NEW EVIDENCE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE REVEALED

PanARMENIAN.Net
18.10.2007 20:52 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ In the result of the consistent work during last
years new photos and documents on the Armenian Genocide were revealed
from different countries’ state archives and private collections by
various researchers dealing with the issues of the Armenian Genocide,
reported the press office of the Museum-Institute of Armenian Genocide.

Photos made by Austrian military man Victor Pitchman are of great
interest. Victor Pitchman was born in Vienna in 1881. He was in Turkey
from 1914 till the end of the World War First. First he served in
Turkish then in Austrian and German armies. He built Turkish mountain
firing in Erzerum and drew war map of the South Western Asia for the
German main headquarter.

Being in Erzerum he witnessed Armenian slaughters carried out by the
Ottoman government. There are deportation views of the Armenians in
photos made by Pitchman near Erzerum. Artem Ohandjanyan, doctor of
historical sciences, a resident of Austria provided these photos with
the photo collection of the AGMI.

New photos were revealed also in the state achieves of the Deutsche
Bank and they were contributed to the AGMI. Meanwhile the museum
collection was enriched with dozens of unprinted memoirs recorded by
the survivors of the genocide.

Reminiscence "War and Peace memories" by Eric af Wirsen, military
attache of the Swedish Embassy to the Ottoman Empire, contains
exclusive facts on the Armenian Genocide. One of its chapters is
titled as "Slaughter of one nation" where the author describes one
of the greatest crimes of the 20th century. The author witnessed the
mass graves of the Armenians in the vicinity of Euphrates as well
as he had direct contacts with foreign diplomats, who witnessed the
massacre. Mr. Wirsen writes, "Slaughters were carried out in such
ways that humanity has never seen since the middle ages".

Wirsen was informed by different consuls that the Turkish gendarmes
entered houses of foreign diplomats, and without any words they shot
their servants of Armenian origin. Eric af Wirsen notices that it
is difficult to release the Germans from the responsibility as they
did nothing to prevent the bloodshed. Mr. Wirsen also states that
some German officers gave back the medals and rewards granted by the
Ottoman government with the following reason they cannot accept any
honors from a government carrying out such cruelties. "I join to the
words of general fon Lossov who tete-a-tete told me that slaughters of
the Armenians were the most terrible brutalities in the world history",
wrote Wirsen.

As a primary source this work is important and valuable as first it
was written by a representative of Sweden, a neutral state during
the war, where Ambassador Morgenthau’s evidences are affirmed for
many times. Concluding the above-mentioned chapter, Wirsen wrote,
"I constantly recollect cynic expression of Talaat’s face when he
said there is no "Armenian problem" anymore".
From: Baghdasarian