NEW DOCUMENTS AND PHOTOS ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE REVEALED

armradio.am
26.10.2007 13:07

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, Director
of the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute (AGMI) Hayk Demoyan said
in an interview with Armenpress.

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
attaché 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 tête-a-tête told me that
slaughters of the Armenians were the most terrible brutalities in
the world history", wrote E. 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.

–Boundary_(ID_lOkNNFTfc52DWPJFQapsEg)–