Turkish neighbors saved much more than the missionaries; these are unproven assumptions that sound sympathetic!
00:00:26 [Karen Jeppe] It was enough to make one despair.
00:00:29 How could these remains of the Armenian people continue to exist in these circumstances?
00:00:34 The many, many orphans, it was simply too much.
00:00:44 Our fear for them was strangling us.
R: Time and place should have been specified! (Never met this name in my researches)!
00:01:00 [Jakob Künzler] After the war, my wife and I managed to bring 8,000 children in Lebanon.
00:01:08 From Harput, where 5,000 were, one had to organize as large a group as possible.
00:01:18 In three months I managed to organize two convoys with a total of 7,000 children.
00:01:28 To see the joy in the children’s faces was an incredible experience.
00:01:32 The Israelites in the Bible could not have been happier coming out of Egypt.
R: Biblical sauce added to exploit sentiments!
00:01:43 Thanks to people like Jakob Künzler, on the right in the picture, more than half a million Armenians survived the genocide by the Young Turks.
R: Did Jakob Kunzler saved the Armenians, or was it Djemal Pasha who provided so many jobs for Armenians and supported some orphanages with military rations? The US Near East Relief Report almost thanks Turks for orphanages and help and there is no Kunzler in there! If “more than half a million survived”, how is it possible that “millions were killed”?
00:02:02 The survivors, now centenarians, could find a new home in Lebanon, France and the US, or also in the Southern Caucasus where a small Armenian republic was founded.
00:02:19 In Turkey itself, there should be approximately 60,000 Armenians. Only a minority of them confess to their origin.
R: Did Turks closed their churches, schools, hospitals or forced them to change name or religion? Sir, you are speaking pure nonsense; not even watching or reading internet pages!
00:02:55 CBS television presents: The UN decisions. Tonight: Genocide.
R: Gentlemen, why you do not recommend NBC News Report 1 hour, true unveiling of Armenian terror and Mourad Topalian under posting no.2079, or over SIXTY videos and slide shows under posting 2904 (at armenians-1915.blogspot.com). It is all there for the decents!
00:03:08 “Our guest is Raphael Lemkin, Law professor at Yale. Professor Lemkin is the creator of the word “genocide” and has been battling for years against this crime…
00:03:21 Dr. Lemkin, can you please tell us shortly how you came to be interested in genocide?”
00:03:28 “I became interested in it when recognizing that it was happening all too often…
R: There is no clarity if, when and why Lemkin made any such statement! He should have first known that it was the Armenian Legion Nazi soldiers, who sent his relatives to death!
00:03:33 First it was the Armenians, and they were thrown a bone at the peace conference in France:…
00:03:40 because the criminals who committed the genocide were eventually punished.
R: The statement is a vague; has no evidence but it is insulting!
00:03:48 In 1934 the body of Talat Pasha were sent by the Nazis with a pompous state ceremony from Berlin to Turkey.
R: Hmm! Hitler should have taken a revenge on Talat Pasha’s bones when he was just elected! If it was to happen later during WWII, the Nazi Armenian Legion and General Dro-Butcher-Kanajan may be could have stopped it!
00:03:58 The impunity with which Talat had managed the genocide of the Armenians strengthened the Nazis in their plans to commit one of their own.
R: WOW, Bravo! May be Germans were “inspired by the 22.000 Armenian Legion Soldiers in Nazi Army under command of General Dro and 4800 of them special SS troops”… Or are you are so much blank that you have not read and learned even this much? (Lemkin was whispered to use those words, to distract attention and whereabouts of Nazi Armenian legion.
00:04:08 On Aug 22, 1939, a few days before the aggression on Poland,…
00:04:18 Hitler stated to high officers of the Wehrmacht: “I have set up my skull-and-bone units with orders to kill without pity all people of Polish origin, men, women and children.”
00:04:27 He added: “Who still talks today about the elimination of the Armenians?”
R: All submitted evidences MAKES IT DEFINITE (from too many sources and evidences) that Hitler never said any such words and the fake document submitted at Nuremberg trial was dismissed as invalid. Read the web site of “Carlos Porter” or several pages in my two books! Ask Washington Holocaust Museum management why they added the sentence “According to Associated Press Correspondent” to save themselves from this fakery!
00:04:32 Hitler’s cynical question shows clearly that it is possible to commit a gigantic crime without being called to account internationally.
R: Gentlemen, you built castles of sand or lies, founded on complete ignorance!
00:04:43 [Raphael Lemkin] As no action was taken, Hitler felt authorized to act as he chose.
00:04:52 This finally moved the world to do something.
00:04:56 As for me, being a lawyer, I thought that such a crime must be punished by international law.
00:05:04 Raphael Lemkin drafted the Genocide Convention of the UN, approved by most of the members in 1948.
R: Is there an article saying that it can be applied retro-active or by movie scripts or political parties instead of an authorized International Tribunal? When did Lemkin say these?
00:05:13 Two years later the Convention was also signed by Turkey.
00:05:16 The methods applied by Turkey,…
00:05:18 like expropriation, selection, deportation, death marches and death camps, seemed to not only to Lemkin a blueprint for the Hitlerian holocaust and further genocides.
R: Shameful, street level arrogance to impress and misguide the viewers reversing documented history with a wise but untruthful propaganda film; a disgrace of ethics!
00:05:32 “This Convention should be signed by all governments and ratified by all Parliaments as soon as possible…
00:05:40 in order to provide protection for human rights, social progress and international peace.”
R: Stop the palavers, go to the International Court and settle your case for ever!
00:05:50 [Raphael Lemkin] The suffering of the Armenian men, women and children thrown in the Euphrates,…
00:05:56 or massacred on the way to Deir Zor, has paved the way to the acceptance of the UN Genocide Convention.
R: I do not know if Lemkin could show on the map Armenia, Euphrates and Der Zor, or if he had read Swedish Officer Pravitz who travelled the area at that time and wrote that there was no floating bodies in Euphrates, or that Armenians “had already settled for business” in Der Zor!
00:06:11 The murder of the Armenian people was defined by the United Nations as a genocide.
R: WOW! Gentlemen, why DON’T YOU SHOW THIS IMPORTANT LEGAL DEFINITION but speak a BASE LIE! Show it gentlemen clearly; do not hide behind unproven interpretations!
00:06:17 As for the murderers, even though they had been sentenced to death in absentia by a Turkish court, they continue to be honored in Turkey.
R: Your animosity and duplicity topples limits of reason and ethics! Can you name but ONE of the Armenian murderers (over 250 acts) ever punished by Armenians!
00:06:27 There are two monumental tombs for Enver and Talat Pasha in Istanbul, as if their crimes had never happened.
R: Gentlemen, how can you be that racist and psychologically impaired, that you can even think taking revenge from dead patriots or tombstones? I admire your humanity!
00:06:39 [Cemil Çiçek] All this is in the past now. Let’s look at the future. One cannot progress when watching the past. I am saying this in the framework of my freedom of speech.
R: Cemal Cicek did not read or learn the details of this world charlatanism! He speaks compassion and reason; but even this sincerity is not welcome! Gentlemen; what is exactly that you want to achieve with this movie based on LIES, namely:
a- Do you think that Republic of Turkey will give in to international pressure and forced to “accept to be named criminal, for war dramas that are not put into light, have never been legally investigated, discussed or reached to an authorized verdict”? Gentlemen, you forget that Turks fought against all major powers (but did the mistake of trusting Germans for being better colonialists than others) and died in honor against SUPER POWERS!
b- Or is it that you want to create an atmosphere of animosity against the “all time criminal Turks”, and expose the all time civilized and humanist Arians as angels? Or do you want to erase the shame of the TRUE HOLOCAUST which has been asserted by an authorized International Tribunal carried in the open, with documents, defense, charges and verdict?
This is a “documented distortion and mud slinging of actual history”, to market animosity!
AGHET Part 7 Counter Comments:
00:00:03 In Istanbul, Ankara, anywhere and everywhere in Turkey one finds streets named for the criminals.
00:00:10 Talat Pasha Boulevard or Square, Enver Pasha street,
R: Who, when, where, how they asserted that these patriots were criminals of what?
00:00:24 There seem to be no objection to naming an elementary school, either, for the man who committed a genocide.
R: But in Armenian elementary schools today they are teaching “how to kill Turks”. Read posting 1637 [Armenian Children In Military Training]!!!
00:00:33 [Patrick Devedjian, French Minister of Industry] It is as if the Nazi government members were generally honored in today’s Germany.
R: Nazi General Dro-Kanajan was honored in USA, medals are given in his honor! Yes?
00:00:42 Think what the reaction of a young Jew would be to know that there is an Adolf Eichmann Street in Berlin today.
R: Did you remind the Jew that it was the Nazi Armenian Legion during WW-II or Armenian Volunteers during WW-1 that erased the last Jewish tribes in Caucasus?
00:00:54 Now, just as it was then, Turkey is an important ally.
00:00:57 Now like then the governments keep shy of the genocide question, even when countries like France, Germany and Russia have condemned it.
R: These countries should be accountable firstly for the several massacres they committed!
00:01:08 No country has until now clearly demanded that Turkey recognize the genocide, to say nothing of justice and reparation for the Armenians.
R: Stop this mumbo-jumbo talks; open a court case at the Den Haag Tribunal (if you can)?
00:01:24 [Patrick Devedjian] The USA is in the first rank of these countries.
00:01:27 Until 1917 it was neutral vis-à-vis Turkey.
00:01:32 It had consuls there.
00:01:35 The US has many reports of its diplomats, including its ambassador, many of which are in the public domain.
00:01:43 They have clear and undeniable evidence of the organization of the deportations and extermination of the Armenians.
00:01:52 So the USA has less of an excuse than other countries to ignore this genocide.
R: Yes, I suggest that you first read US Senate Doc.151, Nov.19, 1919, US Congress Repor 266 General Harbord Mission to Armenia, Report Nat. Arc.184.021./175, Aug.16, 1919 of Captain Emory Niles <…first that Armenians massacred Musulmans on a large scale with many refinements of cruelty and second that Armenians are responsible for most of the destruction done to towns and villages>
00:02:01 [Adam Schiff, Member of the US House of Representatives, Democratic Party] If the most powerful country in the World…
00:02:06 doesn’t dare speak openly about this genocide, why should Turkey?
00:02:10 In 2007, after several unsuccessful attempts, the US Congress tried again to recognize the genocide in a resolution.
00:02:19 Turkey threatened to sever diplomatic relations and recalled its ambassador from DC.
R: Has Schiff ever seen the documents referred above?
00:02:27 [Alfio Sires, Member of the US House of Representatives, Democratic Party] Why all of a sudden all this pother about such a resolution?
00:02:36 The genocide happened. Why not recognize it and move on?
R: What is your proof that it happened, when it could not have physically happened?
00:02:40 I feel pressured, as if a Turkish sword was hanging over my head, when I vote the wrong way.
R: Was it a Turkish sword or the list of Armenian campaign contributors?
00:02:49 Also Today’s president, then Senator, Barack Obama, takes part in the discussion.
00:02:55 The historical facts are clear for him:…
00:03:06 [Barack Obama, US Senator, 2007, Democratic Party] “For all who are unaware of it, there was a genocide that did take place against the Armenian people…
00:03:12 but the Turkish government is insistently denying it. This is a raw spot in our diplomatic relations.
R: How are these officials US Legislature records not brought into light today?
00:03:23 But the resolution was defeated once more thanks to the intervention of President G.W. Bush.
00:03:28 His Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, had to appear at a hearing.
00:03:34 [Adam Schiff] “You and secretary Gates have asked the Committee to vote against the resolution on the Armenian genocide.
00:03:44 Is it because Turkey is an ally?
00:03:47 Is this a morally valid reason to ignore the extermination of a million and a half people?
R: Morality starts with decency and defending truth based on concrete documents and not on hearsays or rumors! Above it was mentioned that “more than half a million survived”, now you claim that “a million and a half people were exterminated”! Armenian, British, French and most sources indicate that total Armenian population within the Ottoman Empire in early 1914 was not even 1.3 millions. Can the producers explain how you exterminate 1.5 million out of 1.3 millions and still have a balance of “over half a million”? Gentlemen are you joking with the intelligence of your viewers or think that they will swallow every lie?
00:03:52 We neither allow the Holocaust, or the genocide in Rwanda, to become a topic just for historians…
00:03:59 So why just in case, we leave the decision about this genocide to the Turks?”
00:04:03 [Condoleezza Rice, US Foreign Minister, 2005-2009, Republican Party] The reasons are clear to me as an academician…
00:04:08 But as Foreign Secretary I believe that this is in the best interest of the US not to make a judgment…
00:04:16 Turks and Armenians should find a solution among themselves…
00:04:20 And yes, Turkey is a good ally.
00:04:27 From the start of the Iraq war, the US is dependent on its military bases in Turkey.
00:04:34 US planes to Iraq and Afghanistan fly from there.
R: These surplus credits should not be related to the “fictitious slander”! Please conduct a serious scholarly and judicially valid study and let “TRUTH PREVAILS”! Why are you scared?
00:04:40 [Adam Schiff] The Turkish government has threatened to close the air base at Incirlik, and to enter Iraq to pursue the Kurds there if we discuss the resolution on the genocide.
R: Cheap slanders Mr. Schiff… to deserve better campaign support from diaspora!
00:04:53 Our governments, the former one as well as the present one, have yielded under pressure,…
00:05:01 becoming complicit in another nation’s campaign of denial of genocide.
00:05:10 Barack Obama in the Turkish Parliament, now as President of the US.
00:05:15 In his inauguration speech he did not openly address the Armenian genocide and did not ask Turkey to recognize historic facts.
R: What logic? Was Obama to insult the parliament of the host country? The terrible truth is that “all politicians are hard to read and learn the details, when their advisors do not feed them with the correct and diverse knowledge for cross checking”. I know that this rule stands true for the Turkish government representatives, for several years!
00:05:29 [Robert Menendez, US Senator, Democratic Party] I see a hypocrisy in not recognizing the Armenian genocide…
00:05:35 for the only reason that a US ally doesn’t like the idea…
00:05:40 I am frustrated to see that the President has not formally recognized the genocide.
00:05:45 I am convinced that President Obama personally sees the murder of the Armenians as a genocide.
00:05:55 He has said it as a senator and I cannot imagine that the historic facts have changed between the time when he was a senator and his election as President.
R: Suggest you first read the names of the contributors to Menendez and note that about half of them are not from New Jersey and there is not one American who is not Armenian!
00:06:06 The problem for him is clearly our foreign policy vis-à-vis our relationship with Turkey.
00:06:17 The discussions over the past are meanwhile becoming more intense in Turkey.
00:06:23 The taboo starts to be broken.
00:06:25 The government reacts with the request that historians first investigate the facts,…
R: Why do you disagree, if you are so sure that truth is on your side?
00:06:32 as if what has been established for a long time had to be examined all over again.
R: Who “established what, when, where, with what authority”?
00:06:38 When Head of State Gül visited the small neighbor Armenia for the first time in 2008 he talked only about border passages and diplomatic relations.
00:06:48 The genocide is not a subject for him.
R: “Genocide” tale is invented after 1960s. It is not even mentioned in Arthur Derounian’s “Armenian Affairs” Magazine (Vol.1, No.1) when he visited Berlin in 1949! (Ch.21 in the Book “The Genocide of Truth”)
00:06:52 [Rafi Hovanissian, acting Armenian Foreign Minister] There have been so many generations since then but the question is not closed.
00:07:00 There was never an apology, not even the simple human recognition that it happened.
00:07:07 The Turkish government should be thinking about what it can do to soothe the pain…
00:07:14 instead of spending millions of dollars to repress resolutions in Berlin, Washington etc.
R: “Spending Millions of Dollars”(?) by Turkish Government, is another untrue guess!
00:07:21 They should be asking the Armenians: “What can we do to heal the injustice?”
R: Money heals all pains, ant it does not matter how and from where it comes!
00:07:26 The opening of a border post between Turkey and Armenia has nothing to do with this.
00:07:32 They should be asking: “What can we do in terms of remembering, restituting, and renovating the cultural heritage?”
R: Over 60.000 tourist Armenians are illegally working in various jobs sending money to their families in Armenia. Their children (not citizens of Turkey) are being educated in Armenian schools and taken care by Armenian welfare endowments. Why not ask them what they think about genocide, restitutions (for the pockets of diaspora) and cultural heritage built on hate!
00:07:51 The murdered journalist Hrant Dink tried, through his articles and conferences, to start a long overdue debate among the Turkish population.
00:08:02 Since his murder the topic has become hotter than ever before.
R: How come you do not mention even one of over 250 acts of terror in which some 70 people were killed, 42 of them Turkish diplomats or people killed just for being a Turk!
00:08:06 To protest his murder 200,000 persons participated in one of the largest demonstrations in the country’s history,…
00:08:13 in solidarity with Hrant Dink and the search for truth.
R: How many Armenians ever protested a murder of a Turk? 200.000 sincere Turks were much embarrassed by this stupid murder by a childish fanatic and expressed their national sorrow, unequaled in any other country. I fully share their sentiments and gesture!
00:08:20 [Volkan Vural, former Turkish ambassador to Germany and the UN] It is very unusual in this country, that has denied so much in the past,…
00:08:28 that such a demonstration could happen.
00:08:30 I am convinced that Turkey, based on clear facts out of her history, should be smart enough to say: “We are sorry for what happened.”
R: I do not know what kind and how many selected books Mr.Vural has read as being”smart”!
A person’s title does not carry or transfer “knowledge”; if you do not take the trouble to search the truth from various sources! I hope that Mr. Vural will be sorry some day for having made such a statement based on hearsays and not documented facts!
00:08:42 [Delal Dink, daughter of Hrant Dink] Nobody could imagine that so many people in Turkey would go on the streets to say:…
00:08:50 “We are all Hrant Dink, we are all Armenians!”
00:08:55 The people have finally found their voice and the government will have to hear it and I think they hearing it.
R: Delal Dink is a positive person, despite the great loss she suffered. Based on my experience, I am not as sure as “regards who hears whose voice and what they do about it”!
Respectfully, Sukru Server Aya Istanbul 17.05.2011