PRESIDENT COMPARES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE TO AUSCHWITZ, CALLS FOR "NUREMBERG"

HULIQ
March 29 2010
SC

Serzh Sargsyan, The President of Armenia, couldn’t help, but
go to the desert Deir ez Zor during his official visit to Syria
earlier in March. In his impressive speech at the meeting with the
Syrian Armenians there, Mr. Sargsyan drew direct parallels between
the crimes of Nazi’s in Auschwitz and Young Turks’ conduct of the
Armenian Genocide.

"Historians … soundly compare Deir ez Zor with Auschwitz by
saying that Deir ez Zor is the Auschwitz of Armenians.’I think that
the chronology pushes us to present the facts in a reverse way:
Auschwitz is the Deir ez Zor of Jews. Just one generation later,
the humankind witnessed the Deir ez Zor of the Jews. Today, as the
President of the Republic of Armenia, the homeland of all Armenians,
I am here to ask: Where and when will our Nuremberg be held?" said
the president of Armenia.

Say the least of it, all Armenians know this place as the sinister
symbol of the Armenian Genocide and understand the President’s
comparisons but what about the rest of the world? Was there a
concentration camp in that desert? Why did the President appeal to
Nuremberg? To understand this, people should know what happened in Deir
ez Zor in 1915. According to different estimates, as many as 400,000
Armenian citizens of Ottoman Empire found their final destination
point within this Syrian desert after they had been banished from
their lands into a long march. That desert became the witness of the
annihilation of the remaining refugees who were forced by the Ottoman
government to death marches.

There were several major killing centers in the region known as Deir
ez-Zor Camps where those innocent Armenians were exterminated. Here is
the most important parallel with Auschwitz: both crimes were organized
on a government level aiming at the elimination of the non-titular
ethnic group in accordance with officially issued decrees. The
formation of concentration camps by Nazi Germany was fully condemned
by the famous Nuremberg trials, whereas the deportation and further
systematic massacres of Armenians remained with impunity. This is
the reason for the Armenian President’s rhetorical question.

The recent official recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the future
consideration of this issue in the parliaments of some other countries
cause ineffable anger of the Turkish officials. They probably realize
that no one is going to try Turkey nowadays but that recognition is
almost the same for them as Nuremberg trials.