PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
November 24, 2009
Contact: Press Office
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (202) 383-9009
AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU’S PERSONAL LIBRARY DONATED TO THE ARMENIAN
GENOCIDE MUSEUM OF AMERICA
Washington, DC – The personal library of U.S. Ambassador Henry
Morgenthau, renowned for his extraordinary efforts to bring American
and international attention to the Turkish government’s deportation
and massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, has been donated to
the Armenian Genocide Museum of America (AGMA) in Washington, DC.
"We are extremely grateful to the Morgenthau family for entrusting
this invaluable collection of books to the museum, which provides a
window into the breadth and depth of the Ambassador’s intellectual
acumen and his humanitarian outlook," said Van Z. Krikorian, museum
trustee and chairman of the project’s Building and Operations
Committee. "In the pantheon of heroes who have fought against
genocide, the Morgenthau name is legendary. This collection is
priceless and wonderful Thanksgiving news," added Krikorian.
The gift of Ambassador Morgenthau’s personal library, which has been
privately held by his family since his death in 1946, comes to AGMA
from Henry Morgenthau III, the son of Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and the
grandson of the Ambassador. In making the gift to AGMA, Henry
Morgenthau III said "I am only putting Ambassador Morgenthau’s effects
where they belong."
Ambassador Morgenthau’s personal library includes books he acquired
during his term of service in the Ottoman Empire, and others obtained
in preparation for his diplomatic posting to expand his knowledge of
the region, its history and people. The collection also includes
Ambassador Morgenthau’s autographed copy of the official State
Department publication "Instructions to the Diplomatic Officers of the
United States," which he was provided upon his appointment.
Krikorian said the Ambassador Morgenthau collection will be used by
the research library, and to enhance the museum’s exhibits depicting
the Ambassador’s life and work. Ambassador Morgenthau was a
naturalized American from a German Jewish family and a successful
lawyer active in Democratic Party politics. With the election of
President Woodrow Wilson, he was appointed United States Ambassador to
the Sublime Porte in 1913.
"Ambassador Morgenthau played a central role in documenting the
Armenian Genocide, and the items related to his diplomatic service are
critical pieces of his life story," Krikorian said. "No one individual
before Ambassador Morgenthau had so prominently alerted the
international community to the consequences of the mass atrocities
perpetrated against the Armenian population in Ottoman Turkey and
analyzed the mechanisms of a state system devised to extinguish an
entire people. Remarkably, the recent publication of Talaat Pasha’s
diary dispositively confirms what Ambassador Morgenthau reported and
wrote at the beginning of the last century."
While in Constantinople, Ambassador Morgenthau had personal contact
with the Young Turk leaders of the Ottoman Empire and architects of
the Armenian Genocide, especially the Minister of the Interior,
Talaat. When news of the deportations and massacres began to reach
the Embassy in April 1915, Ambassador Morgenthau attempted to
intervene to alleviate the plight of the Armenian population. He
forwarded to Washington the stream of alarming reports he received
from U.S. consulates in the interior of the Ottoman Empire that
detailed the extent of the measures taken against the Armenians.
On July 16, 1915, Morgenthau cabled the U.S. Department of State his
own dispatch whose alarm resonates to this day. He called the Young
Turk policy of deportation "a campaign of race extermination." In
effect, he became the first person to officially transmit to the
American government news that a state-sponsored systematic genocide
was underway.
Drained by his disappointment in averting this disaster, Ambassador
Morgenthau returned to the United States in 1916. For the remainder of
the war years he dedicated himself to raising funds for the surviving
Armenians. Ambassador Morgenthau was particularly instrumental in the
founding of the Near East Relief organization which became the main
U.S. private agency to deliver critical assistance to the survivors of
the Armenian Genocide.
To bring his case to the attention of the public, he published
"Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story" in 1918, a memoir of his years in
Turkey in which he stressed the German influence and role in the
Ottoman Empire. While he held Germany responsible for starting World
War I, he placed the blame for the atrocities committed against the
Armenians entirely upon the shoulders of the Young Turk Ittihadist
cabinet which he characterized as a violently radical regime.
Ambassador Morgenthau titled the chapter on the Armenians "The Murder
of a Nation," and described the deportations and the atrocities as a
"cold-blooded, calculating state policy." He avowed at the time "I am
confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such
horrible episode as this."
Coinciding with the announcement of the gift to AGMA is the launch of
a special exhibit titled "The Morgenthaus" A Legacy of Service," at
the Jewish Heritage Museum in New York City. The exhibit features
Robert M. Morgenthau, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and Henry Morgenthau,
Sr., three men who courageously spoke out against injustice when no
one else would. They represent more than a century of one family’s
dedication to public service. Henry Morgenthau, Jr. served as
Secretary of the Treasury on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s
cabinet during the Great Depression and World War II. As the
longest-serving district attorney in New York City, Robert M.
Morgenthau effected far-reaching change in the legal system, and
inspired new generations of professionals and public servants. The
exhibition explores the ways in which three generations of a family
raised awareness of tragedy around the world, and in doing so changed
the course of world events, American politics, and Jewish history.
In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Problem from Hell: America and
the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power, who currently serves as Director
of Multilateral Affairs on President Barack Obama’s National Security
Council, wrote:
"In 1915 Henry Morgenthau, Sr., the U.S. Ambassador in Constantinople,
responded to Turkey’s deportation and slaughter of its Armenian
minority by urging Washington to condemn Turkey and pressure its
wartime ally Germany. Morgenthau also defied diplomatic convention by
personally protesting the atrocities, denouncing the regime, and
raising money for humanitarian relief."
Ambassador Morgenthau’s personal library is the sixth significant
collection of Genocide-era and post-Genocide-era materials which, in
the past two years, have been donated or made available for use by
AGMA. AGMA has been granted access to the archives of the Near East
Foundation and the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan,
Armenia.
The Armenian Genocide Museum of America is an outgrowth of the
Armenian Assembly of America and the Armenian National Institute
(ANI), catalyzed by the initial pledge of Anoush Mathevosian toward
building such a museum in Washington, DC.
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NR#2009-07