Proof of Armenian Genocide

[Pazooki]

I wanted to make this thread because I'm sick of idiots coming on here and saying the Armenian Genocide is an opinion(ferdi) or whatever they're foolish little brains believe. Post whatever proof you have. The more you post the more idiots shut up. I'll start with what I found.

Talat Pasha's associate (can't remember his name) reported he had burned the documents. In this similar vein, when Mithat Sukru and Ziya Gokalp both testified that Dr. Nazim took all the Central Committee's documents.
Mithat Sukru said, "What I understand is that Dr. Nazim Bey took them, or so the staff said."
Ziya Gokalp said, "Dr. Nazim asked for documents on the Committee's history, saying 'I brought them from Europe and I shall keep them safe...' But I later learned that the documents weren't separated from any others. He took them [all] away in boxes."
[This comes from A Shameful Act, by Taner Akcam, who cites "Second session, Takvim-i Vekayi, no. 3543 (4 Mayis 1335/4 May 1919)."]

You might also find interesting this.
"The deportation law issued by the Ottoman government must have owed something to the Allies' declaration of 24 May 1915, when the governments of Britain, France and Russia jointly issued a note stating 'In light of the crimes against humanity and civilisation committed by Turkey, the allied powers warn the Sublime Porte that members of the Ottoman government involved in the mass murder will be held personally responsible for these crimes.' [Akcam cites, Willis, Prologue to Nuremburg, p. 26] The Interior Ministry's efforts to give the expulsions a semblance of legality began two days after this note was issued. Talat Pasa demanded a decree from the government to give official cover to his actions. [Akcam cites, Bayur, Turk Inkilabi Tarihi, p. 39]"

I've read that the Dashnaks did not do so many oppressive actions, but the Russian Armenians did (especially in Van province), and they targeted Christian as well as Muslim villages. They also numbered 4,000.
The fact that there were massacres on "both sides" (The Russian Armenians acted without approval of any Armenian patriachates, and some Armenians teamed up with Turks to defend themselves against them), however, doesn't take away from the intent of genocide on one side. Too often, most (not all) Turks just want to stop right there and say it was a civil war.

If the Ottoman Turks really did want to settle the Armenians in Syria to get them away from the front lines, why were they moved to yet another front (the southern front against the British)? Why weren't there any preparations made for the deportations, not at the beginning or the end of the war?
"Officially, the Armenians, who constituted a danger to the army, were distanced from the war zone. In fact, they were deported from areas far removed from the war zone directly into the theater of operations, from inner Anatolia to the front where the Fourth and Sixth Armies were fighting the British. [Akcam cites, Cerkez Hasan, "Peki Yuzbinlerce Ermeniyi Kim Oldurdu?," Alemdar, 5 Nisan (April) 1919] Furthermore, at no point during the deportation--not at the start, nor on the road, nor at the final destinations--were any preparations made fro the mass movement of people. This alone was enough to demonstrate that the campaign's aim was deliberate extermination." [A Shameful Act, Taner Akcam]

[Pedro Xaramillo]

Re: Proof of Armenian Genocide

Sero, how are you bro, great thread, check out this site http://www.ermeni.org which has testimonies from the survivors of Van, Moush and Bitlis, proving the Genocide

[Pazooki]

Re: Proof of Armenian Genocide

Sero, how are you bro, great thread, check out this site http://www.ermeni.org which has testimonies from the survivors of Van, Moush and Bitlis, proving the Genocide

Ap jan inchxes?

Thanks for site but I'm kinda disappointed no one else has posted even though there is a ton of proof which others have.

[Eddo211]

Re: Proof of Armenian Genocide

Good information Sero:
It would be great to point them to your type of posts (more ammo for me) so just maybe something will click in their heads and they will comeback and talk to you man to man.

I have personally giving up long ago trying to show evidence to the Turks about the truth………………..I use a different approach.

[Crimson Glow]

Re: Proof of Armenian Genocide

Honestly, what you're asking for is a bit too complex for a thread like this. You can't just randomly throw out quotes and opinions (which is all that has been provided so far). First, there has to be some kind of organization. Break down different categories/stages of the genocide, and provide proof related to each one of those stages. More importantly, you have to show proof of an intent to eliminate the Armenian people if you expect to successfully label this a genocide. Lastly, don't expect to ever convince a Turk, regardless of how much undisputed evidence you provide. I think it was Joseph who said this, and he put it best. If god came down today, and told the Turks their ancestors committed genocide against the Armenians, the Turks would say god is a liar, and has falsified evidence.

That being said, I would set it up this way (see next post). This is just a messy rundown. I have a Word document somewhere where I compiled a very neatly organized list of archival evidence, with citations to the actual archives themselves (not quotes from books, or off web pages). I also had a LOOOOT more quotes saved on that document. I will edit and clean up/add to the post when I find that. It's on a corrupted hard drive that I'm using as a slave drive at the moment till I get a chance to build a new computer.

[Crimson Glow]

Re: Proof of Armenian Genocide

Evidence for lack of "massive Armenian rebellions"

"Until recently, in fact at the beginning of this year, the Armenians were regarded as the most reliable element, indeed the only reliable people within the Christian elements in Turkey. One could read it in all the newspapers and the important Turkish dignitaries confirmed this on every occasion, which presented itself...Since March, an about-turn has taken place which is as general and consequent as if the Turks had never known up until now what dangerous people had been living within their midst."
Von Tysza, German journalist in Ottoman Turkey, from German Archives - (1915-10-01-DE-001)

"In the absence of menfolk, nearly all of whom have been conscripted, how can women and children pose a threat?"
Aleppo German Consul, Walter Rossler, report to Berlin declared, 27 July 1915

Evidence for Ottoman-Armenian population figures being downplayed

"During the reign of Abdul Hamid we lowered the population figures of the Armenians. By the order of Abdul Hamid the number of the Armenians deliberately had been put in low figures."
Originally published in Ottoman Turkish in 1920 in Istanbul by Islam and Askeri Publishers. p. 126, 133

Vital Cuinet, who was the French geographer in charge of surveying populations, said it was basically impossible to get accurate numbers due to "limitations imposed by the Turkish authorities”, and a “lack of control of the Turkish authorities for farther provinces."
La Turquie d'Asie : géographie administrative, statistique, descriptive et raisonée de chaque province de l'Asie-Mineure, 4 vols., Paris, 1890-95

The official British embassy figures also show how inaccurate Ottoman figures were through "the provinces of Van, Bitlis, Mamuretal-Aziz (Harput), Diyarbekir, Erzerum, and the independent district of Maras, where British figures are 62 % higher (847,000) compared with 523,065. The understatement of the non-Moslem figures appears to be intentional."
Meir Zamir, Population Statistics of the Ottoman Empire in 1914 and 1919, Middle Eastern Studies 17, 1981, p.81

Evidence that the "Malta Tribunals" never existed

British Foreign Affairs Minister Lord Curzon - "The less we say about these people [the Turks detained at Malta] the better…I had to explain why we released the Turkish deportees from Malta skating over thin ice as quickly as I could. There would have been a row I think...The staunch belief among members [of Parliament is] that one British prisoner is worth a shipload of Turks, and so the exchange was excused."
British Foreign Office Archives, FO 371/7882/E4425, folio 182

British ambassador Aukland Geddes stated on June 1, 1921 that the U.S. archives already contained "a large number of documents on Armenian deportations and massacres."
British Foreign Office Archives, FO 371/6503/E6311, folio 34

Evidence of intention to annihilate the Armenians

"Turkey initiated a policy of annihilation against the Armenians."
Paul von Hindenburg, German Field Marshall in the Ottoman Empire during WWI, From My Life, Leipzig, (1934) p169

"The systematic butchery of the uprooted and deported Armenians have assumed such a scope...it was not only tolerated but openly promoted by the government. It meant the extermination of the Armenians. Despite government assurances to the contrary, everything points to the goal of the destruction of the Armenian people."
Hohenloe-Langenburg, German Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Oct-Nov 1915, German Foreign Ministry Archive

"The destruction of the Armenians was undertaken on a massive scale...This policy of extermination will for a long time stain the name of Turkey."
Richard Kuhlmann, German Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire 1916-1917, Forieign Minister 1917-1918, German Foreign Ministry Archives

"The Turks have embarked upon the total extermination of the Armenians in Transcaucasia, also (May 1918)... On the basisof all reports and news comming to me here in Tbilissi [Georgia] there hardly can be any doubt that the Turks systematically are aiming at the... extermination of the few hundred thousand Armenians whom they have left alive until now."
Otto von Lossow, Major General, German Military Plenipotentiary in Turkey and German Representative at Batum Conference in May, 1918 - 11 July 1918 - German Foreign Ministry Archives

"The manner in which the matter of relocation is being handled demonstrates that the government is in fact pursuing the goal of annihilating the Armenian race in Turkey.”
Hans Von Wangenheim: Ambassador of Imperial Germany to Turkey from 1912 - 1915

"The Turks have by no means relinquished their intention to exterminate the Armenians. They merely changed their tactics. Wherever possible, the Armenians are being aroused, provoked in the hope of thereby securing a pretext for new assaults on them."
Friedrich Kress Kressenstein: Major General, Chief of Operations, Turkish
General Headquarters, August 5 1918 - German Foreign Ministry Archives

"In a realization of their plan to resolve the Armenian Question by destroying the Armenian race, the Turkish Government is not stopped neither by our representatives, nor by the public opinion of the west."
Comte Paul Wolff Metternich in a dispatch to the Chancellor Von Bethmann-Holweg, July 10, 1919

"This attempt of the Armenians to defend themselves against the Turkish attack in Van was promptly misrepresented in a communique' which was sent by Enver Pasha and the Turkish Government to Berlin, and thence spread all over the world, as an attack by bands of Armenian insurrectionists who, in the rear of the Turkish army had fallen prey upon the Muhammedan population. Out of 180,000 Moslems in the Vilayet of Van only 30,000 had succeeded in escaping! In a later report issued by the Turkish embassy in Berlin on October 1, 1915, the story was further embellished: 'No fewer than 180,000 Moslems had been killed. It was not surprising that the Moslems had taken vengeance for this'. Some 18 Turks, answering to the number of Armenians they had killed in Van, had turned into 180,000! This astonishing impudent lie has a kind of foundation. According to statistics there should be 180,000 Moslems, including 30,000 Turks and 150,000 Kurds, in the Vilayet of Van. The Turks fled westwards when the Russian army advanced, while the 150,000 Kurds remained where they were, and were molested neither by the Russians nor the Armenians."
Dr. Fridtjof Nansen in Armenia and the Near East (1928) p. 302

"The Van uprising certainly was an act of desperation. The local Armenians realized that general massacres against the Armenians had already started and they would be the next target. In the course of the summer 1915 the Turkish government with inexorable consequence brought its bloody task of extermination of an entire nation to an end...The gruesome destruction of the Armenian nation in Asia Minor by the Ittihadist government was an act which was barbaric and which to the highest degree outrages all human senses."
Joseph Pomiankowski, Vice-Marshall, Austrian Military Plenipotentiary in Wartime Turkey during WWI, Collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Vienna, 1928, p.160 - 161

"The criminal gangs who were released from the prisons, after a week's training at the War Ministry's training grounds, were sent off to the Caucasian front as the brigands of the Special Organization, perpetrating the worst crimes against the Armenians ... The Ittihadists intended to destroy the Armenians, and thereby to do away with the Question of the Eastern Provinces.... In order to justify this enormous crime [of the Armenian genocide] the requisite propaganda material was thoroughly prepared in Istanbul. [It included such statements as:] the Armenians are in league with the enemy. They will launch an uprising in Istanbul, kill off the Ittihadist leaders and will succeed in opening up the straits [to enable the Allied fleets to capture Istanbul]. These vile and malicious incitements [were such, however, that they] could persuade only people who were not even able to feel the pangs of their own hunger. ... among those Armenians who were atrociously wasted, despite the fact that they were most innocent, guiltless, and who had committed no crime whatsoever, were the Armenians of Bursa, Ankara, Eskiehir, and Konya."
Ahmet Refik, Turkish Military Intelligence Officer in WWI in İki Komite-İki Kıtâl, İstanbul 1919

"I defended the Armenians who, even though they were completely innocent, were murdered simply because they were Armenians. The dictates of justice and the state's badge required such intervention."
Ottoman Senator Ahmet Riza, from his memoirs

"The partisans of Ittihad are unabashedly conceding that their ultimate aim [Endziel] is the total annihilation (ganzliche Ausrottung) of the Armenians of Turkey, adding, 'After the war we no longer will have any Armenians in Turkey.'"
Dr. Ludwig Maximilian Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, German Vice Consul, Erzerum, 28 July 1915

They [the Ittahadist leaders] have fabricated, for the benefit of Allied Powers, an alleged revolution stirred up by the Dashnak party. They have inflated the importance of isolated incidents and acts of self-defense by the Armenians and used it as an excuse to deport the bordering population. On the way. the Armenians have been murdered, on orders of the Committee, by gangs of Kurds and Turks and at times, even by gendarmes."
Dr. Ludwig Maximilian Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, dispatch to German Authorities, December 1916, Document No. 309

"The deprotation and destruction of the Armenians was decided by the Young Turks Committee in Constantinople."
Colonel Stange, Commander of the 8th Regiment (consisting mostly of convicts released from Turkish prisons to join the killer bands of the Special Organization), German Foreign Ministry Archives.

"It can no longer be denied that the Turks... have undertaken the extermination of the Armenian race and it appears that they have largely succeeded in it. With certain air of gleefulness Talaat recently told me that in Erzerum, for example, there should be remaining not a single Armenian... Turkey today is under a maniacal spell due to the realization that she carried out the extermination of the Armenian race with impunity."
Karl Count zu Trautmansdorff-Weinsberg, Temporary Ambassador to Turkey, 30 September 30, 1915, Austrian Foriegn Ministry Archives

"By February 1916, 1.5 million Armenians were destroyed ... the first step toward the recovery of the economic predominance in Turkey ... there was joy in the government circles that the long-desired opportunity finally presented itself..."
A. A. Türkei, 134/35, A18613, pp. 1,2,3,4 "Volkswirtschaftliche Studien in der Türkey" report.

"As for the Armenians, they were treated differently in the different vilayets. They were suspect and spied upon everywhere, but they suffered a real extermination, worse than massacre, in the so-called 'Armenian Vilayets.' from the 24th June onwards, the Armenians were all "interned" — that is, ejected by force from their various residences and despatched under the guard of the gendarmerie to distant, unknown destinations, which for a few will mean the interior of Mesopotamia, but for four-fifths of them has meant already a death accompanied by unheard-of cruelties. The official proclamation of internment came from Constantinople. It is the work of the Central Government and the "Committee of Union and Progress." The local authorities, and indeed the Moslem population in general, tried to resist, to mitigate it, to make omissions, to hush it up. But the orders of the Central Government were categorically confirmed, and all were compelled to resign themselves and obey. It was a real extermination and slaughter of the innocents, an unheard-of thing, a black page stained with the flagrant violation of the most sacred rights of humanity... There were about 14,000 Armenians at Trebizond — Gregorians, Catholics, and Protestants. They had never caused disorders or given occasion for collective measures of police. When I left Trebizond, not a hundred of them remained."
G. Gorrini, former Italian Consul-General at Trebizond, Il Messaggero Journal (Rome), August 25 1915

Evidence for total number of Armenians killed

Oct 29, 1915; report from Dr. Arthur Chevalier de Nadamlenzki of the Austria-Hungary Adrianople (Edirne) consul: "For the entire Ottoman Empire 1.5 million had already been deported."
Ibid. 12 Tiirkei/463, Z.94/P.

Jul 2, 1916; report: As early as February 1916, 1.5 million Armenians destroyed.
Volkswirtschaftliche Studien in der Türkei, A. A. Türkei, 134/35, A18613

May 27, 1916; report from Foreign Office Intelligence Director Erzberger: 1.5 million Armenians destroyed.
A.A. Türkei 183/42, A13959

Oct 4, 1916; report from German Interim Ambassador to Turkey Wilhelm Radowitz: 1.5 million Armenians destroyed, 425,000 survive.
A.A. Türkei 183/44, A27493

Mar 13, 1918; report to Vienna from Dr. Kwatkiowski of the Austrian consul at Trabzon and Samsun: 1 million deported in the six eastern provinces, most died.
Austrian Foreign Ministry Archives 12 Türkei/380, ZI.17/pol and 12 Türkei/463, Z.94/P

1918 report from German major Franz Karl Endres serving in the Turkish army: 1.2 million Armenians perished.
Die Türkei. Munich, CH Beck, 1918, p. 161

[Anoush]

Re: Proof of Armenian Genocide

Good starter Sero jan.

Here's a testimony from my own father; a child but remembered well that the turks made the Erzeroumtsis walk the march of death from Erzeroum to Kharpert and then they killed everyone from a slight distance of the City of Kharpert. They have called Kharpert "esbantanots"; which means "the slaughterhouse". They first gathered all the men in a community center and nuked them by setting them on fire. They killed killed killed in every which way they could. For instance one day they pulled away from their homes my grandfather, his father and uncle then after killing them they threw their corpses in front of their house. My father was a witness to all of this. He saw the men first being taken away to say about a few miles away from the town then they were all killed. After that they have made the women and the children to walk the march of death down the Mesopotamian deserts and I read a book by two sisters who have witnessed that no one (all women and children) from their karavan survived as they killed them all. The two sisters survived because they have luckily escaped. They then wrote a book about all this.

On my mother's side, her mother in Smyrna in 1922 escaped running from her house to a cousin's house and the turkish soldiers severed her three year old nephew's head because he yelled at the gendarmes who were hitting my 18 year old of 3 month pregnant grandmother on her shoulder with a gun. Then they cut into my grandmother's cousin's abdomen as she was 8 months pregnant. The turkish gendarmes wanted to know whether it was a boy or a girl. Both mother and child died instantly. My grandmother was a witness to all of this. She said that her younger sister and her two brothers ran from the blazing fires and from above corpses until they were finally rescued by a Greek ship. She came from a very wealthy family of 150 members. Only 5 of them survived.

[Anoush]

Re: Proof of Armenian Genocide

The very same happened in Dikranagert; my maternal grandfather's city. He was not there as he was an educated man and he was previously graduated from the turkish military school which he attended for two years. Then he was fighting on the front; against the Russians when he finally heard that the Armenians were all annihilated from all the Armenian towns. That they were either killed or uprooted to walk the march of death down south to Mesopotamia. Therefore my grandfather's whole family and practically everyone in his city were non existence. The only survivors were his only sister who's baby died walking the march of death and his very young half brother. Their mother and everyone died. His sister and his half brother finally were able to land in Damascus.

[Pazooki]

Re: Proof of Armenian Genocide

Sorry to hear that Anoush jan. My great grandmother, still alive, was in the Genocide and she's from Erzerum.

[Pazooki]

Re: Proof of Armenian Genocide

Honestly, what you're asking for is a bit too complex for a thread like this. You can't just randomly throw out quotes and opinions (which is all that has been provided so far). First, there has to be some kind of organization. Break down different categories/stages of the genocide, and provide proof related to each one of those stages. More importantly, you have to show proof of an intent to eliminate the Armenian people if you expect to successfully label this a genocide. Lastly, don't expect to ever convince a Turk, regardless of how much undisputed evidence you provide. I think it was Joseph who said this, and he put it best. If god came down today, and told the Turks their ancestors committed genocide against the Armenians, the Turks would say god is a liar, and has falsified evidence.

That being said, I would set it up this way (see next post). This is just a messy rundown. I have a Word document somewhere where I compiled a very neatly organized list of archival evidence, with citations to the actual archives themselves (not quotes from books, or off web pages). I also had a LOOOOT more quotes saved on that document. I will edit and clean up/add to the post when I find that. It's on a corrupted hard drive that I'm using as a slave drive at the moment till I get a chance to build a new computer.

Trying is better than nothing. I hope some people on here actually change their views and start recognizing that this isn't just a online computer game they play by denying to see our reactions but something that could change our future.