Today marks the 98th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
The Armenian Genocide was the Ottoman Empire's (now Turkey) government's systematic extermination of its minority Armenian population from the Armenian's historical homeland in the territory that is present day Turkey.
It took place during World War I and was comprised of the killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and forced labor, and the deportation of women, children, the elderly and disabled on death marches to the Syrian Desert.
The total number of Armenians killed as a result of the Armenian Genocide has been estimated at between 1 and 1.5 million.
It is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides, as scholars point to the organized manner in which the killings were carried out to eliminate the Armenians, and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust. The word "genocide" was created by Raphael Lemkin in order to describe what had happened to the Armenians.
The starting date of the genocide is held to be April 24, 1915, the day when Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles towards extermination camps, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse commonplace.
Examples of forms of torture and murder included mass burnings, mass drownings, mass death marches, and use of poison/drug overdoses for in particular children including morphine overdose, toxic gas, and typhoid inoculation.
Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, denies the word genocide is an accurate description of the events. In recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as genocide. To date, twenty countries including France, Canada, Russia & Switzerland have officially recognized the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars and historians accept that it was indeed a genocide.
You will find below photos of the events of the Armenian Genocide. You may find some photos DISTURBING, but what I have posted below is in fact extremely tame compared to other photos which show Armenians during the genocide being crucified to crosses, beheaded, and babies being dismembered using contraptions to cut them in half.
Note that torture against the Armenians by the Turks during the genocide was prevalent & encouraged by the Ottoman government.
There have been many documentaries and films about the Armenian Genocide, including a PBS documentary narrated by Natalie Portman, Orlando Bloom, Jared Leto, and Julianna Margulies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF71ruYqJxM).
I will end with a quote by Adolf Hitler, who many historians believe was inspired by the Armenian Genocide.
The Armenian Genocide was the Ottoman Empire's (now Turkey) government's systematic extermination of its minority Armenian population from the Armenian's historical homeland in the territory that is present day Turkey.
It took place during World War I and was comprised of the killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and forced labor, and the deportation of women, children, the elderly and disabled on death marches to the Syrian Desert.
The total number of Armenians killed as a result of the Armenian Genocide has been estimated at between 1 and 1.5 million.
It is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides, as scholars point to the organized manner in which the killings were carried out to eliminate the Armenians, and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust. The word "genocide" was created by Raphael Lemkin in order to describe what had happened to the Armenians.
The starting date of the genocide is held to be April 24, 1915, the day when Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles towards extermination camps, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse commonplace.
Examples of forms of torture and murder included mass burnings, mass drownings, mass death marches, and use of poison/drug overdoses for in particular children including morphine overdose, toxic gas, and typhoid inoculation.
Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, denies the word genocide is an accurate description of the events. In recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as genocide. To date, twenty countries including France, Canada, Russia & Switzerland have officially recognized the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars and historians accept that it was indeed a genocide.
You will find below photos of the events of the Armenian Genocide. You may find some photos DISTURBING, but what I have posted below is in fact extremely tame compared to other photos which show Armenians during the genocide being crucified to crosses, beheaded, and babies being dismembered using contraptions to cut them in half.
Note that torture against the Armenians by the Turks during the genocide was prevalent & encouraged by the Ottoman government.
There have been many documentaries and films about the Armenian Genocide, including a PBS documentary narrated by Natalie Portman, Orlando Bloom, Jared Leto, and Julianna Margulies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF71ruYqJxM).
I will end with a quote by Adolf Hitler, who many historians believe was inspired by the Armenian Genocide.
