over the last several years jeffrey brommer has been researching and giving presentations on the holocaust and the armenian genocide he has a masters of divinity degree from harvard university and he is a fine arts photographer he currently works as the education coordinator for hand in plastic surgery at beth israel deaconess medical center let's welcome jeffrey thank you very much for coming tonight ninety eight years ago yesterday the our army and genocide officially began and it's commemorated by the armenian community every year april twenty fourth and so i'm going to begin my talk this is a talk about remembrance i'm going to begin my talk with a moment of silence and i want to clos silence as my wife says it's often sometimes silence speaks much more powerfully than words so when on are of all the many victims who are murdered let's begin with just a moment of  silence total my talk is called in remembrance the armenian genocide in some parts of the world i could not give this talk because there is still no recognition that a genocide ever occurred the united states is not recognized officially that a genocide has occurred nor is israel recognized it officially as well my talk is about genocide and i think by the end of the talk you will see that it fits the definition but i think it's much much more than that i think it's really more about remembrance because i think it's important that we remember this event so that we can learn the lessons of what occurred then  even time preceding that and time after but also that we remember it for today and for the future this is the un definition of genocide and it was established on december ninth one nine hundred forty eight by jewish man from the ukraine a lawyer called raffi can and this is the definition and he used as the basis for his definition both the armenian genocide and the holocaust he would lose most of his family in the holocaust and i think as we go through we will see that this fits that definition killing members of a group causing seriously bodily or mental harm to members of the group deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in a whole or in part in posy measures intended to prevent births within the group and forcibly transferring children of the group from one group to another how did i get involved in this i give talks on the holocaust many talks on the holocaust and one day at the shriners hospital for children in boston i was given plastic surgery grand rounds and after the talk a young researcher who was armenian came up to me and she said i really enjoyed your talk on the holocaust but why are not people giving more talks on the armenian genocide and i answered her i think probably quite appropriately and gave my own rationale but the but the question haunted me it haunted me for several years and i began to slowly research about the armenian genocide and i also began to cumulate photographs about it this photograph here is actually from the warsaw ghetto and then about three or four years ago i had to go to a pa and i apologize for dr allen de khazarian photograph of there but he was my period on test and we started talking about the holocaust and we started talking about the armenian genocide and he's working on my guns as i sitting in the chair and he mentioned that his mother a reka de kazarian who is today a hundred and who is this year's one hundred one years old and is a survivor of the armenian genocide and this is her photograph i took i think about a year and a half ago with one of the most prominent armenian historians who gave a talk here in belmont name raman kevorkian and at that particular time i promised dr de or khazarian that i would give a talk on the armenian genocide i go home and the next day this top begins to pour out of me this is a person from the armenian genocide and what i like to contrast is that certain points genocide no matter your ethnicity no matter your religion no matter your class or what group you come from you all begin to look together and humanity humanity that suffer all begins to look alike adolf hitler as i written began to research also refers to the armenian genocide and this is what he would say before his generals and primary leaders right before they attacked poland in august of one nine hundred thirty nine i have placed my death head formations in readiness with orders to send a death merciless without compassion men women and children of polish derivation and only thus sure we gain the living space which we need who after all speaks today of the annihilation of the armenians there are several key points here that you will see as we also as we move forward the whole notion of death head formations you will also see that in the armenians the whole focus on land and living space is also a factor in finally the whole conditions of war some people did remember the armenian genocide in addition to hitler one was a jewish writer famous jewish writer named he was from czechoslovakia but he lived much of his life in vienna and he wrote a famous novel one of the most famous novels in the one nine hundred thirty s called the forty days of dog the book would later be censored by adolf hitler and in the warsaw ghetto in the ghettos of wood your luggage in the ghettos of kovno as well as many of the other ghettos in eastern europe in their libraries the forty days a dog would be one of the most which books that were checked out so for those jews who were starving who were sick in who were dying and in the ghettos of eastern europe this was a very important book and why because it talked about a community in crisis a community that was in fragmentation a community that was starving a community that was be elimination deported excedrin and what were their choices and so again i just point that out for those that you don't know where is armenia and this is an ancient map  and in the middle ages and when the medieval map makers were making maps they were looking like where did the garden of eden begin and some people surmised that the garden of eden began with the kind of the formation of euphrates river and the tigris river and if you followed those rivers they lead to mt ararat which is in armenia so in some sense some people would thought one of the oldest places in civilisation would be armenia now this is i like to bring up this point because this is a famous scripture it's called am i my brother's keeper and so since we're talking about genesis and since we're talking about the garden of eden i thought it was very appropriate does anyone know what the first story is after adam and eve are kicked out of the garden of eden it's the story of cain and abel it's the first murder in the bible and in some sense murder has always become part of the human experience and so if you recall the story god's kind of looking for abel and he asked cain and he asked cain he says cain where is your brother abel and abel say as in my my brother's keeper am i my brother's keeper and so are not one of the things that i always think about is i say that we are our brother's keeper but this story is also about are we our brother's keeper of wealth then as well as today again for those of you do who don't know where armenia is this is the time of the roman period and this is again armenia here it they lost to rome in sixty five b c so it was a country of ancient roots it would also be conquered by the parthians also around the same time so one of the misfortunes of armenian history is that it's always a it's really a small little country it's always be an kind of in between conquer a large concrete empires and you also see it at this time this is the ninth and eleventh century and you have the byzantine empire here and you have many of the muslim empires that are also beginning to converge in and the anatolia peninsula and again armenia is sitting right there it's caught between the vonne you hear that word again as we move forward cars so these are in a meanie is an ancient country and it's also has ancient cities they would also have a culture their own language some people would say they were the first nation that were the first christian nation as a nation so they're an ancient culture with ancient art ancient religion ancient language and they have maintained a percent this is  armenia at the time of the ottoman empire and the ottoman empire comes into this comes into formation around fourteen hundred and constantinople about right here was conquered in fourteen fifty three and there again we have armenia only there's two parts of armenia there's a little part called minor armenia called khaliq and the clique you would actually support sometimes the crusaders richard disperse richard the second when they were going to be part of of palestine or israel and trying to conquer it from solid in and others but you also have the major area now when we look think about the ottoman empire it was about thirty five million people  many religions many ethnicities and many languages and for more than four hundred some years it was pretty stable quite stable and it went from morocco all the way past to the black sea  and one of the things you always have to remember it was also for much of its time a tolerant him because remember if you recall in fourteen ninety two the inquisition occurred in spain and jews were kicked out of either converter will kill you convert or would torture you and one of the places they went was the ottoman empire so again i want to also be fair and always think that this is a very complicated story it's not simple and it has a lot of roots  armenian life light in the autumn an empire they lived under sharia law we hear that word a lot today shari'a law they would pay extra taxes but they did not have any military service or government jobs in general now that had positive than things and positive things about it and negative no one wants to pay extra taxes they had to pay extra taxes but on the other hand they were dying in wars so that that was a good thing for the armenians but sometimes their neighbors their muslim neighbors would say well we're all while our sons are dying in wars your sons are making money so there was a little tension there was also occasions where the armenian children would be kidnapped by the autumn and empire as young children and then they would be sent out to wars for long periods of time they could not go armenians could not go to court against muslims even in cases of murder so they were of second class citizens they were exists they existed and were governed in something called millet's and millets were set up by the sultan for based on religion so the jews had a millet the orthodox christians had a millet the armenian orthodox had an apple stall if they would call it had a millet and later even the catholics would have a millet and the protestants would have a millet what's a millet the best way i can describe it it's like if we all lived in the same house but there's one rule or let's say the sultan and as long as you stay to your little room you did what you were supposed to be a little room you can do whatever you want to your room you can you know you they all have their own courts they all have their own rules usually religious leaders like the armenian priest would be the heads of the militant or the orthodox priest in the greek orthodox church they would be the head or a chief rabbi if you have been in constantinople he would be the head and as long as you behaved in your little room things always went well the question becomes what happens if you want to get out of your room what happens if you want to challenge the sultan then things become more difficult the armenians for hundreds of years were considered loyal loyal but they had fewer rights they were from all classes farmers artists sends weavers trade many times they were involved in business because the muslims didn't want to be involved in business they thought it was it w it made them less holy and so who would do the business and there was competition there was competition between the armenians between the greeks and between the jews and they were competing for the trade they were controlling for a between the merchants excedrin cetera it  all began to change in the one nine hundred send everything begins to change and one thing and i got this from the u s library of congress does bear hugging the turk ok there was a series of where are in the ottoman empire between the russians from basically eighteen zero six to the end of the century and it will extend even into the twentieth century and the ottoman empire basically loses about everyone and this is kind of a cartoon of that a british cartoon i think from punch magazine and it shows like all these groups the british the austrian hungering the empire the russians the french got in there too everyone wants to carve up the empire and so it creates problems and so they called it the sixth sick man of europe because they're saying the man is dying who is going to take over his land that's really what this is about so there's also a rise of national liberation movements colonial expansion there's autumn in wars and debt they're going bankrupt ok and they're they're all in all these western powers money there's also a refugee problem and this becomes really important to the story because every time they lose land there's muslim refugees going into into turkey now where these muslim refugees going they're being sent to the armenian so they're creating and many of these refugees have had atrocities perpetuated against them by christians rape torture and murder and it was going on back and forth there wasn't always a good person and a bad they could both be bad at times there's also european treaties and every time they do a new treaty ottomans lose more land they also have a thing called capitulations or special protections for christians so like you lose a war and slay no you know we're going to have special trade regulations that favor the armenians that favor the greeks that favor the jews not usually they use that kind of got left out but nonetheless they're there they're having capitulations now you have poor muslims who are sitting around all this who are the majority overall but not necessarily in every little area when they're looking on this they're saying wait a minute my sons are dying in the wars of the armenians the and the greeks primarily are getting richer and now they're getting special protections so resentment is building and it's building over decades and so we have an autumn in crisis there's loss of lands there's loss of power there's loss of wealth there's loss of national self they're still holding on to their culture this is from the city of on also from the u s library of congress and they're still retaining their culture and their traditions and this chair from what i understand is one of the great armenian leaders going back centuries ago and they're still recognizing it and they're still kind of holding it together but a new force is also coming into armenia and that is the role of christian missions and they're coming from britain they're coming from germany switzerland the netherlands and the united states and the first u s mission is is almost i think almost as in the eight hundred thirty s and with those missions come schools and colleges no initially the christian missionaries went and they wanted to convert the muslims they were not successful so then they looked around and they said there's armenians and there's greeks and so what happens is that from the catholic side but also on the euphrates college in hard for women imagine this women are being educated in colleges in one thousand seven so it's be an educated from the perspective of the west democracy equality liberation freedom free speech free press freedom ok now think about this the armenians are being educated to this but the muslim young children  most of the young children men and women are being trained by educated by the move us they're being educated like you are supposed to follow the koran and many of them are poor and they're not getting the same necessarily the same education that the armenians are getting so you're getting a disconnect within the education itself a new force grows and this is kind of a man there's actually two maps here and that gots which one is called the street treaty volatile in march of eight hundred seventy eight and the other one is the treaty of berlin like almost fewer than six months later why is this important this is a turkish map remember how big the ottoman empire was now it's being squeezed to this little area they've lost romania they've lost both garia they've lost bosnia they've lost greece the even lose cyprus egypt so they're becoming smaller and smaller and smaller and so they had a treaty they lost the war with russia that was the last one and that little list and the russians said it's time to give the armenians rights and the russians and that your means were somewhat the armenians won at that then the they invite the british in and and the russians demands where if you don't give the armenians right we're sending the russian army in and we're going to take it and it's going to become a free army and now russia maybe have their own interest because they felt like we want to be kind of the barrier between the ottomans we maybe want this land too so they they maybe had a self interest as well where the british from a far said well we don't want the russians to get into that land so they support the ottomans and there you notice there's a change in a treaty and all at once it's not the russians are coming in not an outside group is going to come in to protect the rights instead what's going to come in is the sultan's going to be responsible for the rights of the armenians which of course he hasn't been responsible for anyway so they're more or less saying let the fox guard the chickens but why because the british don't want the russians to become stronger in that area so one of the things you always have to remember and it becomes an important factor here is is the conflict of national interest within the region it's very hard to focus on one particular group this is the sultan at the time it was loss of vogue area serbian egypt has deprived us of our hands and now my knowledge by means of this armenian agitation they want to get out our most vital places and tear out our very guts and this is him writing in one thousand nine hundred ninety four i would rather die than accept reforms that will produce self government for the armenians so at high levels you're starting to get what you pay we've lost everything else but we're not going to lose the heart of turkey right in the middle of it you can lose greece down there you can lose serbia but now you start moving into the very center of where we live we're going to fight to the death and that's kind of the mentality at the same time period he did not he was not responsible for the rights of the armenians and yet they had the same problems so all at once some of these educated armenians saying well if you're not going to give us our own rights we're going to establish groups to get rights on our own and the first group was a stablished in geneva it's influence kind of by the russian socialist movements and they form a group called the hunch party social democrat and that's an eight hundred eighty seven and they're established in geneva so already they're creating roads to the western world and shortly after this is the armenian revolutionary thread aeration they form an eight hundred ninety the  and they're also influenced by what's occurring in russia at the time and you notice they all have rifles here because they're saying we want our rights and if you're not going to give it to us we're going to take it and this becomes a new group within the armenian community too so now you had an armenian community at one time was was apple stock and not some of its protestant some of its catholic some of its app of stalin and oh by the way there's also now political groups too so who's going to be in charge of the armenian community used to be the opposite priest but now it in itself is being also fragmented the armenian when you think of the genocide and i know i'm giving you a lot of this history i am getting to historians would call a continuum of destruction begins and what is that continuum there's ethnic conflicts within the anatolia peninsula there's muslim refugees who have been abused from other place from other workers and their b and pushed into the armenian area by a plan the sultan says instead of having all those armenians in one place we're going to change the population demographics and we're going to put muslims in those areas so you already are starting more conflict they call it demographic and you there's kurdish and circulation and tribes and chechnyans or also some of those refugees coming from wars with russia that they lost they're all coming into turkey now the kurds are a particular problem and there's still a problem in turkey now they're still having problems with with the turkish government because they were nomadic tribes and one of the things that they would do with the armenians is they would have conflict over land taxes and security so the armenians are already paying extra taxes to the sultan's but then the kurdish tribal leaders would come in and say oh by the way you have to pay us taxes too and they would go a little further they're saying it's getting cold out it's getting winter i'm muslim you're christian that means i have more rights than you that means in your barns and in your hollis's you're going to have to put our sheep in our colleagues for the winter because that's what you're supposed to do so they they did not feel secure so there was conflict over land who owns it who controls it and also conflict over security the armenian security and rights were not enforced by the sultan so they begin to resist in some areas like von and try to protect themselves and the resistance begins as a tax revolt against the kurds in which the armenians are actually winning that war but then what happens is is the turkish army comes in and it begins in areas called so tough evil they're they're used to be in there they're used of hard times with the weather and they're willing to protect their families and that's kind of what starts happening at the same time in constantinople there's a peaceful resistance organized by some of these progressive armenian groups and when the sultan sees it he massacres them and this is happening in front of all the embassies the french embassy the german embassy and several thousand people get killed and then it shreds across the anatolia peninsula at the same time the armenians revenue she marries say well we're going to we're going to create a statement to bring worldwide opinion on this so they take over the ottoman bank and these are some of those revolutionaries there's twenty five of them and they they take and put bombs all around the bank but many of them are amateurs in the bombs blow up and some of them get killed but they hold off the turks who are coming in and it becomes a high moment of international diplomacy and ultimately there's a negotiated peace arranged by the international community with the sultan and they're allowed to go free and they go to more say but this is what they would say the patience of the downtrodden has its limits the time of diplomatic play is past the blood shed by our hundred thousand which had already been killed at that time demands liberty and they demanded freedom of worship freedom of education in the press and they wanted a high european commissioner to oversee the armenian provinces the response of the sultan after they leave and get sent to marsay is he forms these groups of the kurds hama did da battalions and they're basically shock troops ethnic shock troops and they go from armenian village to armenian village to a million village and massacres occur for basically almost two years and atrocities these are men having their hands tied behind these big wooden things and many of them will be tortured and killed and at the end of it this is actually near the beginning october eight hundred ninety five this is a photograph in the london graphic on december seventh one thousand nine hundred five there would be massacres like this all over the region and this is the result it is estimated that two hundred thousand armenians would be massacred twenty five hundred towns desolated six hundred forty five churches destroyed forced conversions and finally this is also a time when many armenians begin to emigrate some to the united states at this time period there's probably around ten thousand armenians in the united states by the by the by the beginning of world war one they'll be almost sixty seven thousand because some people are saying it's never going to be safe here in turkey we have to leave of course some don't have resources others others start thinking like well you know just pass over we've lived here for centuries and then some are rooted to the land they say we are never going to leave this land we are armenians the world looks on weeps but doesn't nothing and this is also one of the things that continually happens in the story about the armenians it's a centralized process a kid to new mode destruction linked to local perpetrators no punishment for most perpetrators human rights initiatives are ineffective in fact it actually expands the expanse of the destruction this was the new york times headline on september tenth but but we have to balance it out checks and balances because we don't want any one country whether it's russia whether it's britain whether it's france to become too powerful within that within that the ottoman empire this was the time that clara barton from oxford massachusetts where she's also buried lead the first international humanitarian mission by the united states and it was eight hundred ninety six to the armenians in the ottoman empire another man would come from germany and you hear more about him as we move on and he was a german young german missionary called the reverend johan this lepsius and he will spend the rest of his life advocating for the armenians but at the same time period there's a new group forming in turkey you notice the dressed in suits they are being educated at the church at the autumn in military medical college and that's where they're getting their education they're tough man they're coming out of these ethnic wars some are from sala nneka some are from both garia somewhere from albania and they're tough they're street fighters mentality they're strategic they're they're real politicians ok and there's no nonsense about them and they hate the church they hate the sultan too and this group is called in in turkish it a hard day to rocky but they're often called c u p the committee of union and progress eight they basically take over the government and they more or less kind of pushed the sultan aside he's still there kind of there is a figurehead for a little while but they basically take over the government but here's their challenge they want to create a new modern state utilizing all this law make a law dressed in suits and what is the tension going to be it sounds a little bit like some of the things are going on even right now what  challenges going to be and these are the three primary architects of the armenian genocide but they're also a three of the primary leaders of the c u p and their posture who was a general and a military man and they're tough and they wanted a modern centralized nationalist state based on justice for eternity and equality and when they took power everyone was hugging each other armenian was hugging turk was hugging greek jews greeks everyone was hugging because they said we've got rid of the bad guy we've got rid of the sultan now we're going to create a new world we're going to create a new country and it's going to be based on justice eternity and equality it was the autumn and spring rather than the arab spring and the armenians and everyone thing there's going to be constitutional reforms and for everyone it was the time of greatest hope but with time this party moves to a rest of nationalist platform on turkey for the turks and it's based on this view anatolia is the spring of every fiber of our life i our head heart and the very air we breathe the first challenge to this group is a series of massacres on armenian and occurs in that area called there's that little armenian a place called donna donna and it was primarily a large armenian population there and this is what the end looks like taken by a british german businessman and it would be in as a connor islamic revolution and in the area the armenians resist and their successful constantinople sends turkish troops who arrive they negotiate a peace between the muslims in the area and the armenians the armenians lay down their arms and they're massacred by the turkish and in the region about twenty five thousand are murdered ok at the same time period seven nate warships from seven nations look on the united states france britain russia they're all there but it's not their country they don't do anything the missionaries are asking them to do stuff but they don't and there's becomes a widening rift between the our media at us and also those in the c u p they're saying you don't protect us again are you for real and this is also again part of the continuum of destruction because from both the massacre and also this nineteen zero nine kind of massacre what occurs are orphans it comes to a further head in one thousand twelve in one nine hundred thirteen in which they have a series of two wars there called the balkan wars again places of ethnic cleansing think of bosnia and serbia that's what's happening here and it's on both sides the ottomans lose eighty five percent of their territory european territory and seventy percent of their population it intensifies the muslim refugee problem because more refugees are coming into turkey and they're sending them where the armenians are and also where the greeks are but even more so for the armenian and also from the turkish side that is the great hypocrisy of the western nation they advocate for equality but they work for partition of the empire and their own self interest and they show little concern for muslim refugees but they're very concerned about the armenians the greeks and everyone else but the turks say but you're not really concerned about them you're really just want our land and you want our resources so there's there's no trust whatsoever and then finally we moved to world war one i know it's been somewhat of a long journey but this is the autumn an empire remember nothing's left that's it and you look here in at this map they've lost all of this area romania bulgaria greece it's all that they're all their own countries they've lost cyprus they lost egypt and all at once there's only one little country left it's armenia but see armenia doesn't have the same advantages that these countries well gary in romania was supported by russia greece was supported by britain cyprus and egypt was also supported by britain but who's supporting the armenians now the british the russians said you know we'll support the armenians like the russians kind of did but they also kind of wanted him to join the russian orthodox church and they said no we're not going to we're going to remain with our own church so they they didn't trust the russians either the armenians said we don't like the turks but we're a little bit afraid of the russians too because they also do horrible things at the time or their governments do so that's kind of the situation another thing that's and so here's what happens is so they lose the two world wars and at the exact moment the western nations russia and armenian activists push for legal protections and reforms at that time when turkey is at its weakest and they have an agreement of feb nineteenth fourteen and the agreement is that there's going to be equal rights for armenia and they're going to send in international peace observers and others to mandate got those that those reforms take place and of course the turks go crazy they're saying they're more or less telling the armenians are kind of given the message at our weakest you took advantage of us and the time will come that we're going to slit your we're not quite there being more diplomatic in the way they're saying it but that's what they're starting to give the messages there's a widening rift between the committee of union of progress in the armenians and the young turks are also being criticised internally within their own people that they take there's a coup d'etat in  thirteen so anyone who is kind of liberal or progressive within the group is kicked out and they radicalize and they it's basically becomes those three people that you saw earlier and jamal pasha and  tolerate pasha become basically a dictatorship of free oligarchies and they decided we were writing this off we're going to write this off instead we're going to move east and we're going to unite all the turkish tribes in places like chechnya in places like afghanistan and we're going to move that direction but who's in the way armenia and and they also begin to work to  german turkish alliance now here's where it's coming it's coming in europe and it's coming in the middle east and here's kind of the turkish perspective if they allied themselves with germany they're taking a risk but the germans might win and if the germans win then they have much to gain immediately when they side with germany all those special protections for christians capitulations debts they're all abolished so they say that that was a good plan and they also looked at war as a way to perhaps solve the armenian problem and it intensifies early in probably december january of one nine hundred fourteen when enver paused against the advice of the german general decides he's going to attack russia and winter right we're kind of armenian is here so no medians are also in the russian army remember some of those activists they also join the russian army so when they go over there not the ninety thousand troops most of them die of sickness exposure and starvation and also some by bullets and only twenty thousand return to constantinople they are so angry it was a miscalculated military move but the people they get blamed for  are those four thousand armenians that joined the russian army there saying you see we can't trust the armenians though there were also armenians fighting on the ottoman side at the same at the same and then finally in the spring of one nine hundred fourteen you deliberately and you have the darts and nails this area which is the doorway to the black sea and also into the mediterranean not from the german side whoever controls the black sea can control russia and why is that important because it's the only port that the russians have to get food and to get weapons in winter all the other ones were shut down by by snow by ice six cetera so they said if we control the black  can ultimately control perhaps the russia in the war and it's actually one of the causes of the russian revolution and it changes history because the british tried to take it in the run successful but what happens is they're so close to taking it that the ottomans say even if they take it we're going inland and we're going to fly in if the armenians there was going to live in a i'm not the armenian community at the time is about two point two million people today it's sixty thousand so people who say there's no armenian genocide you have to ask the question where did all the people go over ninety eight years later it's probably a little higher than that this this is probably two thousand so so sixty thousand and two point t one community they're spread out over very difficult roads they're geographically separated they're surrounded by often time hostile groups they're fragmented there's poor communications they consist of different classes the wealthy intellectuals and also peasants the religious and the non religious here's the armenians choices they can join russia and the western allies which is advocated by some and some do it but it's a dangerous choice because what happens if they lose and what are the turks going to look at from that perspective many remain loyal to the ottoman empire and the c u p but they also remove armenians from the political offices and also the civil service like for instance at the time one nine hundred thirteen the foreign minister of turkey is an armenian he gets removed from office they also remove people like in the telegraph operators who are many armenians they get removed from the from the offices so they get kicked out of the civil services a few armenians will collaborate with the ottomans to become spies and but the majority attempt to remain neutral and they're going to see which way the wind's going to blow which is the natural thing that people most people want to do you kind of put the finger up in the wind and you say if i move this way this could happen to me but if i move this way might both my family and i could get killed so what do you do you try to stay stationary but it's moving everything's moving at the same time period the c u p organizes a special organization comparable to the nazi s s and it's its own network its officers it has its own funding and it's very secrets they're ideologically radical shock troops for pan turkey ism spreading turkey ism and turkish language and culture across all the turkish tribes and they're also about internal security must be severed from the roots we must not leave a single armenian alive in our country we must kill the armenian name we are at war no better opportunity could and dr bed in shock here the alien nations left from ancient times are like malignant we we must pluck them from the roots cast it aside and purge our homes this is the aim in the principle of our revolution they would go out into the rural areas of turkey they would let out the convicts out of jail that becomes part of their shock troops they would organize the kurdish tribes and they would organize the muslim refugees the armenian genocide also begins with a jihad on november eleventh one nine hundred fourteen by the top kind of in constantinople it really wasn't that effective at the time you know they were supposed to be against jihad against all christian christians greek armenians french british but not germans so it was kind of inconsistent and there was a little demonstration in constantinople but initially it's starting to be preached out of the mosque and various other plus the armenians are conscripted into the autumn an army this is actually from the balkan balkan wars but many of them were also conscripted as many as two hundred thousand but here's what begins to happen as early as december january february  fifteen the armenian army that that once had rifles are disarmed and labor battalions are formed they're given shovels rather than rifles and this is where the first massacres occur oftentimes with these men who are given shovels but their rifles are taken away from them at the same time in the spring you have they began to go after draft resisters mostly armenian but muslims are also resisting the drought local leaders armenia leaders an activists were arrested tortured and killed they went from town to town in the armenian towns and they said give up your guns or else and if we find a gun in your house we will kill you and we'll kill  you or would deport you know no one knew where this was going if you're an armenian and finally many roads and many in in many rural communities become unsafe like you have examples of priests trying to go from one part to another and they couldn't they would be killed on the way more local massacres take place this is ankara and then finally you still have a small group of armenians some we have rifles some who are kind of like socialists they're saying we must resist and here are some armenian resistors with rifles and they resistance the same areas vaughn they tune and actually for a while they're successful in van or in vonn and they actually kick the turks out and the russians come in for a while and then the russians leave and the turks come back and the armenians get squeezed they get caught in a trap more or less somewhere flee to russia but anyone that stays will be wiped out and so it's kind of it doesn't occur right away it occurs over several months resistance itself becomes a justification for genocide so if you resist a little like you shoot at a turkish soldier that means you're an eternal security threat to the entire nation that means we have to wipe you all out and that's kind of where the propaganda goes and find somewhere no one knows the exact time and place those small group of committee leaders from committee of union and progress make plans to eliminate the armenian problem forever and it begins really begins really long before this but it kind of begins officially on april twenty fourth one nine hundred fifteen this is the turkish  police in the autumn and chief of police in constantinople bedroom bay and they arrest two hundred fifty intellectuals in constantinople and their writers and their poets and their journalists and even legislators who at one time had in their own homes protecting them from the sultan some of these turkish leaders so they're arresting the leaders now the question is why are the arresting the  organ the leaders the intellectuals the poets because genocide is never simply about murdering one or two it's about destroying a culture it's about destroying a memory it's about destroying a language it's about destroying everything twenty two and it's called the armenian go gotha and it's actually one of my primary resources but he gets arrested and he's an armenian apostolate priest who speaks many languages and he went to school in area called kids are young and also the leaders of the community and they're also being mark at the same time period the armenian cathedrals the armenian places are worship are being totally desecrated and destroyed and these are some of the priests and you see this is the church that was and this is the church that is and they would also be executed this is this man right here and they were executed like fast usually they would have horseshoes put on their hands they would be crucified on crosses it was the most horrible way to and one who would survive another one is a man called theodorus lobb jin g n and he would write on good friday april twenty fifth one thousand nine hundred twenty one also called the gold god of the armenian clergy and there's no way you can read these names but it's page after page after page and here is one town and you can't read it but it's a posture and it just goes right on through and it means all of them are martyred on the other side and some are orthodox and some are protestant ministers and some armenian armenian prays and here's another town bit less again just modern martyr martyr and orthodox it just goes on on and this is what the armenian genocide looks like and you have to think of it not occurring at one time it occurs over a space of time and really kind of from one nine hundred fifteen to one nine hundred twenty three but the primary areas it is probably nine hundred fifteen into one thousand seven every place you see a red circle is where major  hundreds of thousands of people were probably kill every place you see a small or smaller population any place you see a black dot is a concentration camp you could die in different ways here they have oil errol's going to the black sea up there they would be sent into boats they would be left off in the black sea rocks tied around and to be thrown off the ships others would rock from this part of the area all the way down to aleppo or to do theirs or in winter in summer  t so they're going to be it's just going to continue on and on it gets published almost immediately as early as april twenty eighth one thousand nine hundred fifteen this is the new york times appealed to turkey to stop the massacres this is the first time a twenty four thousand nine hundred fifteen crimes against humanity this is from the u s state department on may twenty ninth one thousand nine hundred fifteen from the french foreign office and they write in view of these new crimes of turkey against humanity and civilization the allied governments announce publicly that they will hold personally responsible all members of the ottoman government and those of their agents who are implicated in such and such massacres and it lists many of the towns right there throughout the spring of one nine hundred fifteen the central the c u peace central committee we develop a nationwide plan primarily organized by the minister of the interior he would control that special organization he controls the telegraph machines he controls the railroads he controls many of the local officials in his name as talat pasha he would link is planned to the regional and local regions across turkey he will utilize the young turk political network in every little community he will utilize the special organization killing squads and in some areas not all he would ask to utilize the turkish army there was a little bit of conflict between the test test the special organization and the army because sometimes the army didn't agree with what they were doing so there was places of tension that would take place at times he would secretly order at first deportations and liquidation based on the rationale of internal security he would utilize railroads the telegraph system and also state censorship he would also began one of their intense was even let's kick the armenians out we kill them but we also kicked them out but who's going to take over their property are those muslim refugees and others so it's also a confiscation of property and is actually from that that woman you saw the first day mrs dacres areon a rico this is from her town mirage and she remembers the day she was very young and she would actually come back and get kicked out again general of aleppo we have in accordance with the government wishes succeeded in completely transforming the conditions here and in mirage my province has been cleansed of christian elements the merchants  business owners who two years ago were eighty percent christian are now ninety five percent muslim and five percent christian so one of the purposes of the genocide was demographic engineering it was to do to reclaim or to change the population quotas within certain areas of turkey they also recognize they use legislation and this is the deportation law of may twenty seven thousand nine hundred fifteen and it was more or less like what we have to make it legal they were already doing it but they kind of go backwards and say but you know we're looking kind of bad here so let's create make it legal not everyone agreed and there were some righteous church kurds and arabs opposed to the actions and we really need to know more about these people i think word they're starting to be better known but we need to know more about them one was a senator who would write about the law neither the conscience of the ottomans nor the law can allow such an unjust law the governor general of aleppo refuses to organize a massacre each human has the right to live reshad pasha governor general of ankara refuses to order a deportation i cannot stain my hands with blood ali su i've been a lieutenant governor design or refused to carry out a slaughter if the purpose which you insist upon is the massacre of these tea parties i can neither do it myself nor can i have it have it done by others and finally even a corporal a native of your yosh when he's ordered to kill people refuses to fire on innocent people but what happened to these if you didn't obey the orders you got kicked out some would be killed but some would be kicked out and they would be replaced by people who follow the order so that's one of the lessons of all genocides if we were in these situations would we follow the orders like the corporal to shoot or would we resist it's a difficult decision and sometimes we should not judge too quickly from a far because we don't know what we would this is in hard poot initially they would go town to town and they bring up the man they marched the men out of the town they confiscate the weapons they select primarily the leaders but ultimately all the man and this is them being marched out of the town this photograph was also taken by german business muslim man protects an armenian who he knew and he writes and he says to a judge at the time or the governor of harpoon if it is my a lot of time to die i should consider it an honor to die in defense of such a man i have never seen any wrong in him and were not betray him if you must execute the order i am ready to behead so there were some very brave turkish men and women who resisted but they were a very small minority too he actually saved this army and some righteous turks were given and to i just point out these are like deputy governors and they're all assassinated and this one at the top dizzy me bay in yellow and this man right here so be a they are murdered at in the area of do you do you are buck here as part of the deportation they refused to go along and they're killed on the road and they're killed by the order of this man another doctor also at the military educated at the medical military college dr milkmaid rashid and he was a point at the governor because it was hard and this is his view of armenians it is either us or them my turkishness triumph over my identity as a doctor i perceive it eyes closed and without consideration convinced that i was acting for the welfare of the nation the armenian bandits were a load of harmful mi that had afflicted the body of the fatherland is and not the duty of the doctor to kill the microbes he would be called the butcher gov they would ramp up the man and they would send him out of town and they would massacre them the women initially didn't know what was happening the women are left in the town this is from vaughn from the to of and they would be oftentimes given a several days to correct to collect their possessions and sometimes they were told you're going to go join your men but they didn't really know where they were going so they would often times take their best possessions it was also a time of yard sales because you can't take everything so you'd sell things very cheaply and sometimes they would just be taken from this was the time of forced conversions for young children and also for women not everyone was given that choice not in every place were you given that choice but in some places you were some did convert some converted bomb because of their children and they said it's better to live than to die others converted because they were scared others converted because they were afraid to die ok there were mob actions in local areas and they were called deportations to nowhere and this is from a german photographer and his quote one could see only very very few man aside from the coachman and there was your d'armes who escorted the caravan on both sides with guns ready there were almost only women and children who walked in the crowd with dark and sorrowful faces or were in tears and crying many times they came through gorgeous these gorgeous both with the man and the women were the places of the massacres because you would enter a gorge and you would have some from the special organization come from either side of the hill the front in the back you'd get caught in the gorge and you would be murdered with shovels pitchforks bayonets and swords not by bullets miles and they were brutal totally brutal and in some cases initially they were killing people outside the towns but it began to move also inside the town and sometimes the towns would protest why did they participate in some hated armenians and they were part of that muslim refugee group that probably had atrocities perpetuated on them others sons were in their army and they were poor and they said they're going to get killed anyway i might as a grab their clothes lot of times you would be stripped because they wanted the clothes they wanted the possessions and the women would look for the other women if they hear of their jewels and certain private parts they tear them up and rip them apart that's the way that many people died there was a german vice cons whole german relationship in this in this thing was very they were kind of bystanders some were actually protect armenian some will report the atrocities others the state department say they're our allies we can't do anything about it just leave it alone now what's interesting about him he will later die as a nazi the first time that adolf hitler tries to do a a coup in munich i think in one nine hundred twenty two he will be one of the people that will be shot  from the mid german missions and he's telling them armenians are being massacred throughout turkey will you will you give us more information because i want to report this and morgan fall more or less give them all the information that you can give them because this is being reporte remember america is not yet at war so we have consulates all over the country so they're getting information from american missions he's getting it from german missions and he's creating a public nightmare public relations nightmare for the german government in the new york times along there's one hundred forty five stories and one thousand this is henry morgan thought the u s ambassador conversations with a lot pasha first he writes in june of one nine hundred fifteen it appears that a campaign of extermination is in progress under a pretext of reprisal against rebellion and hears from his memoir that he wrote in one nine hundred nineteen this is tell that pasha to morgantown i have accomplished more toward solving the armenian problem in three months than of do me had accomplished in thirty years we have been approached for making no distinction between the innocent armenians and the guilty but that would be  impossible those who were innocent today might be guilty tomorrow and finally he requested that all the possessions and american insurance policies from armenians be transferred to the church to the autumn and government this is his conversations with enver pasha on the offer of american relief they were offering it all the time we don't want the americans to feed the armenians that is one of the worst things that could happen to them they will think that they have powerful friends and that will encourage them to revalue and intimating that things were happening in turkey in which he and associates perhaps were not aware of or were not recent response so he's trying to be very diplomatic and or pasha says we have this country completely under our control and i'm entirely willing to accept the responsibility for everything that has taken place the cabinet itself has ordered the deportees not too little interesting points in history is henry morgan fall begins the whole movement towards armenian relief in the united states through asking rich friends he was jewish rich friends and others to establish campaigns and it went throughout the united states and they raise millions of dollars at the same time he's also responsible one of the lead people for stablished in the joint distribution committee and it's all coming from this experience that's happening in the autumn and in pyar that's what's happening to jews in palestine at the time and also what's this is what the trains look like and this would be the german director of the train to the board of directors of the railroad i send you a little followed all showing the anatolia railroad as a holder of culture in turkey these are our so called cheap cars in which for example eight hundred eighty people are transported in ten cars october thirtieth one thousand many people would do the death of walk through the mountains and this is what they would be they would be mostly women and children and they might be guarded by some turkish soldiers or some local policeman and they're marching from town to town to town oftentimes with no food oftentimes with a little water in all types of weather now the question becomes what if you're one of these guards and you're approached by a group of kurds who say we want to massacre them are you going to fight the kurds or are you going to just kind of step back some thought some resisted and actually protected them and some step back and this is just another group of them and this is kind of what the people that were coming after them look like there were some again righteous muslims and i just point this out because then people say there's no genocide you have so many resources it would have been the greatest conspiracy in the world and this is from an actually an arab soldier in the autumn an army and he writes on july fifteenth i was ordered to accompany a convoy of deported armenian the last batch the last batch from trouble zone the men were all killed at qana i was ordered to take the women and children to earth xinjiang on the way i saw thousands of bodies of armenians are on buried several bands of show  medicine the way and want me to hand over them women and children but i persistently refused i did leave on the way about three hundred children with muslim families who were willing to take care of them  most were women and here's some of their comments pray for us other comments oh god i think the that i have no daughters oh mama bamma don't leave me some would leave their children on a rock because they no longer hoping that a friendly kurd would pick them up and take them  where is god why's he left us i curse him goodbye we are going to heaven meet us there this was also the time where many armenian women will be will be will be taken by kurds and they'll become members of the turkish harems some will be married by kurdish tribe members and others some of those kurds were also righteous and they would protect them others were also there was one kurdish city was responsible at the beginning of the garden of eden but in some ways it represents all the rivers because the rivers were oftentimes a place of death now here shows armenians washing in the euphrates river but sometimes when they went by rivers they wouldn't let him drink from it so they had to walk by the river when they're literally dying other times women who would be in asked to convert chose suicide rather than to convert and they would rope themselves together and they would run into the euphrates river and they would kill themselves they would also do it over bridges in some of those gorges when they're going across rivers massacres would also occur around the rivers and this is again from a german photographer the massacres are conducted on a large scale in completely in public i drove with a motor boat for two hours a long clods of armenian corpses these are part of the thirty six thousand armenians massacred by orders of the whether you're for assad or whether you're for the opposition and all the people caught in between there were thousands tens of thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands that were coming in to aleppo it was a humanitarian crisis of extreme  no one there was no infrastructure to respond to it and here's some of the photographs a con was like a camping place and again you notice mostly women this is a and aleppo yard a cross from a german school and these are some of the comments of the photographers the living in the dead are covered with flies the ground is covered with feces about twenty or thirty people died today and this is just the same yard and these hundreds of orphans and what do you do with them now the armenians develop to care network among themselves and reverend whole vaughn is as as and he was a protestant minister he actually survived that adonal massacre in one thousand nine and all of his family is is his parents were killed in it but he becomes a member to establish a network this is another armenian and he is dressed up as a kurd and they're basically going to be smuggling children like in an underground railroad and they work with righteous turks they establish secret communications with foreign consulates they smuggle supplies establish secret funding mechanisms with the u s consulate and they organize networks for food and medicine and he was very special though he would die of typhus in one thousand nine hundred he was special because even among the armenians there were challenges like if you're a protestant or you're only going to save the protestant armenians or you're going to save the catholic armenians two or the app of stalin he was one who tried to save no matter no matter the branch of of armenia religion that you were part of he thought they were all important however you had to make choices he couldn't save everyone and so they chose to protect orphans because they were young and they had a chance to live if they could be protected long enough and they chose to protect intellectuals because they wanted to pass on the heritage of armenia on to the next generation and to the to the disk he himself would die of typhus his work would be taken over by this swiss german missionary beatrice rohner and she would actually be working with the u s consul jesse jackson in aleppo and even the german counsel who was getting in trouble dr walter risler and she herself would u ltimately have a mental breakdown because ultimately all the orphans under her care would either be sent to the armenian orphanage and live in lebanon in beirut a stablish by a and a turkish feminist or if they didn't go there they were sent to the desert and their series of waves the deportation so think of it almost like grain b and cut in a field and one you cut one field hundred fifteen spring and then it kind of consolidate and then it comes again so it's coming in waves in waves and this is this is early but this is the mayor of aleppo who gets kicked out of this position at the time was a humane person and he telegraphed a lot minister for a turtle wayfarers thousands of deported armenians have arrived what shall i do with them and tell that replied the destination of the deportation is  and that's what begins to happen and just so that you know in summer this is one hundred ten one hundred fifteen degrees fahrenheit so this is where they're going oftentimes without food oftentimes with water there will be massacres the will be met by tribes sometimes the tribes would try to convert the women and take them or raped them other times they would take them and massacre them this is from the u s state council i should have brought a book it's this thick single spaced with all the evidence and any place you see a black thing is how many people were killed this one says three hundred thousand this one is one hundred thousand and you have areas as well there was a photographic witness to the armenian genocide and the primary one was a german soldier and his name was armin wagner's he was a second lieutenant he was a nurse he had already received the iron cross for bravery in the polish campaign when the germans were fighting the russians up in poland he was sent to turkey and he has a camera that he take begins to take photographs and this is what he would write on october nineteenth  took many photographs on my last days there so i kept these images of tear and accusation tied under my belt in the camps of meskin me and aleppo i was given many letters and petitions which i kept hidden to take to the american embassy i am aware that in so doing i am committing an act of high treason he would be turned in by the church to the german authorities they would put him in a nursing area to take care of cholera and typhus patien probably hoping that he would die he did get sick but he did survive and he smuggles his negatives both to us consulate and ultimately some even back to germany these are some of his images he will call them refugee camps from hell following should be written at the entrance of these occur setting you who enter leaves all hope this is one cleaning lice and typhus many would die of disease typhus is spread through lice once they bite you they you get the disease and it's happens in many wars it happens in world war two world war one and other places but you really don't have the medical again we started with a remembrance and this is probably taken around the same time that you saw probably one nine hundred sixteen in summer and from the moment people are dying the armenians are trying to remember them and this is from  are women with breast uncovered in limbs bare our bore boys naked in torn our daughters and brides and babies yet unborn a handful of earth will a key in that priest that you saw at the beginning he will have a three year journey traveling the back roads of armenia hiding the end part of a deportation group he will be one of the few people that survive it he will see the massacres he will see what happens when you come to a village some villages will you what they will treat you well other villages they won't give you bread and they won't give you water he will see all he will see all the atrocities he himself ultimately will excuse and he will hide as a german engineer along the railroads and he will record all of his messages and this is from his his memoir it is not humanly possible to describe the horrific and will martyrdom of your over one million dead sons and daughters if all the seas on the earth were to become the fields paper and the reeds pans still it would not be humanly possible to describe your thorny and bloody ascend to the summit of the armenian go gotha if you remove the armenian good god from this language this could be written by many of the direst in the warsaw ghetto ghetto or the kovno ghetto they all were saying the same thing about their own martyrs who were dying in eastern europe and elsewhere in one nine hundred fifteen alone new york times reports eight hundred thousand armenians  destroyed lepsius will also write a book in one nine hundred sixteen no germans will publish it because of the censorship so he publishes it himself creating a public relations crisis in germany because all the christian missions are finding out about this and they why isn't the german government doing anything we are not like this and here are some of the things they were reporting this is a map that shows you more or less what happened every place you see blackness that means death and if you notice if you live down in khaliq and live near the railroad you are more likely to live than if you lived in the eastern area because these people are almost hundred twenty three about one point five million were murdered but it really continues but we can't that's really almost like another story this is a second deportation from  of refugees and it also is the beginning of a lot of missionary movement from the united states and this is one of them and this is a group of twenty two thousand or in orphans transported by the nea workers many of them going to beirut damascus and other places like that the mission schools many of the armenians in this country today and others some of their families will be raised and educated in these schools  right shortly afterward one nine hundred nineteen trials began for war crimes one of the first persons tried is dr rashid bay and he gets convicted any commits suicide so they never continuing to fight for pan turkey ism and he will die and use becca's stan or somewhere near there against the russian army and tal it pasha is kind of an interesting story because he will go to berlin and on march fourteenth hundred twenty one in the middle of the day he will be assassinated by so go to live and he will take a pistol to his head and in he would say this is to avenge the death of my family the assassin would be put on trial and this is the trial it would become a major trial covered by the entire world one of the people who would testify is another person who would testify is this would create him his life's mission and he would ask the question he's reading that in and about the trial why can a single man be tried for killing one man but a leader of a nation who kills millions of people asking him to support the formation of armenia and in it in his testimony he would write in it the tongues of thousands of dead speak in one nine hundred thirty three he would write an open letter to adol hitler at the first economic boycott of jews and he would write there is no fatherland without justice and he would be sent to five german concentration camps he would survive and he would later be honored by the holocaust museum in jerusalem and also by the year marine ians for being a person of righteousness he is a drag link between the armenian genocide and the holocaust that will come this is armenia signed into law by woodrow wilson at the first sight treaty they have a country it's going to be a country they finally are going to retain and this is what happens turkey is divided under occupied zones turkey armenia britain or france britain italy greece in an international zone greece there and within a few short periods of time the initial treaty is a no what happened the crime trials are abandoned because people are tired of war it's the birth of modern turkey everyone wants to have trade agreements with them turkey is separated from the auto many empire create zones of interest iraq syria palestine and other places which we're still dealing with those arms of interest today and there's a major change of international climate because this is also the time of big business in oil so even the united states which is one of its major advocates for armenian recognition and protection of rights for decades it switches you move from the woodrow wilson administration to the calvin coolidge to the the warren harding administration and then the calvin coolidge administration and it becomes the interest becomes business and no longer human rights and it's radical even the missionaries begin to support the government because they're more or less told to shut up and they remain silent because they said if you want to stay in turkey and if you want to maintain your colleges and high school just shut your mouse about the all of the people that who were killed in her family and your so you see my mother my brother his son and these are all listed in she will put three hundred fifty turkish gold crowns as part of that today as armenians the united states in the mid eighty's ninety's there were about ten thousand nine hundred fourteen about sixty six thousand after world war one about one hundred forty five thousand and in two thousand one million more than in turkey i just list two ones this is a future a static reconstructive plastic surgery fellow who's starting on july fifteenth at beth israel deaconess medical center and his name is mark m carrion he's a young surgeon and one of the references in one of the primary ones to raise the armenian genocide in america is professor peter blake ian who's a nephew of a gr who's the grandson of the woman who did the lawsuit and he's an author a poet and an amazing historian on the armenian genocide and one of my primary resort but the novel and the whole notion of denial and remembrance has continued for one hundred years almost the fourteen days a muso dog was written but when they tried to make a movie in hollywood this is what happened new york times july seventh one nine hundred thirty five turkey resents moose  dog have any of us ever seen a movie on the forty days of moose a dog we've seen everything else in hollywood but we've never seen before the days of moose and dog in the bastin glad august two thousand and ten and again every year the armenians try to have the u s congress and the president vote on genocide revolution resolutions it still continues today it's still continuing probably this year this is from last year february where in france this is also had happening in closing what are the lessons from the armenian genocide there's a multitude of them and these are just but a few the importance of legal and protected rights for minorities beware of scapegoating particularly in times of economic stress because with scapegoating next comes discrimination segregation separation exce genocides are never simply between perpetrators and victims but also bystanders national bystanders local bystanders regional bystanders neighbors that are bystanders the danger of placing a nation an ideology a religion or any cause above the human person i keep thinking about that dr he said i was more turkish and nationalist turkey and i was a doctor the question is do we want to place any religion over how we treat or any ideology over the human being all individuals and nations have a shadow side particularly in times of war if you look at genocides of the twentieth century and even before it's all about war and while the conditions were there before the war ultimately it's worth sell that allows the occasion for the genocides to occur the study of the armenian genocide is vital for history the present and for future generations and i'm going to close in silence and you're going to see why it's important we started here i think that's the message and i keep thinking that this is what they would want to tell us they would say yes we have to remember it's important to not to forget it's important to educate others but equally it is also important to live our own lives each day with joy with passion with abundance and with goodness and humility because their lives were taken from them and they would say to us do not let your own lives be taken because you're too busy because you don't give yourself enough to be true to yourself and to be true to your your identity so be true but be strong but also be humble