Armenian Genocide

Armenian genocide refers to the murders, deportation and various public atrocities inflicted upon the Armenian race by the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

Though Turkey denies that the attempted extermination of the Armenian race was pre-meditated or politically motivated, several U.S. and British archived military documents prove that it was, and simply executed under the guise of World War I.

Turkish rulers lead by Sultan Abdul-Hamid II sought to strengthen the rule of Turkey by grabbing hold of what remained of the Ottoman Empire and viewed the Christian Armenian minority, living as second-class citizens in Turkish territory, as an obstacle to this goal-Armenians had already began movements toward equality and civil rights that would impede the failing rulers' progress.

Turkish military officials performed public hangings, shootings and Gestapo-like arrests of Armenian notable citizens in a first wave of massacres on April 24th, 1915.

Soldiers even arrested Armenian bakers under the false guise they were maliciously poisoning their bread.

Through 1920, teenage and adult Armenian men were murdered indiscriminately while women and children were enslaved, tortured, raped and either marched to their deaths or sold into slavery to be "Turkified," and scrubbed of all Armenian cultural roots. This was all executed under the guise of World War I, and no one has been taken responsibility for the crimes.

It is even noted that in 1939, when Adolf Hitler was ordering the extermination of the Polish during the beginning of the World War II holocaust, he justified his orders to his men by concluding: "Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?"

Today, hundreds of Armenian Genocide memorials and resources exist worldwide, and 21 countries and 43 United States recognize the Armenian genocide as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Though progress is slow to gain worldwide acceptance of these atrocities as an actual genocide, largely due to diplomatic relations between large nations and Turkey, it is our goal to raise awareness until all of humanity recognizes Armenian genocide for what it truly was.

For more information on the specific incidents, documents and memorials that exist surrounding Armenian genocide, please visit the following links:

Armenian Genocide Resource Library for Teachers http://www.teachgenocide.com/background/history.htm

The Forgotten http://www.theforgotten.org/intro.html

Armenian Nationoal Institute http://www.armenian-genocide.org/

International Association of Genocide Scholars http://www.genocidescholars.org/

The Genocide Education Project http://www.genocideeducation.org/

The Armenian Genocide Museaum - Institute http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/index.php

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