Aghet ein Völkermord

BELOW IS A DETAILED TRANSLATION

AGHET
[Intro part: Diverse people, not all identified, making statements:]
- The Turkish government is convinced that the Armenians never underwent a genocide
- For nine decades, they have been denying that it ever happened
- It's shocking. We have no problem recognizing Darfur etc, what is the problem here?
- It is incredible that the Noble Prize recipient Orhan Pamuk should risk 3 years in prison for only starting
discussion on this subject
- [Bernard-Henri Lévy] They deny facts, erase their traces and reshuffle the deck all over again
- 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.T. Erdoğan - Turkish PM] Something like a genocide is foreign to our society. It is not ever possible that
we recognize it
- [US President Obama] For all those who are not conscious of it, the genocide of the Armenian people has
happened.
At a debate in the US Congress an important ally, viz. Bush, is up in arms.
- 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.
- [TV anchor] The White House fears Turkish reactions that could destabilize Iraq
2.05
[title]
AGHET
A Genocide
--------------
On 1/19/2007 the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered in cold blood in the street by a 17
year-old who tries to justify the murder by stating that Dink had offended the honor of Turkey. The murderer
has not been convicted yet.
A Pandora's box was opened in Turkey because Dink had the courage to speak openly of genocide.
Dink had called attention to the massacre in which more than one million Armenians had been murdered. A
genocide that has been officially for 95 years. The very mention of it is punished and many Turks have been
prosecuted for this. Dink, too, was dragged before the courts many times.
3.39
[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. That's why I started telling them what happened". He also said: "What I
want isn't for the politicians to acknowledge it. I want the entire population to know what happened because I
want to know that it will not happen again."
1|Page
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
4.10
Since Dink's murder an increasing number of people are requesting an open discussion of the genocide. The
overwhelming majority of the population, though, is influenced by the official Turkish history making and
sticks to the officially propagandized government version.
4.27
[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. The
Turkish people will never accept such a charge. We have the cleanest past. No one has the right to make such
accusations against us.
4.45
An opinion shared by many Turks in Germany, who take to the streets against any attempt to call the
genocide by its name. In the last years several European parliaments, including those of France, Switzerland
and Germany, have condemned the genocide of the Armenians. Many Turks feel offended by this. But the
voices of those who ask for a review of history are no more to be ignored.
5.15
[Cem Özdemir, Federal Chairman of The German Greens/Alliance 90 Party]:
This process will not leave Turkey untouched. Turkey will be obliged to change radically its history writing .
I want the genocide to be known and discussed in every Turkish TV station and newspaper, so that the
genocide will finally have to be recognized.
5.42
Meanwhile, the Turkish government still clings to its position, while to the foreign powers the land on the
Bosphorus seems too important to risk a recognition of the genocide that could upset such an important
economic and military factor and a major partner in the NATO.
6.03
[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. Too little is being discussed. One is not even allowed to openly state one's own
opinion. There is in fact no one in Western Europe who does not know beyond question that there was such a
genocide.
6.31
Turkey uses its geopolitical clout again and again to stop all discussion, threatens foreign leaders with
severing diplomatic relations or canceling weapons contracts; the Western governments regularly give in
while the relatives of victims of the Armenian genocide have been waiting many decades for the recognition
of a historic fact.
6.55
[Samantha Power, foreign policy adviser to US President Obama]:
You tell your story, and not only Turks but also the American and other Western governments answer: "This
is not possible. It could not have happened." Imagine such a thing happening to you, you survive a genocide
and live with a history you know to be true but are told by all that none of it happened. Morally and
emotionally I think it's devastating.
7.35
Every year on April 24 thousands of Armenians from all over the World go in pilgrimage to Erivan, capital of
Armenia. April 24, 1915, is the day on which the attempt to totally exterminate them as a their people started
more than 95 years ago. The Armenians, oldest existing Christian nation, call this day "Aghet", meaning the
catastrophe. 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.
8.15
2|Page
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
[Arthur Abraham, World Boxing Champion from Armenia]:
One has to accept the truth; people have to stand up and do something so that Turkey also accepts it. It's a sad
feeling, like experiencing the death of someone in one's own family. 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.
9.04 [speaks in Armenian]
Here I was saying: "I dedicate this fight to the people who died on this day, 24th April".
9.24
Mourning on this day mixes with pain and rage. 3 million Armenians in the tiny Armenian Republic and
another 5 million spread all over the World, 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.
9.47
[Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister of Turkey]:
Word is around of murdered Christians, murdered Armenians. On which basis is this being said? It's not
acceptable to accuse the Turkey without proof of a massacre said to have taken place in 1915. No matter how
many times it is repeated, we will not accept it. Let them bring proof, then we will deal with it. I say it very
clearly.
10.41
In the political archive of the Foreign Ministry in Berlin one finds thousands of documents, reports, letters,
notes, secret memoranda, all collected by Germany, the ally of Turkey in World War I. These documents,
hidden for a long time in order not to shame Turkey, leave absolutely no room for doubt about the reality of
the genocide. There are situation reports by German and American diplomats, but also reports and
descriptions by Swiss, Danish and Swedish doctors, missionaries, newspaper correspondents and nurses who
lived in Turkey in the first years of the 20th century and recorded their observations.
The author 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. Actors will be lending their voice to the historical witnesses.
[Historical persons named below are represented by actors reading their text]
11.59
[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.
12.12
[Henry Morgenthau, US ambassador in Constantinople, 1915-1918]
Almost all these people were dragged out of their homes without notice and forced to march in direction of
the desert. Thousands of women and children died, victims not only of hunger and exhaustion but also
directly of the inhuman cruelty of their guards.
12.39
[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 --having to stay
alive?
12.52
[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.
13.05
Witness depositions, long ignored, lie also in diplomatic and military archives in France, Denmark, Sweden,
Armenia and the US. Like the ones in Berlin, they describe in minute detail the bestiality of the Armenian
genocide, they document exactly the chronology of an unimaginable crime.
3|Page
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
13.46
[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. The methods showed
more barbarism planned in cold blood, and were also much more efficient than I had assumed was ever
possible. Corpses were on the ground everywhere, in every street. The whole country was a big morgue. Or,
better said, a slaughterhouse. One could see how old men and women, 70 and 80 years old, blind, lame and
sick; innocent mothers and children and helpless infants, not yet weaned, were all murdered or led away to be
murdered in cold blood. It is impossible to find any reason that would justify this kind of measure.
15.15
[Armin 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. Few
have wanted this crime and few have known it, tolerated it or even approved of it. The official reports of
German consuls in Asia Minor document it. The number of Turkish provincial officials who refused to obey
the orders of their government in the capital was not so small.
15.46
In the 16th century the Ottoman Empire, whose capital was Constantinople, expanded over several
continents. The Armenian people were divided among three empires during historical times: Persia, Russia
and the Ottoman Empire. Armenians were at home in 6 provinces of Eastern Asia Minor. About two million
Armenians lived in Turkey at the start of the 20th century. As Christians they had, like all other religious
minorities of the Empire, certain religious and cultural freedoms. They did, however, pay high special taxes
and undergo some discrimination. They had a measure of self-government but were not legally equal to the
Moslems and were treated like second class citizens. The Armenians complained about their status and asked,
in vain, for politic and social equality of rights. A majority of them were peasants, workers and traders. In the
cities, though, a well-to-do Armenian upper class did develop.
[17.05, Oscar Heizer, US Consul in Trebizond, 1915-1917]:
Some of them came from distinguished circles and were used to riches and luxury, but there were people
from all walks of life, priests, traders, jurists, mechanics, workers...
17.15
Against the many promises to the Armenians that they would be members of a community of equals, they
were repeatedly made victim of pogroms, committed with the support and approval of the
authorities. 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.
17.36
In 1908 a revolution took place in Turkey. Army officers and intellectuals living in exile, who called
themselves the Young Turks, promised equality to the minorities. In reality, though, their ideology was very
different:
17.52
[Samuel McClure, American Correspondent in Constantinople, 1915-1916]:
In 1908 the Young Turks took over the government. This small group came with a new doctrine that
consisted in the phrase: "Turkey to the Turks". Such an idea was not the result of religious fanaticism (even
though it did satisfy the red-hot national feelings of the religious Moslem Turks). The government was
essentially interested in plunder and power.
18.24
The party of the Young Turks was called the Committee for Union and Progress. The old Sultan was deposed
and replaced by his brother, now at the head of a constitutional monarchy. The Young Turks wanted to create
a racially pure Empire and announced their intention to also cleanse the Moslem World from domination by
infidels.
4|Page
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
The further loss of Christian areas during the Balkan War in 1912 shamed the once powerful Ottoman
Empire, a shame for which the Young Turks held responsible the Christians in their own country, too. Three
generals ("Pasha" in Turkish) made up the triumvirate in power : Enver Pasha at the War Ministry, Jemal
Pasha at the Navy and Talat Pasha, the powerful Minister of the Interior and head of government .
19.20
[Harry Stürmer, Constantinople correspondent of the "Kölnische Zeitung", 1915-1917]:
He came from relatively modest conditions; he started as mail carrier on the Adrianople line, then telegraph
operator. This is not a bad thing in itself. On the contrary, it shows his energy and intelligence. His high
intellectual capacity, however, did not protect him from the Grand-Turkish disease and a bigoted belief in the
most narrow-minded chauvinist illusions. He was like poisoned by a fanatical lust for vengeance.
19.59
[Samuel McClure]
My impression of him was, all proportions guarded, that of a big American party boss. He wasn't born a king
but he was a born leader. 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.
20.25
World War I, 1915: The Turks have to resist a Russian advance into the interior. At the same time, England
starts an offensive in the Dardanelles Straits. Turkey feels encircled and threatened by a Christian Europe --
excepti for the German Empire, its ally in the war.
20.48
[ Tracy Atkinson, nurse at the American Mission in Harput, 1902-1917]:
The Germans, the Turks and the Devil himself had contracted an alliance.
20.55
The German Emperor during his official visit in Constantinople. 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. In exchange Germany was to modernize the Turkish Army,
something supposed to restore the old power and glory of the country. The Armenians' plight was not a valid
topic for the Germans. The military and economic interests did not allow any conflict with Germany's ally.
21.28
[Harry Stürmer]
Germany's behavior was doubtless cowardly. We gave in to the Turks militarily, economically and
politically. We could have insisted on basic principles of humanity. Enver Pasha, and even more the Interior
Minister and de facto dictator Talat Pasha, had no real choice but to obey Germany; doubtless they would
have had to follow any German instructions.
22.08
[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. Germany would surely win the war and protect its ally,
Turkey, from retaliation by Russia and the Western Powers. The crime was prepared in a systematic way.
22.34
The Russian army entered areas of Turkish Armenia in 1915. Enver Pasha led the counteroffensive in person.
Soldiers of Armenian origin fought on both sides. The campaign resulted in a Turkish rout. 90,000 Turkish
soldiers died in a few weeks. The scapegoat for the Young Turks was an Armenian-Russian plot, a Christian
brotherhood, as only possible explanation in their mind for the Turkish defeat. The Turks now saw an
opportunity to accuse all Armenians as the enemy.
23.15
[Jakob Künzler, Deacon and paramedic in Urfa, 1899-1922]
5|Page
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
Doubtless they profited from the war, because the Western Powers except the US were not reachable, being
excluded as enemies. No one had time to busy himself with the Armenian question.
23.39
The Young Turks spread the rumor that the Armenian soldiers in their army had deserted to the Russians to
stab Turks in the back, an invention with fatal consequences. Thousands of Armenian soldiers were arrested,
tortured and murdered.
24.00
[Harry Stürmer]
Only with tricks like these could they proceed to the systematic annihilation of the Armenian people. The
Turkish government adroitly manipulated World public opinion and discovered, better said invented, local
plots.
24.17
[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. The Armenians fortified their neighborhoods to protect their families from the coming
massacre. They had no connection whatever with Russia. They defended themselves during 4 weeks against
the Turkish troops who besieged and shot them.
24.20
In the confusion of the Russian-Turkish fights, the Turkish troops attacked the Armenian inhabitants of Van
under the pretext of sparing themselves the repression of a revolt. The Armenians resisted bitterly. Thousands
died.
The fight subsided as the Russian troops beat the Turks and entered Van. For the Turks it was one more
"proof" of a Russian-Armenian plot.
25.07
[Martin Niepage, teacher in the German school of Aleppo, 1913-1916]:
So they used an absurd pretext to kill ten thousand innocents for a single supposedly guilty one, to justify the
savage treatment of women and children.
25.17
[Walter Roessler, German consul in Aleppo]:
While their ally, Germany, considered that even a polite remark would be misplaced.
25.23
It started with deportations, the official pretext being that of securing the border area to Russia. The
authorities said that the Armenians would find a "new homeland" in Syria, then a part of the Ottoman Empire
--a lie. The first Armenian families were then sent on a march that led them in guaranteed death.
The Turkish government, meanwhile, intended to annihilate the entire Armenian people.
25.20
[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. They had
to invent another pretext for the measure. This is how they suddenly and miraculously discovered a universal
conspiracy among all Armenians of the whole Empire.
26.18
The Turkish population was being incited to murder. "In order to prevent further defeats in war", so it says
officially, it was now necessary to eliminate "the Armenian menace" in the whole country. An ex post facto
legalized deportation law that did not explicitly name the Armenians imposed on the local commanders the
duty of relocating the population of towns or townships where they suspected espionage or treason.
26.48
6|Page
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
[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". The Turks expected the
Russian troops to reach Mush or further. "But" they said "before that happens we'll slaughter the Armenians".
27.14
[Harry Stürmer]
The arrests in Constantinople started on April 24 - 25. More than 850 persons --Orthodox, Protestant or
Catholic-- were deported, including approximately 10 bishops, 40 doctors and 10 lawyers, but also very many
from the lower middle and working classes.
There were very few Turks with whom one could speak at all about the Armenians. Even the world-wise
confused everything and most speeches regularly ended with: "All Armenians must be destroyed; they are
traitors".
28.00
[Walter Roessler]
In its semi-official statement this government averred that, I quote: "The Ottoman Government extends its
benevolent protection to all honest and peaceful Christians living in Turkey". 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. The Turkish government will not be able to deny its own responsibility for all that
happened. It has perpetrated this chaos willingly and with premeditation.
29.08
[Henry Morgenthau]
The police ordered the Armenians to go, as suddenly as, say, the Vesuvius erupting over Pompeii.
Women were dragged away from the washing place, children from their bed; the bread remained partly baked
in the oven and the food half-eaten on the table. Schoolchildren were taken from their schools with the
textbooks left open at the page they were reading. Men were forced to leave their plows in the ground and
their animals wandering in the hills. The people were pulled out of their houses without any advance
warning.
30.16
[Alma Johansson]
The arrested men were locked in wooden blocks. Their beards were pulled out and their fingernails too. They
were hanged feet up, and much more of this kind of things. 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 the wounds.
31.02
[Leslie Davis]
A few days later, rumor of what was happening started going around but no one who wasn't an eyewitness
could even start to believe it.
On June 28, 1915, an official order was issued to all Armenians to leave the city of Harput within 5 days.
Anyone who doesn't know the situation in this isolated area cannot even imagine what the consequences of
such an order would be. As horrible as it sounds, a massacre would have been more humane than the
deportation. Some people can sometimes survive a massacre, but in a country like Turkey a deportation of
this magnitude meant guaranteed death, much more cruel than just being murdered.
32.16
[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. They took us away from our houses and fields.
32.41
[Martin Niepage]
7|Page
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
Many Moslems --Turks and Arabs-- disagreed with a movement of the head and could not hold their tears.
They still could not understand how their government could order such cruelty.
33.05
[Oscar Heizer]
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 elss. Being an Armenian was enough to be deported.
33.22
On 25 May 1915 England, France and Russia described the events in the Ottoman Empire as a Crime Against
Humanity, a concept used for the first time ever. The US at that time was still neutral, not in war with Turkey
and it protested directly with Talat Pasha against the brutal measures of his government.
33.48
[Henry Morgenthau]
After exchanging the usual compliments we came to the business part of the conversation. Talat Pasha said
to me: "I have called you so that I can explain today to you our position on the Armenian question. Our
rejection of the Armenians is based on clear reasons. First of all, they have enriched themselves at the cost of
Turkey. In the second place, they have decided to dominate us and found their own nation. Third, they have
openly encouraged our enemies. They helped the Russians in the Caucasus. Our defeat in the East is to be
explained in large part by their action. We have therefore reached an irreversible decision to render them
harmless before the end of this war."
35.01
[Leslie A. Davis]
These measures consisted of nothing less than the deportation of the entire Armenian population, not only out
of our province but all six Armenian provinces, an enterprise larger than anything that had already been
attempted so far in human history.
35.33
[Johann Mordtmann, German General Consul in Constantinople, 1915-1918]
An intimate co-worker of Talat Pasha has confirmed to me orally that the government had decided to extend
even further the operations to deport the Armenians. The Armenians in the provinces Gernik, Trebizond,
Sivas and Mamuret-ul-Aziz were now also to be deported to Mesopotamia and this could not be justified by
invoking any military precaution. The aim was rather, as confirmed to me by Talat Pasha personally, to
annihilate the Armenians.
36.17
[ Henry Morgenthau]
I said to Talat: "Let us suppose that a couple of Armenians have effectively committed treason. Is this really
reason enough to uproot an entire people? Does it justify the fact that innocents, women and children, must
die?" He answered: "These things are inevitable."
37.23
[Oscar Heizer]
The sobs and cries of the women and children was heartbreaking. The German consul told me: "I don't
believe that the Armenians will be allowed to return to Trebizond, not even after the end of the war".
37.36
[Jacob Künzler]
It wasn't an easy task for the Young Turks who had decided to deport and systematically eradicate a million
people. The deportations continued for a whole year.
38.02
[Leslie A. Davis]
It is impossible for me to describe the panic that the deportation order started in Harput. Everyone who had to
8|Page
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
leave town tried to find some money to take on the journey. The Turks naturally profited from this situation
that allowed them to obtain every possible thing almost free. Theft and plunder also happened on a hitherto
unseen scale.
38.42
Turkish men and women entered the houses of Armenians and took whatever there was there. The scenes
reminded one of greedy vultures hurling themselves on the carcasses of those dying by the roadside. The
Armenians realized that they were going to their death, and they had every reason to feel that.
39.22
[Oscar Heizer]
Furniture, bedding, everything valuable was brought to the large buildings in town. 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. To expect that anyone would take any pains in view of future restitution was simply ridiculous.
Everything was piled on top of other things without any effort to register the property.
39.45
[Henry Morgenthau]
It is a fact that the Turks never thought of relocating the Armenians anywhere, not even as a token gesture.
They knew that the overwhelming majority of these people would never reach the theoretical place of arrival.
The real intent of the deportation was plunder and destruction.
40.26
[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. Civil servants who
refused were demoted. Terror was used against the Turkish population, who often disapproved of the
government's measures, as well as government employees and military personnel.
40.52
[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.
41.14
[Tracy Atkinson]
We pleaded for two or three missionaries to be allowed to accompany the deportees on their journey in order
to assist them. The request was rejected. The people were told that their relocation place was Urfa. We
bought some objects and gave some money to the people, who had nothing, we packed bread in rucksacks for
those being deported and distributed it. At first we cried so much that it seemed that we couldn't do anything
else during our whole life than cry. But one gets used even to the horror and then we couldn't cry anymore.
42.28
[Armin T. Wegner]
This crime was so monstrous that an echo of it reached all countries, not least Germany.
Berlin was informed in detail of all the events. But Jemal Pasha, here seen on horse, nor any other member of
the government, ever felt the need to justify anything to their ally, Germany. The latter accepted the crime
without a single word: Realpolitik.
43.00
[General Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein, 1st German-Turkish Expeditionary Corps, 1915-1917]
The Germans, soldiers or civilians, found it inconceivable that the German government did not distance itself
from the Turks, but on contrary, through its silence, involved us Germans as morally somewhat complicit. It
is not without reason that our enemies have accused us of tolerating the massacre by our silence.
43.22
9|Page
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
[Count Paul Wolff Metternich, German Ambassador in Constantinople, 1915-1916]
What the Turks did was our doing. It was done with our officers, our guns and our money. Without our
money the operation would have collapsed. There was no real need to act shy with the Turks. We should
have instilled the fear of consequences to the Turks in order to deal correctly with the Armenian question.
Our "remarks" had irritated more than helped in any way. 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?
44.06
[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. 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. It was clear to me that in case of a longer
war we would very much need the Turks. That's why I could not understand how Metternich could ever
propose such a thing.
45.27
[Hampartsoum Sahakian]
We walked for more than ten days, almost without a pause. The old or sick, who could not walk, lay
themselves on the road to die or they were killed by the gendarmes. The gendarmes pushed us. We were
hungry. They didn't even allow us to drink anything.
46.04
The Armenians of Eastern Asia Minor were first deported in the direction of Urfa. Then the Armenian
population of Constantinople and Western Turkey were directed in the direction of Aleppo. From these points
the people were pushed to Deir Zor or in the Syrian desert or to the Mesopotamian steppe. The so-called
relocation was just a death march into nothingness.
46.33
[Beatrice Rohner]
The situation of the deported defied any description. They went in bands and ate the grass growing in the
fields. When the excrements of a camel or any last animal was seen they threw themselves on it and ate it as
if it were a delicacy.
46.53
[Walter Roessler]
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. These were means unworthy of a government
desiring an alliance with Germany.
47.13
[Leslie A. Davis]
This job was done not only by Kurds but in most cases by the gendarmes who accompanied the deportation,
and the armed groups called "chete" formed by former convicts who had been released with the only
objective of murdering Armenians.
(scene from the movie "Rape of Armenia")
47.55
[Hampartsoum Sahakian]
Kurds and bandits attacked us, plundered us and raped the girls and young women. I still remember that my
stepmother was pregnant. They killed her. They pushed a sword in her belly, pulled out the child and started
laughing when they saw it was a boy. They threw him on the ground. I can't forget it.
49.18
The road leads the deported through cities and mountains and along the river Euphrates. Only very few
10 | P a g e
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
German military personnel dared try to save the life of an Armenian and they stood powerless in the face of
the their ally's insane statements.
49.36
[General Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein]
Turks who killed men during the march used the excuse that they had to protect themselves against
insurgency. About women and children who were kidnapped and raped the Turks invoked the pretext that
they could not control the Kurds and gendarmes. When they let the deportees die of hunger, the pretext this
time was that the logistic difficulties of the march were such that they could not cope with it.
50.24
[Takouhi Andonian, survivor, born in 1900 in Bitlis]
My mother and brother were very sick. They were left behind sitting under a tree. It made no difference, they
were to die earlier or later. Then came another band who took the young girls. Many tried to escape and hide.
Finally I broke loose and found myself alone. I also saw many girls to whom "it" happened, who then threw
themselves in the river Euphrates. I didn't do that. I thought that at night the wolves could eat me. I got up
and continued to walk.
51.36
[Tracy Atkinson]
Fact: the men were murdered, the girls were kidnapped for harems and households, and the women robbed
and left behind helpless. One didn't know what's next.
51.52
[Count Paul Wolff Metternich]
In June 1916 the Armenians' persecution in the Eastern provinces entered its late stage. The Turkish
government didn't let itself be distracted from implementing its program, not by our requests or the
intervention of the American Ambassador, the Pope, or the threats of the Entente, and last of all by any
consideration for public opinion in the West.
52.39
[ Ernst Christoffel, director of a home for the blind in Sivas and Malatia, 1904-1919]
There are cattle cars on the Baghdad Railway, more precisely cars for sheep and goats so divided that there is
an upper and a lower space, and both these low spaces can be filled with smaller animals. The deported were
crowded in these spaces just like the sheep. One could not stand or even crouch in the overcrowded cars. Men
and women, old and young were driven in these for days on end.
53.10
[Walter Roessler]
The Baghdad Railway, a German project, was built from Constantinople to Baghdad under German
supervision. For approximately 100,000 Armenians of Western Asia Minor it became a sure way to go to
their death. They were also forced to pay for the train tickets. Thousands were transported every day,
including the very sick. The dead were simply dropped at the stops. Corpses were found on the rails also
between stations.
53.48
[Martin Niepage]
The Baghdad Railway's engineers reported revolting things when they came home. They reported that groups
of corpses of raped women were lying about on the rails, many of these with sticks shoved in their anus.
54.31
[Walter Roehner]
The director of the Baghdad Railway, a Swiss, told me that he had become quite hardened after seeing a lot in
life, but he had not thought anything like this to be possible. One will understand why Jemal Pasha issued a
severe ban on photographing the deported. According to the military order, photographing Armenians was
11 | P a g e
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
counted as a crime equivalent to the photographing of war installations.
55.05
A few German soldiers, however, managed to document photographically the misery of the deported and
bring these documents out of the country. These are shocking witnesses that document with precision the first
genocide of the 20th century.
55.22
[Armin Wegner]
Most frightening of all was the sight of a crowd of orphans, increasing every day. A series of holes in the
ground had been dug for them on the border of a tent camp, covered with old rags. They sat under these rags,
heads together, boys and girls of every age, desperate, becoming like animals, without food, without even the
lowest form of human assistance, huddled together in the cold night. Their children's eyes were inscrutable
and desperate with suffering. Even though their gaze was numb they seemed to carry the bitterest indictment
of the whole world.
56.16
[Martin Niepage]
The German consul in Mossul, Mr. Holstein, reported having seen, on many sections on the road from
Mossul to Aleppo, so many chopped-off children hands that one could have paved the roadway with them.
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.
56.43
Children's homes, orphanages and hospitals of the Western missionaries were the last station of the
deported. The mission nurses and doctors tried desperately to at least save the surviving children from dying.
They realized that the survival of as many children as possible was the only chance of survival of the
Armenian people itself.
57.11
[Count Paul Wolff Metternich]
The behavior of the Turkish government with regard to orphanages, hospitals and schools must be mentioned
here. These were managed by German and American associations to help the Armenian population. 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.
57.38
[Martin Niepage]
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. The American government's offer to
carry the deported to America, at American government expense on American ships, was also rejected.
58.12
[Beatrice Rohner]
Then the Turkish government gave an order that took away almost 1,000 Armenian children. The last I saw
of them was a special train that carried them, and a pall of obscurity fell on them --and me.
59.02
[Ernst Christoffel]
Of those who lived in our home for the blind, almost all died of beating or hunger, or disappeared. Of the
only six survivors three came back. I had news about very few of the others. The crippled Mariam Badji
hungered to death, little blind Levon too. Blind Khatun is said to have drowned in Gülçik (?), a river in which
thousands of Armenians have been drowned.
60.11
[Count Paul Wolff Metternich]
12 | P a g e
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
I have seriously discussed the Armenian question with Enver Pasha and Jemal Pasha. They hid behind the
necessities of war and said that ringleaders must be punished --in response to an accusation that hundreds of
thousands of women, children and old people were dead.
60.30
[Walter Roessler]
The Turkish government damaged both itself and us, its ally. It threatened the only road to Egypt with a
danger of pestilence and blocked it with tens of thousands of people when it could have been any day needed
for troop movements.
60.54
In the middle of WWI, the Turkish government ignored important strategic considerations. The deportation
of the Armenians had the highest priority for the government. Men were murdered first. Women and children
finally reached the town of Urfa, where they were concentrated in a camp, where they waited, apathic and
desperate.
61.25
[Jakob Künzler]
Urfa was the place of passage for hundreds of thousands of people on the way to the Mesopotamian steppe.
The deported here grew constantly sadder and more desperate. There were no men left at all among the
deported. They consisted only of women and children 4-12 years old. Only small fractions of initially very
large groups reached Urfa.
As I arrived to the camp bringing bread, a woman called to me: "Why do you bring bread? What should we
do with bread? We are going to death. Bring us poison, so that we can die right here. Let them not transport
us further. We know what is waiting for us if we reach the steppe." The milk of women with infants was
totally dried up. A few women had the courage to throw their children in the well to free them more quickly.
Sitting in rows in the court they cried as long as they could, until death freed them.
63.26
[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. An alley well-planted, not with fresh green
plants but human corpses at every stage of decomposition. Some fell immediately outside of the city gates.
Some were bastinadoed to drag themselves a few hundred feet further. Others could not be put on their feet
by any torture known to man. So they finally left their life in order to free themselves from suffering.
64.21
[Alma Johansson]
It was almost unbearable. We met several groups of Armenian women and children on the way. Their
appearance was desperate. The gendarmes riding with them told openly what they did to the poor people
during the journey. 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."
64.56
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.
65.13
[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. When I was there it had approximately 60,000 people, mostly wandering skeletons.
Distorted by hunger, they had only little left of the human.
65.47
[Beatrice Rohner]
Right by the entrance of the camp that I visited was a pile of unburied corpses. Directly next to that were the
13 | P a g e
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
tents of the living, suffering of severe diarrhea. The filth in the tents was undescribable.
66.16
[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.
And elderly gendarme told me that he had been there already 25 days. He said he approved the punishment of
the Armenians because some had worked against the government. However, it would have been better, he
said, to shoot them instead of killing them slowly by torture. He said he couldn't take it anymore, he was sure
to lose his mind if he had to continue seeing such limitless misery.
66.58
[Armin Wegner]
I once found a pile of mixed human rests in a ravine. White skulls still covered with hair, a pelvis, the
delicately bowed ribs of a child. In that moment blunt despair brought tears to my eyes, as if I had to destroy
every hope, every seed of love, everything that bound me to life.
67.54
[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. I read from notes I had then taken: "1 pm. A woman lies dead
on the left of the road, naked, wearing only brown stockings on her feet, body distorted, arms buried. 1.30
pm, on the right an old man with a white beard, lying on the back. Two steps down a boy, naked, on the face,
part of the gluteus torn out. 2 pm, five fresh tombs........[reading continues]
69.32
[Henry Morgenthau]
One day Talat Pasha came to me with a question, the most astonishing I have ever heard: "The insurance
companies New York Insurance and Equity Life, also of New York, have done excellent business with the
Armenians. I would like you to bring these companies to send us a complete list of their insured and the
amounts. As the heirs are now also dead, we, the government, are the beneficiaries. Could you please do
that?" Of course I refused.
70.18
In 1918 the victorious allied powers occupied Constantinople. The young Turks were deposed. The
Parliament, long under their heel, now called them to account. Turkish tribunals sentenced the principal
actors to death in absentia, as they had managed to escape. Enver, Jemal and Talat Pasha escaped with
German help on a German warship. Talat Pasha went to Berlin where he lived with his wife under an
assumed name, in obscurity but comfortably. Germany continued to protect him and keep mum about the
crimes of its ally. But on March 15, 1921, Talat Pasha was shot to death in downtown Berlin. The killer,
immediately captured, declared that even though he had just killed a man, he was not a murderer. The death
of the former Turkish head of government created an international sensation. Decades later it became known
that the killer belonged to a secret Armenian group aiming to eliminate the organizers of the genocide. The
action of young Soghomon Telerian ensured that the genocide became finally known in Germany in the early
1920es.
72.00
[Armin Wegner]
The pistol shot of the unknown Armenian student Telerian and his trial unveiled again to the World again --
for the first time to the German people-- the bloodiest chapter of World War I. The truth was clear, that of the
systematic annihilation of the Armenian people by the Turkish government.
72.24
The trial took place in the Tiergarten tribunal. German diplomats were not authorized to testify. The German
Foreign Office tried to block the trial from becoming one of the genocide, which risked to involve the
14 | P a g e
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
responsibility of the German government. The jury found Telerian not guilty after only three days.
72.47
[Armin Wegner]
The power of the facts that came to the light in the three-day trial was so overwhelming that the jury reached
a Not Guilty verdict even though there had been an open, violent killing. So, against all the attempts to make
it non-political, the trial and the acquittal made World history.
73.12
Without saying it in so many words, the jury recognized that a genocide cannot be left unpunished. Raphael
Lemkin, a student, followed the trial from Poland. Years later, he was to draft the UN Convention on
Genocide.
[Raphael Lemkin]
Telerian had appointed himself to executor of mankind's conscience. Can anyone do that? At that moment,
the murder of an innocent people gained more significance than anything. 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.
74.04
But the world was still far away from doing that at the end of WWI. At the 1920 peace conference, the
Armenians were promised an international condemnation of the genocide but under the new Turkish head of
state, Kemal Atatürk, Turkey was in 1923 once more the indispensable oriental ally of the Western Powers.
Strategic considerations were more important than humanity. Conference participants in Lausanne gave in to
Atatürk's demand not to recognize the genocide and not to recognize an independent Armenian state in Asia
Minor. A return of the Armenians to their Turkish homeland was rejected by Ankara.
74.52
[Gen. Kress von Kressenstein]
To get the Turks to accept a return of the refugees to their home in Asia Minor was impossible. The Turks
insisted in hiding behind the old pretext that a return of the Armenians meant a danger for the Turkish army.
75.09
The survivors of the genocide were mainly women and children. They were kept as household slaves or in
harems, helplessly open to abuse. The missionaries tried tirelessly to save whoever they could.
75.30
[Karen Jeppe]
It was enough to make one despair. How could these remains of the Armenian people continue to exist in
these circumstances? The many, many orphans --it was simply too much. Our fear for them was strangling
us.
76.04
[Jakob Künzler]
After the war, my wife and I managed to bring 8,000 children in Lebanon. From Harput, where 5,000 were,
one had to organize as large a group as possible. In three months I managed to organize two convoys with a
total of 7,000 children. To see the joy in the children's faces was an incredible experience. The Israelites in
the Bible could not have been happier coming out of Egypt.
76.46
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.
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.
In Turkey itself, there should be approximately 60,000 Armenians. Only a minority of them, however,
publicly recognize their origin.
15 | P a g e
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
78.00
CBS television presents: The UN decisions. Tonight: Genocide.
"Our guest tonight 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. Can you please tell us shortly how you came to
be interested in genocide?"
"I became interested in it when recognizing that it was happening all too often. First it was the Armenians,
and they were thrown a bone at the peace conference in France: a promise that the criminals responsible for
the genocide would be punished. They were not punished."
78.52
In 1934 the remains of Talat Pasha were sent by the Nazis to Turkey and received with a pompous state
ceremony. The impunity with which Talat had managed the genocide of the Armenians strengthened the
Nazis in their plans to commit one of their own. On Aug 22, 1939, a few days before the aggression on
Poland, 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."
He added: "Who still talks today about the elimination of the Armenians?"
Hitler's cynical question shows clearly that it is possible to commit a gigantic crime without being called to
account internationally.
79.51
[Raphael Lemkin]
As no action was taken, Hitler felt authorized to act as he chose. This finally moved the world to do
something. As for me, being a lawyer, I thought that such a crime must be punished by international law.
80.05
Lemkin drafted the Genocide Convention of the UN, approved by most of the members in 1948. Two years
later the Convention was also signed by Turkey. The methods applied by Turkey, like expropriation,
selection, deportation, death marches and death camps, seemed to Lemkin a blueprint for the Hitlerian
holocaust --and further genocides.
80.38
"This Convention should be signed by all governments and ratified by all Parliaments as soon as possible in
order to provide protection for human rights, social progress and international peace."
80.57
[Raphael Lemkin]
The suffering of the Armenian men, women and children thrown in the Euphrates, or massacred on the way
to Deir Zor, has paved the way to the acceptance of the UN Genocide Convention.
81.18
The murder of the Armenian people was defined by the United Nations as a genocide. 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. There are two monumental tombs for Enver and Talat Pasha in Istanbul --as if their crimes had never
happened.
81.48
[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.
82.04
In Istanbul, Ankara, anywhere and everywhere in Turkey one finds streets named for the murderers. Talat
Pasha Boulevard or Square, Enver Pasha street, etc. There seem to be no objection to naming an elementary
school, either, for the man who committed a genocide.
82.34
16 | P a g e
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
[Patrick Devedjian, French Minister of Industry]
It is as if the Nazi government members were generally honored in today's Germany. Think what the reaction
of a young Jew would be to know that there is an Adolf Eichmann Street in Berlin today.
82.54
Now, just as it was then, Turkey is an important ally. Now like then the governments keep shy of the
genocide question, even when countries like France, Germany and Russia have condemned it. No country has
until now clearly demanded that Turkey recognize the genocide, to say nothing of justice and reparation for
the Armenians.
83.22
[Patrick Devedjian]
The USA is in the first rank of these countries. Until 1917 it was neutral vis-à-vis Turkey. It had consuls
there. The US has many reports of its diplomats, including its ambassador, many of which are in the public
domain. They have clear and undeniable evidence of the organization of the deportations and extermination
of the Armenians. So the USA has less of an excuse than other countries to ignore this genocide.
84.03
[Adam Schiff, Member of the US House of Representatives, Democratic Party]
If the most powerful country in the World doesn't dare speak openly about this genocide, why should
Turkey?
84.10
In 2007, after several unsuccessful attempts, the US Congress tried again to recognize the genocide in a
resolution. Turkey threatened to sever diplomatic relations and recalled its ambassador from DC.
84.28
[Alfio Sires, Member of the US House of Representatives, Democratic Party]
Why all of a sudden all this pother about such a resolution? The genocide happened. Why not recognize it
and move on? I feel pressured, as if a Turkish sword was hanging over my head, about voting the wrong way.
84.49
Today's president --then Senator-- Barack Obama, takes part in the discussion. The historical facts are clear
for him:
[Barack Obama, US Senator, 2007, Democratic Party]
For all who are unaware of it, the genocide against the Armenian people did take place but the Turkish
government is insistently denying it. This is a raw spot in our diplomatic relations.
85.26
But the resolution was defeated once more thanks to the intervention of President G.W. Bush. His Secretary
of State, Condoleezza Rice, had to appear at a hearing.
[Adam Schiff]
"You and secretary Gates have asked the Committee to vote against the resolution on the Armenian genocide.
Was it because Turkey is an ally? Is this a morally valid reason to ignore the extermination of a million and a
half people? We don't allow this in the case of the Holocaust, or the genocide in Rwanda, we don't let it
become a matter of the local government. Why do we leave the decision about this genocide to the Turks?"
[Condoleezza Rice, US Foreign Minister, 2005-2009, Republican Party]
The reasons are clear to me as an academician. But as Foreign Secretary I believe that this is in the best
interest of the US not to make a judgment. Turks and Armenians should find a solution among themselves.
And yes, Turkey is a good ally.
86.28
From the start of the Iraq war, the US is dependent on its military bases in Turkey. US planes to Iraq and
Afghanistan fly from there.
86.41
17 | P a g e
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”
[Adam Schiff]
Turkey 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. Our governments, the former one as well as the present one, have yielded under
pressure, becoming complicit in another nation's campaign of denial of genocide.
87.10
Barack Obama in the Turkish Parliament, now as President of the US. In his inauguration speech he did not
openly address the Armenian genocide and did not ask Turkey to recognize historic facts.
87.28
[Robert Menendez, US Senator, Democratic Party]
I see a hypocrisy in not recognizing the Armenian genocide for the only reason that a US ally doesn't like the
idea. I am frustrated to see that the President has not formally recognized the genocide. I am convinced that
President Obama personally sees the murder of the Armenians as a genocide. 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. The problem for him is clearly our foreign policy vis-à-vis our relationship with Turkey.
88.16
The discussions over the past are meanwhile becoming more intense in Turkey. The taboo starts to be broken.
The government reacts with the request that historians first investigate the facts, as if what has been
established for a long time had to be examined all over again. 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.
The genocide is not a subject for him.
88.57
[Rafi Hovanissian, acting Armenian Foreign Minister]
There have been so many generations since then but the question is not closed. There was never an apology,
not even the simple human recognition that it happened. The Turkish government should be thinking about
what it can do to soothe the pain instead of spending millions of dollars to repress resolutions in Berlin,
Washington etc. They should be asking the Armenians: "What can we do to heal the injustice?" The opening
of a border post between Turkey and Armenia has nothing to do with this. They should be asking: "What can
be done in terms of remembering, restituting, and renovating the cultural heritage?"
89.49
The murdered journalist Hrant Dink tried, through his articles and conferences, to start a long overdue debate
among the Turkish population. Since his murder the topic has become hotter than ever. To protest his murder
200,000 persons participated in one of the largest demonstrations in the country's history, in solidarity with
Hrant Dink and the search for truth.
90.25
[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, that such a demonstration could
happen. 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."
90.44
[Delal Dink, daughter of Hrant Dink]
Nobody could imagine that so many people in Turkey would go on the streets to say: "We are all Hrant Dink,
we are all Armenians!" The people have found their voice and the government will have to hear it. I think it is
starting to hear it.

18 | P a g e
Translation Aghet “ein Völkermord”