BEYZADE OSMAN: OUR FAMILY OWED THEIR LIVES TO FRENCH ARMENIANS

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.01.2010 16:04 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "Osman also said his family "owed their lives" to
French-Armenians after their exile from Turkey. "We were penniless,"
he told the Daily News. "Our Armenian friends helped us. There was an
Armenian lady who welcomed us to her chateau and we lived there for
a long time. I cannot deny the good deeds Armenians have done for my
family," grandson of Abdul Hamid II, an 80-year Beyzade Bulent Osman
told the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News.

Regarding the recognition of the Armenian Genocide , Osman said:
I am on the side of truth," Osman said on the issue. "The French and
the Germans had also slaughtered each other, came into conflict but
still managed to establish dialogue. We have to leave history behind
us and look ahead."

Abdul Hamid was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He oversaw
a period of decline in the power and extent of the Empire, ruling
from 31 August 1876 until he was deposed on 27 April 1909. Known to
some as the Ulu Hakan ("Great Khan"), he is also known in the West as
"The Red Sultan" (Kızıl Sultan). His deposition following the Young
Turk Revolution was hailed by most Ottoman citizens. In 1894 -1896
in eastern Anatolia and other locations of the Ottoman Empire, there
were mass killings of the Christian (mostly Armenian) population, the
number of victims ranges between 80.000-300.000. Killings carried out
by direct orders of Abdul Hamid II with fanatically minded young boys
(aged 12 to 25), devoted themselves to spiritual education.

The Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Empire (1915-23) was the 21st
century’s first genocide characterized by the use of massacres, and
deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead
to the death of the deportees, with the total one-and-a-half million
number of Armenian deaths. The date of the onset of the genocide
is conventionally held to be April 24, 1915, the day that Ottoman
authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community
leaders in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted
Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of
miles, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now
Syria. To date, twenty countries have officially recognized the events
of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars and historians
accept this view. The Armenian Genocide has been also recognized by
influential authoritative media including The New York Times, BBC,
The Washington Post, The Associated Press.