^[1] In the last sentence in his Foreword to “The Politics of Genocide” by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, 2010 (Monthly Review Press, New York), scholar, public activist, and pioneer in linguistic studies Noam Chomsky provided this incredibly honest assessment of things.

“As for the term “genocide,” perhaps the most honorable course would be to expunge it from the vocabulary until the day, if it ever comes, when honesty and integrity can become an “emerging norm.” pg. 12. 

We should also like to point out right at the outset of this essay that we have not rigorously followed any exact format or style in citing references.  This would have been for us a major editorial challenge that we have chosen to avoid and openly admit here our adoption of a “free style.”  We hope this is not an annoyance to the reader.  Our point is to get the references before the reading public.  We hope that our ignoring of the usual ‘niceties’ of consistency will be forgiven.  Also, the reader should be apprised that we have not made diligent attempts to refer to the very latest papers and coverage.  We have chosen instead what we believe are the references most likely best able to address the point(s) we wish to defend or underscore. We have tested each of the URLs provided. The last check was just before final submission of this essay for posting.  We have elected not to add the tedious statement after the URL “last tested” on such and such a date.  We know the Internet can be fickle and things can disappear or be blocked in a flash. We have practiced due diligence.

^[2] Schnur, Steven (1982) “‘Unofficial Man”: The rise and fall of Raphael Lemkin.  Reform Judaism vol. 11, no 1, Fall, 9-11;45.  Older issues of this magazine are not very common but this very short article is exceptionally informative about his papers.  Copies of this genre of magazine are frequently read, and then discarded.  This ought to be a collector’s item.

^[3] We were fortunate enough to see and photograph the plaque in Warsaw when we visited Warsaw as tourists on part of a trip to the Baltic Capitals.  If one is unable to make a personal visit, one can amazingly see through the miracle of Google Earth the bilingual commemorative plaque placed on the outside of the then fairly upscale apartment house that Lemkin lived in for several years until 6/7 September 1939 at 6 Kredytowa Street in Warsaw.  His name is spelled in Polish and English as Rafał Lemkin.  For a close-up of the plaque see Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rafal_Lemkin_plaque_PISM.jpg.  Mention should be made as well that the proceedings of a conference commemorating the 60^th anniversary of the Genocide Convention designates Raphael Lemkin by his name in proper Polish spelling.  See Agnieszka Bienczyk-Missala and Sławomir Debski, eds., Rafał Lemkin: A Hero of Mankind (Warsaw: The Polish Institute of International Affairs, 2010). 

^[4] His application for citizenship gives his own statements on where and when he was born.  As transplanted New Yorkers of sorts, we never gave much thought to the availability of so-called ‘bialys” in baked good shops in the ‘Old Days’ when we visited places like Brooklyn or the lower East Side until we learned Lemkin was from Bialystok.  These onion-stuffed, or poppyseed stuffed hole-free chewy, larger-than-bagels breadstuffs, and are merely baked, unlike bagels which have a hole of course, are not stuffed, and are first boiled and then baked.

^[5] The main town of the region was Białystok and is nowadays reported as being located some 192 kilometers, or about 120 miles northeast of Warsaw.  It is not for us to examine this in too much detail, not having ready access to historic and modern road maps, but it goes far to explain why one today finds on the Internet various places given as Lemkin’s country of birth.  Everything we have seen leads us to conclude with confidence that Raphael Lemkin grew up with a dual identity as a Pole and a Jew.  It would perhaps be inaccurate to refer to him as a Polish-assimilated Jew, but we suspect that ‘partly assimilated’ would be fairly close to the truth.

^[6] Should one want to consult a more detailed treatment of Raphael Lemkin’s career and efforts in a single volume we can perhaps do no better than to recommend William Korey’s “An Epitaph for Raphael Lemkin” (2001).  That 152 page work is fully accessible online through the American Jewish Committee Archives (165 East 56th Street New York City 10022).  Go to http://www.ajcarchives.org/ajcarchive/DigitalArchive.aspx enter “Korey or Lemkin” and the complete book appears, albeit in 5 sequential parts.  A less frequently cited but quite detailed treatment of Raphael Lemkin’s early legal work from a Polish and European perspective, is written by Prof. Ryszard Szawłowski with the collaboration of Mr. Krzysztof Pol, who is especially acknowledged for his role in the ‘bibliographical’ work.  The study is entitled “Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), the Polish lawyer who created the concept of genocide” The Polish Quarterly of International Affairs no. 2 (2005) pgs. 98-132.  In addition to providing some important details on Lemkin’s early legal training and experience, and his many (and scattered) publications, these Polish authors also draw attention to the errors that abound in the biographical literature.  Specific examples are presented, and better yet, corrections are provided.  Prof. Szawłowski is very precise as to what remains to be firmly established.  We recommend the paper to all interested in Lemkin and the foundations of the concepts of the intended legal aspects of genocide. 

^[7] See John Cooper, "Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention." (New York, 2008).  There is more than a little inconsistency in Lemkin’s writings.  For example we are told that there are three versions/drafts of his autobiography (cf. pg. 382 of Steven Leonard Jacobs and Samuel Totten’s edited version of “Totally Unofficial Man” by Steven Leonard Jacobs and Samuel Totten in Pioneers of Genocide Studies, ed. Samuel Totten and Steven Leonard Jacobs (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2002, pgs. 365-397).  One draft intimates that [their murder] “happened more than a year prior to moving my parents, together with others, [Editors’ note: illegible word] “to be gassed.”  Another rendering of that terrible situation is by the late Dr. William Korey in his book “Epitaph…” pg. 27 wherein he relates on pg. 27 that “Lemkin’s emotional torment was immeasurably deepened when he learned from his brother, Elias, who had come to meet him in Berlin, that his mother and father and forty-seven other members of the Lemkin family – aunts, uncles, and cousins – had perished in the Holocaust.”  One encounters still another perspective or at least a different portrayal as to when Lemkin learned of the loss of his family in Aviva Cantor’s summary account of “A landmark conference explores Dr. Lemkin’s relentless work against genocide” held November 2009 at the Center for Jewish History co-sponsored with the American Jewish Historical Society and Yeshiva University Museum.  Here we read that Lemkin traveled in “DP [Displaced Persons] camps in Europe and met people, including former colleagues, and heard their horrific stories.  In September his distress worsened when he learned that 49 members of his family, including his parents, had been murdered, wrote the late William Korey, former director of International Policy Research of B’nai Brith” (quoted from Cantor 2010 pg. 13).

^[8]

 Garber, Zev and Bruce Zuckerman (1989) Why do we call the Holocaust “The Holocaust?” An inquiry into the psychology of labels. Modern Judaism vol. 9, No. 2 (May), pgs. 197-211; Berman, Sanford (1998) Whose Holocaust is it, anyway? The “H” word in the Library of Congress.  The Holocaust Memories, Research Conference, pgs. 213-225. New York and London, Haworth Press; Stein, Stuart D. (2005) Conceptions and terms: templates for the analysis of holocaust and genocides.  Journal of Genocide Research 7, no.2, pgs. 171-203; Mennecke, Martin (2007)  What’s in a Name? Reflections on Using, not Using, and Overusing the “G-Word.”  Genocide Studies and Prevention vol. 2, no.1, spring, pgs. 57-72.

^[9] Yosef Litvak, "The Plight of the Refugees from the German-Occupied Territories," in The Soviet Takeover of the Polish Eastern Provinces, 1939-41 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991).  It is interesting that major pogroms had taken place in Bialystok in 1906.  How much Raphael Lemkin knew or had heard about them is not something we have looked into.  Cyrus Adler compiled an extensive and detailed ‘Table of Pogroms’ in an article “From Kishineff to Bialystok.  a table of pogroms from 1903  to 1906” in American Jewish Year Book vol. 8 (1906-1907) pgs. 34-89; see especially 70-89 for Bialystok.

^[10] Quoted with permission Raphael Lemkin papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division. The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, and also found on pgs. 245-246 of “Axis Rule….”  (We will return to point again but we will say here that the timing of events and atrocities as they became known in no ways allow us to conclude that Raphael Lemkin knew what came to be named by him a genocide was in process—see e.g. Pinchuk, 1977 and refs. cited therein for some details on reports, or lack thereof.)

^[11] From Raphael Lemkin, “Key Laws, Decrees and Regulations Issued by the Axis in Occupied Europe,” dated December, 1942 produced for the “Board of Economic Warfare, Blockage and Supply Branch, Reoccupation Division” under The locator “RR-8 RESTRICTED COPY No. (in our case seen as “no 88”) and stamped in red “From War Dept. Liaison Office, Board of Economic Warfare”.

“Preface

The laws and decrees promulgated by Germany in the subjugated

countries of Europe, vary according to the policy which Germany has

sought to impose and the problems which Germany has been forced to meet.

In countries where Germany has sought to obtain collaboration–

Belgium, Holland, Norway and France—the typical laws and decrees

promulgated concern economic and financial matters and the prevention

of sabotage.  In these countries both the German and the local author-

ities issue such legislation.

In countries where Germany has adopted a policy of economic

spoiliation and open subjugation—Poland, Russia, some parts of

Czechoslovakia and of Jugoslavia—typical subjects of German legis-

lation are labor, agriculture, industry and the confiscation of

Property.

In the areas which were incorporated into Germany (Greater Reich)

–e.g., the western provinces of Poland, the districts of Eupen, Mal-

medy and Moresnet in Belgium, Alsace and Lorraine, and Luxemburg– the

representative subject of legislation is Germanization in the fields

of culture, demography, economics, and administration.

In all occupied areas, however, Germany has introduced certain

standard decrees, such as those relating to the sequestration of raw

materials, the supervision of factories, and the introduction of such

institutions as the Reich Credit Institutes to provide the German Army

with legal tender.  Since those decrees are in general the same for

every area occupied by the Germans, they are quoted only once in this

compilation, unless variations occur in the case of particular countries.

The collection of laws for each country is preceded by a sum in

my introduction describing sources, types of military government,

and special problems.  Some texts which are peculiar from the point of

view of Anglo-Saxon conceptions or American legislative techniques

are given explanatory footnotes.

This collection is intended to be kept in the form of a loose

leaf book with additional texts to be added periodically.”

^[12] Bliwise, Robert J. (2013) “The Man Who Criminalized Genocide”.  Duke Magazine Winter vol. 99, no.5, winter, pgs. 36-41.  Bliwise is the editor of the magazine and has done a very informative, beautifully illustrated job.  Mention should be made as well that the proceedings of a conference commemorating the 60^th anniversary of the Genocide Convention designates Raphael Lemkin by his name in proper Polish spelling.  It is up to date and has several beautiful photographs.  See Agnieszka Bienczyk-Missala and Sławomir Debski, eds., Rafał Lemkin: A Hero of Mankind (Warsaw: The Polish Institute of International Affairs, 2010).

^[13] See https://www.mounthebroncemetery.com/interment/?id=124139#details  It gives the location of the burial site as Block 101.Lot ½ 238&239, Grave 16.  This is at the northeast corner of the cemetery within the square formed if 134^th street and 62 Ave.  

^[14]

 See Salomon Teilirian, defendant, Der Prozess Talaat Pascha; Stenographischer Prozessbericht (Berlin: Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft für Politik und Geschichte, 1921); George R. Montgomery, "Why Talaat's Assassin Was Acquitted," Current History. A monthly magazine of the New York Times 14 (1921) pgs. 551-555 [for the article refer to a digital version of the appropriate months in http://www.archive.org/stream/currenthistoryfo14newyuoft#page/n571/mode/2up/search/Talaat]; Soghomon Tehlirean and Tessa Hofmann, Der Völkermord an Den Armeniern Vor Gericht : Der Prozess Talaat Pascha, 3, erg. und überarbeitete Ausg. ed., Reihe Pogrom; (Göttingen: Die Gesellschaft, 1985); Tessa  Hofmann, "New Aspects of the Talat Pasha Court Case," The Armenian Review 42, no. 4/168 (1989): 41-53; Edward Alexander, A Crime of Vengeance (New York Toronto: The Free Press A Division of Macmillan, Inc. Collier Macmillan Canada, 1991); Robert Merrill Bartlett, "Challenger of an Ancient Crime…Raphael Lemkin," especially pgs. 96-97 in They Stand Invincible.  Men Who Are Reshaping Our World, ed. Robert Merrill Bartlett (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1959).  One can forgive Bartlett for distilling the essence of what Raphael Lemkin seems to have told him in an interview.  There are a few trifling inaccuracies that we need not concern ourselves with here.  According to Dr. Tessa Hofmann of Berlin who went through considerable effort to analyze meticulously the archival materials associated with the murder and trial, Talaat was shot dead 15 March 1921 at 11 p.m. on Hardenberg Street.  The trial by jury took place in Berlin’s Charlottenburg’s Third District Court on 2-3 July 1921.  On 3 June, after only one and a half hours of deliberation, the verdict of not guilty was brought in, and on 5 July he was set free.  The American news account describing Teilirian as a “boy” is hardly accurate as he was 25 years old.  See also Tessa Hofmann, "New Aspects of the Talat Pasha Court Case," Armenian Review 42, no. 4/168 (1989): 41-53.  An enormous amount has been written on the Teilirian trail and in the ways it affected Lemkin’s thinking.  Douglas Irvin-Erickson (2014) The Life and Works of Raphael Lemkin: a political history of genocide in theory and law. Ph.D. Dissertation, Rutgers, the State University, Graduate School, Newark. 467 pages.  This dissertation can be read at: https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/45631/PDF/1/play  The views of Raphael Lemkin on the assassination of Turkish Grand Vizier Mehmed Talaat Pasha in Berlin on 15 March 1921 by Armenian student Soghomon Tehlirian (1896-1960) to take revenge for Talaat’s role in the attempt to eliminate the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire are paid little attention to in Erickson’s dissertation.  In fact. it is a pivotal component of getting Lemkin interested in the general area of genocide in general.  The writer, whose wife is clearly of Turkish origin, may pardonably be viewed as at least slightly instrumental in the ultimate framing of that portion of the dissertation.  Irvin-Erickson is now affiliated with the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Center at George Mason University in Virginia.  The Center for Conflict Resolution at that university is generally viewed as a conservative place, and we admit that we have no quarrel with the interpretation that its outlook is more right wing than progressive or left. 

^[15] Over the years the documentation against Talaat as an arch criminal has done nothing but become more extensive and iron clad.  See Vahakn N.  Dadrian and Taner Akçam, Judgment at Istanbul : The Armenian Genocide Trials, English language ed. (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011).  For a detailed version of Talaat Pasha’s “Black Book” readers should refer to Ara Sarafian, ed. Talaat Pasha's Report on the Armenian Genocide 1917, Gomidas Institute Studies Series (London: Gomidas Institute, 2011).  (For a free download of the book go to http://www.gomidas.org/books/TalaatPasha1917.htm).  In the introduction to this small (70 pgs.) but very important volume, editor Ara Sarafian says on pg. 10 that “This is the closest “official view” we have of the Armenian Genocide according to Ottoman records;”  Dr. Hans-Lukas Kieser’s work entitled Talaat Pasha; father of modern Turkey, architect of genocide, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 532 pp. is highly commendable, although that author has been criticized by some establishment writers for what they call his overreaching views and interpretations.  Be that as it may, we do not subscribe to that view; we admire him and his work tremendously.  In our opinion, his critics often turn out to be ‘second string’ potboilers, not respected but ‘self-respected authorities’ who have not done original research.  One particularly appreciative reviewer, a Turkish historian Candan Badem (with a British Ph.D.), ends his review of Kieser’s volume by saying “Kieser’s work is a most welcome contribution to the literature on the history of late Ottoman and modern Turkey.  It will be a must-read book for students of Turkish history for years to come.” Journal of Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 6 (no.1, 237-239. See also Taner Akçam (2019) “When was the decision to annihilate the Armenians taken?” Journal of Genocide Research vol. 4, no. 4 pgs. 454-480.

^[16] Now located in the Ukraine.  It is interesting that there was an early Armenian presence in Lviv of some consequence, and with disproportionate economic influence.  In the period after 1630 we are told that there was a break on the part of the elite from Etchmiadzin, and many Armenians converted to Roman Catholicism.  Further difficulties led to the emigration of substantial numbers to Moldavia and Transylvania.  For an interesting rendition of this history with detailed corroborating literature see Yaroslav Dashkevych, "Armenians in the Ukraine at the Time of Hetman Bohdan Xmel'nyc'kyj (1648-1657)," in Eucharisterion: Essays Presented to Omeljan Pritsak on His Sixtieth Birthday by His Colleagues and Students, ed. Ihor Ševčenko, Frank E. Sysn, and with the assistance of Uliana M. Pacicznyk (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, 1980).  Attention has also been given to the rich manuscript collections in Armenian found in Lviv, many of which found their way into the Mechitarist Library in Vienna, but some are in the National Library of Warsaw and at the University of Lviv (see Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, "Lviv Manuscript Collections and Their Fate," in Eucharisterion: Essays Presented to Omeljan Pritsak on His Sixtieth Birthday by His Colleagues and His Students, ed. Ihor Ševčenko, Frank E. Sysn, and with the assistance of Uliana M. Pacicznyk (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ukarinian Research Institute, Harvard University, 1980) esp. pgs. 350, 361 and 370.  Whether Raphael Lemkin knew any of this is a moot point, but it nevertheless remains of interest that the city in which he went to Law School had Armenian connections.

^[17] See Salomon Teilirian, defendant, Der Prozess Talaat Pascha; Stenographischer Prozessbericht (Berlin: Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft für Politik und Geschichte, 1921); George R. Montgomery, "Why Talaat's Assassin Was Acquitted," Current History.  A monthly magazine of the New York Times 14 (1921) pgs. 551-555 [for the aratcle refer to a digital version of the appropriate months in http://www.archive.org/stream/currenthistoryfo14newyuoft#page/n571/mode/2up/search/Talaat]; Soghomon Tehlirean and Tessa Hofmann, Der Völkermord an Den Armeniern Vor Gericht : Der Prozess Talaat Pascha, 3, erg. und überarbeitete Ausg. ed., Reihe Pogrom; (Göttingen: Die Gesellschaft, 1985); Tessa  Hofmann, "New Aspects of the Talat Pasha Court Case," The Armenian Review 42, no. 4/168 (1989): 41-53; Edward Alexander, A Crime of Vengeance (New York Toronto: The Free Press A Division of Macmillan, Inc. Collier Macmillan Canada, 1991); Robert Merrill Bartlett, "Chalenger of an Ancient Crime…Raphael Lemkin," especially pgs. 96-97 in They Stand Invincible.  Men Who Are Reshaping Our World, ed. Robert Merrill Bartlett (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1959).  One can forgive Bartlett for distilling the essence of what Raphael Lemkin seems to have told him in interview.  There are a few trifling inaccuracies that we need not concern ourselves with here.

^[18] Perhaps the easiest way to defend this statement is to bring the reader’s attention to Talaat Pasha's “Killing Orders, Talat Pasha’s Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide” by Taner Akçam, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2018. 

^[19]  Talaat Pacha [sic]; see Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.  Reproduction Number LC-B2-5301-7 [P&P] LC-DIG-ggbain-31323. For details on the Bain News service photographs see Barbara Orbach Natanson, "Worth a Billion Words? Library of Congress Pictures Online," Journal of American History 94, no. 1 (2007): 99-111. 2007.

^[20]  Be aware that errors in presenting misidentified photographs can be made in media that should be more sensitive to the need for accuracy, e.g. in the 18 October 2008 issue of Massis Weekly (vol. 28, no. 37, pg. 3) is an article written by Toros Sarian entitled “The consequences of the Young Turk Revolution” there is a photograph supposedly of Dr. Bahaeddin Sakir.  It is in fact of Talaat.  Another photograph in the brief article is similarly misidentified.  How such errors creep in is anyone’s guess.  There is no excuse for it.  The caption in German gothic type indicates that the photograph was intended to represent the Grand Vizier.  He had been living in Berlin under the assumed name of Mehmed Sâid Bey.

^[21] According to Dr. Tessa Hofmann of Berlin who went through considerable effort to analyze the archival materials associated with the murder and trial, Talaat was shot dead 15 March 1921 at 11 p.m. on Hardenberg Street.  The trial by jury took place in Berlin’s Charlottenburg’s Third District Court on 2-3 July 1921.  On 3 June, after only one and a half hours of deliberation, the verdict of not guilty was brought in, and on 5 July he was set free.  The American news account describing Teilirian as a “boy” is hardly accurate as he was 25 years old; Tessa  Hofmann, "New Aspects of the Talat Pasha Court Case," Armenian Review 42, no. 4/168 (1989): 41-53.

^[22] Nowadays the name is spelled Bahaddin Şakir.  He was shot dead in Berlin by Aram Yerganian on 17 April 1922.  Djemal [Cemal] Azmi Bey, vali or governor-general of the province or vilayet of Trebizond, who sent women and children to be drowned in the Black Sea etc., and was shot dead at the same time by Arshavir Shirakian.  Both were, of course, in  the Dashnag Revolutionary Party-sponsored ‘Nemesis’ network of avengers.  Bahaddin Şakir was high up in the Secret Organization [Teşkilat-I Mahsusa] of the Committee of the Union and Progress Party [CUP] that implemented many of the brutal mass killings (see Arslan Terzioglu, Yerli Ve Yabanci Kaynaklar Isiginda Dr. Bahaddin Sâkir'in Berlin'de Öldürülmesi Ve Ermeni Tehciri Meselesi = the Assassination of Dr. Bahaddin Sakir in Berlin and the Armenian Deportation Based on National and Foreign Sources of Information (Istanbul: Istanbul Universitesi Tip Fakültesi Mecmuasi, 2001).  See also Arshavir Shiragian, "The Assassination of Dr. Behaeddin Shakir," The Armenian Review 19, no. autumn (1966) pgs. 17-31.  Arshawir Shirakian, The Legacy : Memoirs of an Armenian Patriot (Boston: Hairenik Press, 1976); Arshavir Shirakian, Ktakn Er Nahataknerun (Peyrut`: Hamazgayini Vahe Mshakut`ayin Enkerakts`ut`ean, 1965) with many photographs of great interest but unfortunately not well reproduced.  See also Yücel Yiğit (2014) “The Teşkilat -ı- Mahsusa and World War I.” Middle East Critique 23, no. 2, 157-214.

^[23]  “Raphael Lemkin’s dossier on the Armenian genocide: Turkish massacres of Armenians (manuscript from Raphael Lemkin’s collection, American Jewish Historical Society). With a Foreword by Dr. Michael J. Bazler. Glendale, Ca.; Center for Armenian Remembrance, Vartkes Yeghiayan;  Mouradian, Khatchig (2021) “With the ink of their blood: Lemkin’s Armenian Collaborators and the Genocide Convention.” Armenian Weekly April 29, 2021.

 https://armenianweekly.com/2021/04/29/with-the-ink-of-their-blood-lemkins-armenian-collaborators-and-the-genocide-convention/

Matossian, Lou Ann (2009) Armenians started using the word ‘genocide’ in 1945, Khatchig Mouradian shows. Armenian Reporter, Friday, June 26, 2009.

^[24] See Taylor, Eugene L. and Krikorian, Abraham D. (2011) “Educating the public and mustering support for the ratification of the Genocide Convention: Transcript of United Nations Casebook Chapter XXI: Genocide, a 13 February 1949 Television program hosted by Quincy Howe with Raphael Lemkin, Emanuel Celler and Ivan Kerno”, War Crimes, Genocide & Crimes against Humanity 5, 91-124.].  https://youtu.be/CXliPhsI530

^[25] Goldberg, Andrew, 2006, The Armenian Genocide. DVD. Two Cats Productions, New York, 60 minutes.

^[26] Readers may wish to consult an article by Sarkissian, H. S. (2001, Jul 31). “Telling the story of another: Armenians on US public television,” again. Aim (Armenian International Magazine) 12, 18.

^[27] We place ‘original’ in single quotes since only one videorecording or a copy of a videorecording of an early broadcast seems to exist.  That copy in the form of a VHS tape is at the National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting at the Jewish Museum on Fifth Avenue in New York City.  Even CBS does not own a copy of the broadcast, despite its unabashed claim of copyright for it.  It would appear that the initial date of the broadcast and/or preparation for it, coupled with the technology and procedures then routinely employed, preservation of a proper copy by the standards of today seems not to have occurred. A brief mention of the film is made by Jeffrey Shandler (1999) in his While America Watches: televising the Holocaust, Oxford University Press, pgs.24 and 25.  We want to make it clear that Shandler watched the film and carried out an analysis and noted several aspects that made the broadcast distinctive. He even cites the Archive call number for the film although it has been updated. No mention of Lemkin’s commentary on Armenians specifically is drawn attention to in Shandler’s text.

^[28]  The New York Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscript Division owns a large number of Raphael Lemkin materials obtained from a friend of Lemkin’s after his death.  The accession sheet to that collection points out that materials were received quite late, actually 31 August 1982, long after Lemkin’s death in 1959.  One of the difficulties presented by Raphael Lemkin’s legacy is that his papers etc. are scattered and not assembled in a single place.  They are, moreover, not totally consistent either within themselves or among themselves (see Elder, 2005).  This is not unexpected of course because of how manuscript papers routinely come into being, and how the various sometimes disparate “accretions” become incorporated or appended to the collection at large. Cf. Elder, Tanya, 2005, What you see before your eyes: documenting Raphael Lemkin’s life by exploring his archival Papers, 1900-1959.  Journal of Genocide Research 7 no. 4, 469-499.

^[29] Douglas Irvin-Erickson (2014) The Life and Works of Raphael Lemkin: a political history of genocide in theory and law. Ph.D. Dissertation, Rutgers, the State University, Graduate School, Newark. 467 pages.  This dissertation can be read at:- https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/45631/PDF/1/play The views of Raphael Lemkin on the assassination of Turkish Grand Vizier Mehmed Talaat Pasha in Berlin on 15 March 1921 by Armenian student Soghomon Tehlirian (1896-1960) to take revenge for Talaat’s role in the attempt to eliminate the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire are paid little attention to in this specific dissertation. In fact. it is a pivotal component of getting Lemkin interested in the general area of genocide in general. The writer, whose wife is clearly of Turkish origin, may pardonably be viewed as at least slightly instrumental in the ultimate framing of that portion of the dissertation. Irvin-Erickson is now affiliated with the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Center at George Mason University in Virginia.  The Center for Conflict Resolution at that university is generally viewed as being a conservative place, and we admit that we have no quarrel with the interpretation that its outlook is more right wing than progressive or left.

^[30] "A crime without a name" Winston Churchill, Raphael Lemkin and the World War II origins of the word "genocide"  See James T. Fussell at http://www.preventgenocide.org/genocide/crimewithoutaname.htm  Churchill's information about the mass executions which followed the German invasion came directly from a German source.  Six weeks before on July 9 British cryptographers broke the "enigma" code used by Berlin to communicate with the Eastern Front, regular reports from mobile killing squads (the Einsatzgruppen which Churchill called "Police-troops") gave detailed accounts and specific numbers of 'Jews' and 'Jewish Bolshevists' killed in mass at locations throughout the occupied territory of the Soviet Union.  Therefore, when Churchill spoke of whole districts being exterminated and "methodical, merciless butchery," it would appear that he had specific detailed knowledge of locations and magnitude of the ongoing crime being committed by Germany in Ukraine and Russia.  Churchill could not reveal the extent of his detailed knowledge without undermining British intelligence, yet he had to say something about a crime being committed.  We have included the entire transcript of the speech.  The following excerpt of the speech by Winston Churchill is taken from pgs. 60-61 of “The meeting with President Roosevelt. A world broadcast, August 24, 1941, pgs. 59-66 of The War Speeches of The Rt Honorable Winston S. Churchill, O.M., C.H., P.C., M.P.  Compiled by Charles Eade in three volumes, volume two, Cassell & Company Ltd, London (first published 1952, second edition 1965.)

Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown, London on behalf of the Estate of Sir Winston Churchill.  Copyright © Winston S. Churchill

That notice and summary account starts with a prelude drawing attention to the meeting in which Churchill “spent 3 days in comradeship” with President Roosevelt.

We quote liberally to allow a broader perspective of the context for the phrase “crime without a name.”  This should give a fuller understanding of the broad sweep of what Churchill was saying.  The entire broadcast emphasizes his political savvy, eloquence, persuasiveness and forcefulness as a speaker, but it is of course, the phrase “crime without a name” with which we are here concerned.  The speech was said to be made from Chequers, a country estate for use by the British Prime Ministers but that needs confirmation.  Martin Gilbert in his Winston S. Churchill Volume VI entitled “Finest Hour 1939-1941) 1983 gives the broadcast as from Chequers on his pg. 1173 citing the Churchill papers 9/152, but on further enquiry to confirm what we had been told it, was at BBC in London.

Churchill says:-

“This was a meeting which marks for ever in the pages of history the taking-up by the English-speaking nations, amid all this peril, tumult and confusion, of the guidance of the fortunes of the broad toiling masses in all the continents; and our loyal effort without any clog of selfish interest to lead them forward out of the miseries into which they have been plunged back to the highroad of freedom and justice.  This is the highest honour and the most glorious opportunity which could ever have come to any branch of the human race. 

“When one beholds how many currents of extraordinary and terrible events have flowed together to make this harmony, even the most sceptical person must have the feeling that we all have the chance to play our part and do our duty in some great design, the end of which no mortal can foresee.  Awful and horrible things are happening in these days.  The whole of Europe has been wrecked and trampled down by the mechanical weapons and barbaric fury of the Nazis; the most deadly instruments of war science had been joined to the extreme refinements of treachery and the most brutal exhibitions of ruthlessness, and thus have formed a confine of aggression the like of which has never been known, before which the rights, the traditions, the characteristics and the structure of many ancient honoured states and peoples have been laid prostrate and are now ground down under the heel of a monster.  The Austrians, the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Belgians, the Dutch, the Greeks, the Croats and the Serbs, above all the great French nation, have been stunned and pinioned.   Italy, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria have bought a shameful respite by becoming the jackals of the tiger, but their situation is very little different and will presently be indistinguishable from that of his victims.  Sweden, Spain, and Turkey stand appalled, wondering which would be struck down next. 

“Here, then, is the vast pit into which all the most famous states and races of Europe have been flung and from which unaided they can never climb.  But all this did not satiate Hitler; he made a treaty with Soviet Russia, just as he made one with Turkey, in order to keep them quiet till he was ready to attack them, and nine weeks ago today, without a vestige of provocation, he hurled millions of soldiers, with all their apparatus, upon the neighbor he called his friend, with the avowed object of destroying Russia and tearing her in pieces. This frightful business is now unfolding day by day before our eyes.  Here is a devil who, in a mere spasm of his pride and lust for domination, can condemn two or three millions, perhaps it may be many more, of human beings to speedy and violent death.  “Let Russia be blotted out−Let Russia be destroyed.  Order the armies to advance.’  Such were his decrees.  Accordingly from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea, six or seven millions of soldiers are locked in mortal struggle. Ah, but this time it was not so easy. 

“This time it was not all one way.  The Russian armies and all the peoples of the Russian Republic have rallied to the defense of their hearths and homes.  For the first time Nazi blood flowed in a fearful torrent.  Certainly 1,500,000, perhaps 2,000,000 of Nazi cannon-fodder had bit the dust of the endless plains of Russia.  The tremendous battle rages along nearly 2,000 miles of front.  The Russians fight with magnificent devotion; not only that, our generals who have visited the Russian front line report with admiration the efficiency of their military organization and the excellence of their equipment.  The aggressor is surprised, startled, staggered.  For the first time in his experience mass murder has become unprofitable.  He retaliates by the most frightful cruelties.  As his armies advance, whole districts are being exterminated.  Scores of thousands – literally scores of thousands – of executions in cold blood are being perpetrated by the German police-troops [here he means the Einzatsgruppen] upon the Russian patriots who defend their native soil.  Since the Mongol invasions of Europe in the sixteenth century there has never been methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale, or approaching such a scale.  And this is but the beginning.  Famine and pestilence have yet to follow in the bloody ruts of Hitler’s tanks.  We are in presence of a crime without a name”. [Emphasis ours]

^[31]  It is quite clear from his collection of documents that Lemkin did not have evidence of mobile killing squads or death camps.  But he did not need such evidence to reach his conclusion.  Direct killing as a method of causing mass death only began to be practiced by the Nazi occupiers in the latter half of 1941.  At that time Lemkin was already beginning to understand that extermination was occurring through policies of systematic attrition.  Nazi mass killing by means of gas chambers would only be a more rapid way of accomplishing what they had already been doing through such policies as forcible resettlement and discriminatory food rationing.

^[32] The volume was edited by Agnieszka Bieńczyk-Missala and Sławomir Dębski (2010) Rafał Lemkin: a hero of humankind emerged from that conference.  It was published by the Polish Institute of International Affairs, Warsaw and is not readily available or very easy to access online, we are sorry to report.

^[33] Ad Hoc Committee on Genocide (5 April-10 May 1948).  Report of the Committee and Draft Convention drawn up by the Commission. Economic and Social Council, E/794, dated 19480524 [24 May 1948] https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/604195?In-en [Full original report]

[1 page Corrigendum to the original report]at /794/Corr.1 https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/604196?ln=en.

It is of no little interest that a significant 1 page correction to the wording of the Draft was required to suit the United States – see Corrigendum to the Report of the Committee E/794/Corr.1, dated 1948 06 10. 

^[34]  Details from Lemkin’s Preface on dates are below.  Chapter IX is available through the Website “Prevent Genocide International”  http://www.preventgenocide.org/.  For direct access to Chapter IX go to: http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/AxisRule1944-1.htm.  The Preface to “Axis Rule…” is dated November 15, 1943, almost a full year to the day before the work was officially published or made available.  Chapter IX of the text is dedicated to Genocide (Lemkin, 1944 pgs. 79-95).  The Foreword by George A. Finch, Director of the Division of International Law of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is dated August 18, 1944.  “Axis Rule…” was officially published (at a price of $7.50) on Wednesday 15 November (and was distributed by Columbia University Press, see New York Times Nov. 17, 1944 pg. 17).  (A presentation copy of “Axis Rule…” inscribed “To His Excellency Dr. Ricardo Alfaro [President of Panama] with high esteem and appreciation” signed by Raphael Lemkin at Yale” and dated “May 15, 1949” was offered for sale not so long ago on Abebooks for $ 1,097.08.  Site last checked on 25 May 2022.) 

Professor Ryszard Szawłowski has ventured to say that “the term genocide was probably already conceived by Lemkin in the first half of 1943, if not somewhat earlier” (Szawłowski, 2005 pg. 120). [See endnote 6 above for exact citation].

^[35] Torchin, L. (2007), Since we forgot: remembrance and recognition of the Armenian genocide in virtual archives. The image and the witness: trauma, memory and visual culture. F. Guerin and R. Hallas. New York, London, Wallflower Press: 82-97.

^[36] It is interesting that neither CBS nor the United Nations has a copy in their archives of the CBS/United Nations Casebook XXI broadcast.

^[37] See for instance Steven L. Jacobs, “Raphael Lemkin’s Thoughts on Nazi Genocide, Not Guilty?”. The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter (1992); Steven L. Jacobs, "Raphael Lemkin and the Armenian Genocide," in Looking Backward, Moving Forward; Confronting the Armenian Genocide, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2003) pgs.125-135; Steven Leonard Jacobs, "The Journey of Death": Lemkin and the Armenian Genocide," Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 17 (2008) pgs. 7-18 and Raphael Lemkin, Raphael Lemkin's Dossier on the Armenian Genocide : Turkish Massacres of Armenians : (Manuscript from Raphael Lemkin's Collection, American Jewish Historical Society) / Uniform Title: Dossier on the Armenian Genocide ([Glendale, Calif.]: Vartkes Yeghiayan et al. at Center for Armenian Remembrance, 2008).

^[38] Many viewers, of course, were spared witnessing the awkward ‘Turkish perspective’ of absolute rejection of the use of the word “genocide” in the TV ‘roundtable’ following the broadcast.  It seems bizarre that one of the professors who represented the ‘Turkish Point of View’ would be a Turk who spoke halting English at best.

^[39] For details see Harut Sassounian’s “Lemkin discusses Armenian Genocide in newly-found 1949 CBS Interview” The California Courier 8 December 2005.

Today, the film segment from the Goldberg documentary with Raphael Lemkin, shows up so many times and in so many places on the Internet that it would be a challenge for anyone to keep track.  See for example You Tube under the title “The Genocide Word by Raphael Lemkin” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Genocide_Word_by_Raphael_Lemkin.ogv  and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Lemkin  and

Journalist Christiane Amanpour’s two hour documentary shown on CNN “Scream Bloody Murder” uses the film footage as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLT-BpV9c8g.

As an aside, on seeing these programs one cannot help but wonder how matters of copyright of the “UN Casebook XXI: Genocide” excerpts are handled.  One sometimes sees that statement that the original film footage from that program is in the public domain.  Possibly, but we doubt it.  In any case, one would think that the Goldberg film copyright dating from 2005, 2006 and including the clip and commentary would be yet another matter.

^[40] Hofmann, Tessa, Bjørnlund, Matthias, and Meichanetsidis, Vasileos (Eds.), 2010. The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks. Studies on the State-Sponsored Campaign of Extermination of the Christians of Asia Minor, 1912-1922 and its Aftermath: History, Law, Memory. Published by Aristide D. Caratzas, New York and Athens; Meichanetsidis, Vasileos Th., 2015. The Genocide of the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire. 1913-1923: a comprehensive overview. Genocide Studies International 9, no. 1, 104-173;Faltais, Kostas, 2016. The Genocide of the Greeks in Turkey. Survivor testimonies from the Nicomedia (Izmit) massacres of 1920-1921. Translated and edited by Ellene S. Phufas-Jousma and Aris Tsiltfidis. Cosmos Publishing, River Vale, New Jersey;Sjöberg, Erik, 2017. The Making of the Greek Genocides: contested memories of the Ottoman Greek catastrophe. Berghahn, New York and Oxford; Shrinian, George N., ed., 2017. Genocide in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians and Greek, 1913-1923. Berghahn, New York and Oxford; Ioannnidou, Theodora, 2016/2018. The Holocaust of the Pontian Greeks: still an open wound. Translated from the original Greek.  ISBN 978-960-93-8443-8; Hosoi den gelasen pote: atein’ pou ‘k’ egelasan kammian, 11 martyres gia ton Golgotha tou pontiakou hellelnismou. Ekdoseis: Athens. (2014).

^[41] In a special supplement to Foreign Affairs (London) published in 1920 vol. 2, no.4, ii-iii, there is a very interesting book review by Major Cyprian Bridge , a British Royal Navy Officer, of Dr. Johannes Lepsius’ book “Deutschland und Armenien: Sammlung diplomatischer Aktenstücke”, [“Germany and the Armenians.”], 1919, Tempelverlag Pottsdam.  The review ends with the telling statement “In his introductory pages he states he leaves it to his readers to form their own conclusions  from the evidence which he lays before them, and the unprejudiced mind can only gather from that whereas he confirms the worst that has been said regarding the Turkish government, he clears his own fellow-countrymen of any responsibility for the horrible treatment to which the Armenians were subjected during the war.”  One can also ask and argue just what is meant by sharing the odium.

^[42] A full paper might well be written in connection with the range of euphemisms, distortions and obfuscations that have been used.  The “messy end” of the Ottoman Empire is particularly evasive.  We will refrain from giving a list of all the alternative words for genocide, massacre etc., that have been trundled out over the years by the Turks, their supporters, and even in connection with other “genocides”, “tragedies” and “disasters” in the course of war or whatever.  One especially imaginative and fairly recent label is the _expression_ “violent migrations.”  According to the author who has come up with this pithy designation, the motivation for the nuance has been to “broaden conceptual categories rather than to narrow them.”  See Joshua Sanborn, "Unsettling the Empire: Violent Migrations and Social Disaster in Russia During World War I,"  The Journal of Modern History 77, no. 2 (2005): 290-324, pg. 291.

^[43] We do not propose to examine in depth exactly what “murdered” means in the context of the genocide.  In the case of the Armenians, most but not all of the men and youth were killed, slaughtered outright (sometimes but not always after arrest) or after ‘drafting’ them nominally to serve in the army (often working them in labor battalions, even like pack animals) and afterwards murdering them (sometimes having forced them to dig their own burial ditches).  The murdering was frequently done by very violent means – with knives, swords, axes, farm tools etc., so as some accounts say to save bullets.   Some women and children were killed outright as well; others were taken off as servants in Muslim homes, married off to Turks or Kurds and/or for ‘service’ in harems, even as young girls.  (We want to emphasize that we do not try to suggest that the ‘harems’ in question were like those imagined by many westerners and were like those filled with odalisques in the French style of painting, who lay about languishing or relaxing and smoking water pipes etc. (see e.g. Mildred Mortimer “Re-representing the Orient: a new instructional approach” in The French Review vol. 79 no.2, Dec. 2005) 296-312 for that would take us still more off the track.)  Those Armenians, mostly women and children and a very few old men, who were not dispatched more or less straightaway, were reduced by sickness, starvation and dehydration as they were ‘deported’ and subjected to intermittent abuses of all kinds, including forced abandonment, rape and abduction.  The nominal areas to which the Armenians were to be deported (and settled) were the stony deserts of northern Syria.  (Again, when one hears the word “desert” one usually thinks of the sandy deserts of Arabia as seen in movies like “Lawrence of Arabia.”  That is not generally speaking the kind of deserts to which the Armenians were driven.)  In the region of Der Zor and the Khabur River area especially, survivors who had lived through the atrocities of the massacres and deportations, were subjected to murder by being shot, drowned or even by being forced into a cave complex, the mouth of which was deliberately subjected to smoke and fire so that the inmates would be burned or suffocated to death (see Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilization (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005).  And so on and so on.  Early on, especially in communiques and the ‘western’ Press, what was happening to the Armenians was covered with the blanket term “massacres.”  That is probably because “massacre” had entered into the vocabulary of the history of man’s inhumanity to man (Ralph J. Hartley, "To Massacre: A Perspective on Demographic Competition," Anthropological Quarterly 80, no. 1 (2007): 237-251;.David  Gaunt, Jan  Bet-Sawoce, and Racho Donef, Massacres, Resistance, Protectors : Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I, 1st Gorgias Press ed. (Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, 2006).  The word “massacre” usually connotes a few things depending on the reader and the context.  We will not get into that here.  Even some of the great libraries of the world who are responsible for cataloguing new books etc. are so timid in their cataloging, apparently not wishing to stir up a hornet’s nest, have ended up trying every conceivable tactic to avoid cataloguing books under the rubric of Armenian genocide.  We see such labels as Armenian massacres, Armenian question etc.  That too is yet another dimension and consequence of addressing issues of the Armenian Genocide.

^[44] F.C. Corbyn, "The Present Position of the Armenian Nation," Journal of the Royal Central Asia Society 19, no. 4 (1932): 587-616.  Persistence is indeed one of the qualities of the Armenians, but at the risk of stereotyping, it need be said that frequently the “Armenians cannot agree among themselves” [Haik voch miapan].  This shortcoming has been voiced by Armenians and non-Armenian alike.  Dr. James D. Barton wrote in 1896 in his chapter “The Armenians who are they? Their religion, occupation.  Habits of life, intelligence, strength and weknesses” in Rev. James Wilson Pierce’s Story of Turkey and Armenia.  With a full and accurate account of the recent massacres written by eyewitnesses, Baltimore: R.H. Woodward Company (1896) Chapter 6 pgs. 220-230.   The volume is accessible online at http://books.google.com/books?id=s80NAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ViewAPI#v=onepage&q&f=false

^[45] Paul Wilkinson, "Armenian Terrorism," The World Today 39, no. 9 (1983): 344-350.  The now late Erich Feigl has made much out of this sad period in Armenian history.   See Erich Feigl, A Myth of Terror; Armenian Extremism: Its Causes and Its Historical Context, English ed. (Freilassing, Salzburg: EZG Edition Zeitgeschichte, 1988); Erich Feigl, Armenian Mythomania : Armenian Extremism : Its Causes and Historical Context (Wien: Amalthea Signum, 2006); Justin McCarthy, "Armenian Terrorism: History as Poison and Antidote," in Armenian Terrorism, its supporters, the narcotic connection, the distortion of history, ed. Ankara Universitesi (Ankara University, Rectorate Conference Hall, 17-18 April 1984: Press, Information, and Public relations Office, Ankara University, 1984) pgs. 85-102.

^[46] For the interesting history and details of the Mount Davidson Cross see https://mtdavidson.org/mount-davidson-cross/  Note: this is a sluggish site and may require that you try to enter it several times before it opens!

^[47] Rubina Peroomian, Literary Responses to Catastrophe: A Comparison of the Armenian and the Jewish Experience, Studies in near Eastern Culture and Society (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993); Rubina Peroomian, "The Armenian Genocide through Art and Literature," in Anatomy of Genocide,State-Sponsored Mass-Killings in the Twentieth Century, ed. Alexandre Kimenyi and Otis L. Scott (Lewiston, New YorkQueenston, OntarioLampeter, wales: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997); Rubina Peroomian, And Those Who Continued Living in Turkey after 1915 : The Metamorphosis of the Post-Genocide Armenian Identity as Reflected in Artistic Literature, Research and Studies in Armenian Genocide Series (Yerevan: Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, 2008); Samuel Totten, ed. Plight and Fate of Women During and Following Genocide, Genocide (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2009); Marc Nichanian, Writers of Disaster Armenian Literature in the Twentieth Century, vol. 1 (Princeton, New Jersey London, England: Gomidas Institute, 2002); Marc Nichanian, "Catastrophic Mourning," in Loss, the Politics of Mourning, ed. David L. Eng and David Kazanjian (Berkeley Los Angeles London: University of California Press, 2003); Marc Nichanian, The Historiographic Perversion (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009); David Kazanjian and Marc Nichanian, "Between Genocide and Catastrophe," in Loss, the Politics of Mourning, ed. David L. Eng and David Kazanjian (Berkeley Los Angeles London: University of California Press, 2003).  On a very personal level it has been hurtful for one of us (ADK) to be asked in medical interviews for general health histories relating to one’s ancestors.  It is not very helpful to say that grandparents and aunts and uncles were victims of genocide, and therefore one cannot say anything very useful about how long they may have lived in the course of a normal lifetime.

^[48] Much has been written about forgiveness.  One of our opening quotes from Alice Walker reflects her view that “Some crimes against humanity are so heinous nothing will ever rectify them.  All we can do is attempt to understand their causes and do everything in our power to prevent them from happening, to anyone, ever again.” (Alice Walker Overcoming Speechlessness (2010 pgs. 69-70.)  Equally to the point of forgiveness for such crimes as genocide is voiced in Pope John Paul II’s encyclical “Dives in Misercordia” [Rich in Mercy] (30 November 1980, 14).  “In no passage of the Gospel message does forgiveness, or mercy appear as its source, mean indulgence towards evil, towards scandals, towards injury or insult.  In any case, reparation for evil and scandal, compensation for injury, and satisfaction for insult are conditions for forgiveness” (see http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_30111980_dives-in-misericordia_en.html). 

^[49] Glenn Greenwald, With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful, 1st ed. (New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Co., 2011).

^[50] Kemal H. Karpat, "The Transformation of the Ottoman State, 1789-1908," International Journal of Middle East Studies 3 no. 3 (1972) pgs. 243-281 ends with the statement that “The culminating point in the transformation of the Ottoman state was the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.  But the republic carried with it the Ottoman legacy.  Its social structure, leadership, and patterns of transformation followed a certain sequence and regularity which can be fathomed only by understanding the socio-political history of the Ottoman state…” pg. 281.  From this quoted statement we conclude that the Turks ‘cannot have their cake and eat it too.’  They apparently can be proud of their Ottoman legacy when it suits them; likewise, they can reject it when it does not.  No matter what there has long been a culture of violence in Turkey:- cf. e.g. George W. Gawrych “The culture and politics of violence in Turkish society, 1908-14” Middle Eastern Studies vol. 22 no.3 (1986) pgs. 307-330.

^[51]

 We will not take space to discuss this in detail, but many years ago it was clearly enunciated that “After the enforced deportation of the Armenians in 1915, their bank accounts, both current and deposit, were transferred by order to the State Treasury in Constantinople.  This fact enabled the Turks to send 5 million sterling to the Reichsbank, Berlin, in exchange for a new issue of notes.” Corbyn 1932 pg. 597.  On a more local level and as only a single example, see the description by Leslie A. Davis, the last United States Consul in Harput, Turkey, a province heavily populated with Armenians.  He describes the near-festival like atmosphere that obtained when the Armenians were served notice of their ‘deportation’.  Household items such as sewing machines and valuable rugs sold for nearly nothing.  Some were impudent enough to say if you do not take our offer, we will be able to get the material after you go, in any case for free! See Leslie A. Davis and Susan K. Blair, The Slaughterhouse Province : An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1917 (New Rochelle, N.Y.: A.D. Caratzas, Orpheus Pub, 1989).

^[52] Journalists Sabrina Tavernise and Sebnem Arsu wrote a pretty good summary on the psychological component in a 12 October 2007 “News Analysis” published in the New York Times pg. A12 entitled “Inside the Turkish Psyche: traumatic issues trouble a nation’s sense of identity.”  They quote a university sociologist in Istanbul as saying: […] “Turkish state and society have both have traumatic pasts, and it’s not easy to face them” […] “compared Turkey’s beginnings to a tenant who realizes that the house he has just rented is not new, but instead “has all kinds of rubbish and dirt underneath.  Would you shout it out loud at the risk of being shamed by your neighbors,” […] “or try to hide it and deal with it as you keep living in your only home?”  …[“The word ‘genocide’, as cold as it is, causes a deep reaction in the Turkish society’[…. ]  “Having been taught about its glorious and spotless past by the state rhetoric for decades, people feel they could not have possibly done such a terrible thing.”  For the entire article online see http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/turkey/armenian_genocide/index.html.

We would be led to believe the standard line that America’s Incirlik ‘Air Base’ near Adana is a strategic benefit to the United States and NATO.  For us it verges on being a scandal if not a joke.  The American taxpayer paid to build it, pays for use of it, also pays for the Turkish Air Force’s use of it, the servicing of the Turkish airplanes, in addition to employing and training Turkish personnel etc.  ‘Not so.  Hidden costs’ of base maintenance and foreign aid to Turkey are only among the devices to get American taxpayer money into the hands of American contractors through immense multimillion dollar contracts to perform Turkey base maintenance, contracts which could be said are essentially ‘washed’ through various and sundry channels.  Without the United States the base would not be maintained for the proverbial ten minutes.  Turkish pride and skill in diplomacy, even blackmail, makes it “Turkish” in reality while America pays the bills and the American Military-Industrial Complex and contractor greed keep it going.  See e.g. Frank Hyland in U.S. Air Base at Incirlik faces political and security threats, Terrorism Focus (Jamestown Foundation) Vol. 4 no. 42 December 19, 2007 http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4619  It would probably take an army of accountants to figure out what is what and who pays for what, see http://militarybases.com/overseas/turkey/incirlik/.  It is also worthwhile to point out that the Turkish Air Force has been helped by western Powers in very material ways for many years (see Gary Leiser “The Turkish Air Force, 1939-45: the rise to power of a minor power” Middle Eastern Studies vol. 26 no. 3 (July) pgs. 383-395 (1990).

^[53] A now deceased dear friend, and academic in Vancouver, Canada, pointed out many years ago that Canadians and others were “Americans” as well, be they North, Central or South Americans, not just those residing in the United States of America.  He was right of course.  It is a bit like the French raging at the English for arrogantly calling “La Manche” [‘the Sleeve’] their channel!  Old habits die hard?  So far as Mount Rushmore is concerned, digging a bit deeper gets one into a totally different perspective on how this national icon came into being.  On Mount Rushmore in general let it be said that some have attempted to be more realistic as to its intent and design, and the politics behind it.  If it turns out to be less patriotic so be it.  The New Yorker, famous for its cartoons, published one by P. Steiner captioned “Your face in stone”, 12 November 1990) see pg. 145 of Albert Boime’s Patriarchy fixed in Stone. Gutzon Borglum’s Mount Rushmore.  American Art vol 5, no. 2, pgs. 142-167 (1991).  Also, James W. Loewen’s Lies across America: what our historic sites get wrong (2000, New Press, Norton, New York. is an excellent call for patriotic iconoclasm in a nationalist era.  He asks for an end to “chauvinistic and jingoistic nationalism” […] capacity to identify with peoples outside our own class, ethnic affiliation, tribe, community, and country”—when wars “will no longer be considered a “viable alternative” and memorials to wars will cease.  In short, he hopes that what has been called “the landscapes of pilgrimage” will become rather different venues.  ‘Dark Tourism’ will have to be cast in a different light see John Lennon and Malcolm Foley (2000) Dark Tourism.  The attraction of death and disaster. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

^[54] One need only think for a moment what politicians in America are capable of saying in terms of campaigning.  As long as it ‘sounds good’ they do not hesitate to invoke the nominally ‘understood by all’ principles of every Tom, Dick and Harry.] See the cartooning Teddy Roosevelt http://www.archive.org/details/trincartoongros00raymrich  Note: start reading on page 8. Pgs. 2-7 are blank.

^[55] Concerning the image of the Turk, we have found it noteworthy, even somewhat amusing, that the now late Professor Stanford J. Shaw (1930-2006) of UCLA and his Turkish-born wife and co-author Ezel Kural Shaw, felt constrained to bring the matter of the ‘Terrible Turk’ up in response to a critique of their "History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey” by Richard G. Hovannisian, Richard G. Hovannisian, "The Critic's View: Beyond Revisionism," International Journal of Middle East Studies 9 (1978): 379-400. “Does Dr. Hovannisian really wish to perpetuate the biased image of the ‘Terrible Turk’ that has its roots in the age of the Crusades?” (see Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, "[the Critic's View" Beyond Revisionism]”:The Authors Respond," International Journal of Middle East Studies 9 (1978): 388-400.)  Nowhere that we are aware of has Professor Hovannisian ever used the _expression_ ‘Terrible Turk.’  By way of contrast, we certainly have (see Eugene L. Taylor and Abraham D. Krikorian, "Ravished Armenia Revisted:'' Some Additions to "a Brief Assessment of the Ravished Armenia Marquee Poster," Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 19, no. 2 (2010): 179-215.)  To show just how politicized things can become, indeed have become in some quarters at least, and how obfuscation at various levels from the Turkish side can render all kinds of matters relating to Armenians, one need only read a book review by University of Wisconsin professor Kemal Karpat.  He acclaims the Shaw’s history and apparently felt constrained to emphasizes (non-gratuitously one can suspect) that “the Shaws studied the national movements among various ethnic groups, including the Armenians, using new statistical (emphasis ours) and documentary sources and found no evidence to back the stories of organized massacres or atrocities allegedly carried out by the Ottoman government in order to stem these national aspirations'' Kemal H. Karpat, "[Untitled]," The American Historical Review 83, no. 1 (1978): 242-243.  Just why in a short book review Karpat felt that he had to bring up that matter is of interest since the Shaws themselves emphasized in their ‘rejoinder’ that Richard Hovannisian’s criticism of their work entailed only some seven out of a total of nearly a thousand pages (Shaw and Shaw pg. 389).  One aspect of the entire situation of ‘Turk versus Armenian’ that we have never fully understood, is that in all instances of Turkish persecutions of the Armenians, why the Turkish government was unable to deal with supposed insurrections etc. without resorting to mass violence upon a largely innocent populace.  After all, according to people like Dr. Justin McCarthy, there were “not enough Armenians in the Empire to matter” (our phraseology).  If we are to accept McCarthy’s very low population numbers as real, which they are not, it then becomes a matter of the tail wagging the dog, does it not?  Either that, or the ‘cowardly’ Armenians must be imbued with great efficiency and prowess so that a few Armenian revolutionaries could seriously threaten the overwhelmingly dominant Muslim population and government?  Are we to believe that the Turk becomes the victim at the hands of so few?  Of course, cherry picking of perspectives depending on perceived need allows anything.  It is of no little interest that Speros Vryonis, Balkan Studies volume 24, pp 163-286 (1983), gives a scathing critical review of the work.  He draws attention to the quality of Shaw’s alleged archival work that they so proudly highlight in their ‘Response’ to Hovannisian (cf. Speros Vryonis, Jr., "Stanford J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Volume 1: Empire of the Gazis: The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire, 1280-1808. Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, London, New York, Melbourne, 1976)." Balkan Studies 24, no. number 1 (1983): 163-286.)  Finally, and as an aside that is not really intended here as an aside, we know non-Armenian biased veterans who served with the American Armed Forces in Korea.  These are men of high integrity and honesty.  They have related that the Turks earned such a terrible reputation that they were feared to a man.  Why?  It was common, especially on night missions, to make their way into enemy foxholes etc. and to slit the throats of all but one.  The survivor, of course, made sure that the word got out.  The Turks were so emboldened, we were told by men on the spot, that what would normally be ‘night missions’ were carried out in broad daylight since they encountered little opposition.  This sort of story was related by two elder brothers of one of us (ADK) who served in Korea, but we shall not mention that since it would obviously and unabashedly be biased.  We could add to this but will not.  We are not saying that ‘all’ Turks are capable of this.  The reputation of the ‘Terrible Turk’ has been earned, and does not merely harken back to the histrionics of the Crusades era, Amander Wunder 2003  Cirakman 2001;  An editorial from the The London Times “The clean-fighting Turk” in The New Armenia (New York) vol. 9 no. 6 March 15, 1917 pgs. 94-95 ends with the sentence “His success we must acknowledge; he has massacred, pillaged, outrages; for two years and a half he has broken every convention, maltreated our prisoners, killed our wounded, held our women hostages, but he remains the “clean fighting Turk.”  Sarga Moussa has given some interesting insights on how the view of the ‘despotic, violent and cruel Turk’ evolved and reversed in travel literature in particular according to the perceptions of European governments and realpolitik.  In other words, like everything it is complicated.  Where there is smoke there usually is fire?  Few would brand an entire nation on account of its past misdeeds.  Or would they?  See M. Hakan Yavuz (2014) “Orientalism, the ‘Terrible Turk’ and Genocide.” Middle East Critique 23, no. 2, 111-126.

^[56] This film, which incidentally has some very interesting footage of the population exchange period, deals with the emotions of an elderly woman from a rural area in northeastern Turkey [probably somewhere in the Pontus region] who, along with her older sister, have long hidden their Greek blood from Turkish neighbors.  After the death of the older sister, she is determined to travel to Greece so as to seek out a brother from whom they were separated during the deportations of the Ottoman Greeks, and the population exchange.]

^[57] One of the better treatments of the psychology of group identification that a non-expert can intuitively identify with and feel that he or she is on the right track, is given by Clark McCauley, "The Psychology of Group Identification and the Power of Ethnic Nationalism," in Ethnopolitical Warfare: Causes, Consequences, and Possible Solutions, ed. Daniel Chirot and Martin E.P. Seligman (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2001).  The idea that Turks in places like Germany do not integrate well into German society is largely due to the feeling that there are fundamental reasons associated with their desire to retain their deep-seated Turkishness.  The fact is that poor assimilation is due to many complicated reasons, not the least of which is seeking German citizenship, because once  they abandon Turkish citizenship, they are no longer able to inherit anything in Turkey. (see e.g. Claus Mueller, "Integrating Turkish Communities: A German Dilemma," Population Research and Policy Review 25, no. 5/6 (2006): 419-441.  For the film in question see Rüçhan Çaliskur et al., Waiting for the Clouds (Chicago, IL : Facets Video, 2009), at some 18 minutes or so into the film.  Nikolaos Hlamides of London first brought our attention to this sensitive film.  One of the film’s producers is Behrooz Hashemian, clearly a man with Armenian roots.

^[58] Justin McCarthy has seemingly taken the tack of attributing to American missionaries the promulgation of the bad image of the Turk in America (see Justin McCarthy, The Turk in America : Creation of an Enduring Prejudice, Utah Series in Turkish and Islamic Studies (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2010).  More recently, and in a vastly more subtle way, the image of the sexually profligate Turk supposedly with at least some harem experience and versed in adet was viewed as scandalous if not titillating to the prudish Britons in Victorian and Edwardian days.  In the very well received British television series Downton Abbey there is an episode in which a handsome young Turkish diplomat dies in Lady Mary’s bed.  It is unclear from the script whether there was any penetration but if we are to take the dashing Mr. Pamuk at his word, lady Mary would still be a virgin after their sexual encounter.  We can do little but conclude that cunnilingus entered into the equation?.  After all, it was alleged to be common among the women in the harems of the Turkish elites, but also in the bed chambers.

^[59] In fact, most believe that this is completely out of character for Turks.  They would say “We would never do such a thing etc.”  This is part of the universal feature of virtually everyone that has been called “the will not to know.”  Bernard Lewis in his "History Writing and National Revival in Turkey," Middle Eastern Affairs 4 (1953): 218-227 gives little attention to why there was a perceived need to do what was in essence, selective rewriting of history.  Are we to believe that Adolph Hitler’s oath to revindicate the humiliating defeat of Germany at the end of World War I can justify incredible violence in the name of national honor?  Clive Foss gives a number of concrete examples of the pernicious consequences of nationalism as it obtains in (re)writing history by Turks in his “Armenian History as Seen by Twentieth Century Turkish Historians," Armenian Review 45, no. 1-2/177-178 (1992): 1-52.  Some 50 years ago when in the great covered market of Istanbul we encountered an Armenian carpet dealer and entered into a lengthy conversation with him.  He was an especially cordial and engaging fellow, quite unlike the stereotypic ‘Oriental’ rug salesman that one normally hears or reads about.  When we asked in Armenian how the Turks felt towards Armenians in present-day Turkey, his answer was the simple and time-honored “meyuvnyun kak nehn” [they are the same old sh_t].  In a very different but still similar context, and certainly much more recent as to time frame, we encounter many examples of deep-seated sensitivities to any perceived insult to Turkishness.  Violence can be elicited with relatively little instigation.  One can imagine what can be elicited with a bit of planning.  Balca Ergener has provided an interesting overview and analysis of the events surrounding an exhibition of photographs entitled (in translation) “From the Archives of Rear Admiral Fahri Çoker: the events of September 6-7 on their fiftieth anniversary” displayed in connection with the 50^th anniversary of the Istanbul [and Izmir?] riots against the Greeks, Jews and Armenians.  Ergener’s paper is entitled ‘On the Exhibition “Incidents of September 6-7 on their Fiftieth Anniversary” and the Attack on the Exhibition.’  Indeed, the attack was very real and many photographs were for Ergener destroyed.

Just before finalizing this posting we checked all URLs to see if they worked. [We outlined our view on this in Endnote 1 above.]  We tested the previously functioning URL and learned that it has been blocked! For direct access to Ms. Ergener’s article go to:-  http://www.red-thread.org/en/article.asp?a=25.  (We thank Matthias Bjørnlund for telling us about Ergener’s article.)  No mention is made in her article of the exhaustive and illustrated volume by Speros Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe : The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul (New York, N.Y.: greekworks.com, 2005).  It has xxxv, 659 pages of text, and 90 pages of plates.  Would that one could have compared the images in the exhibit with those in Vryonis’s book.  International newspapers of the day dealt largely with the anti-Greek actions, but gave minimal attention to the actions against Jews and Armenians (cf. New York Times 7 September 1955 pg. 1, ‘Anti-Greek riots flare in Turkey.  Istanbul mobs wreck shops, threaten Church – British offer a freer Cyprus’; 9 September pg. 1 ‘Anti-Greek riots in Turkey studies by NATO Council’; 17 September pg 14, editorial by C.L. Suzlberger ‘Disastrous effects of the Turkish riots’ in which the statement “And all the latent Turkish prejudices against national and religious minorities are again released.  The spirit that led to Ankara’s persecution of Greeks, Armenians and Jew in 1942 and 1943 under the so-called Varlik Vergisi Law has been revived….Vandalism in Istanbul and Izmir was much worse than the American public seems to realize….  And the Greeks are almost as offended by what they consider our indifference as they are enraged with the Turks.  Dozens of Orthodox churches were pillaged.  Thousands of shops were rifled.  Priests were beaten.  Graveyards were desecrated.  The homes of Greek officers stationed at NATO’s Southeast Europe Headquarters in Izmir were looted.”  We will not attempt an analysis here of what started the 6-7 September 1955 riots.  Had they taken place in early 20^th century Russia and against the Jews, they would have been labeled pogromy, (pogroms in English).  The supposed immediate trigger for the Istanbul riots were the reports of damage by dynamite at the hands of Greek ‘communists’ to the birthplace of Kemal Ataturk in Salonika.  The reports were of course false; one version was that a stick of dynamite placed by unknown persons(s) nearby the Turkish Consulate had caused some damage.  Interested readers may refer to Vryonis’ book for many details and photographs  For more generalized imagery covering a span of many years, including the 1955 pogroms, reference may be made to The Turkish Crime of Our Century 1982 (Asia Minor Refugees Coordination Committee, The Turkish Crime of Our Century (Nicosia, Cyprus?: Asia Minor Refugees Coordination Committee, 1982); Speros Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe : The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul (New York, N.Y., 2005).

^[60] We have given substantial commentary on ‘seeing’ versus ‘seeing’ so far as photographs are concerned in our article entitled “Saga surrounding a forged photograph…”posted 22 February 2010 and which may be accessed at  https://www.groong.org/orig/ak-20100222.html.

^[61] Uriel Heyd, "Language Reform in Turkey," Middle Eastern Affairs 4(1953): 402-409.  For the nationalistic basis for language reform see İlker Aytürk “Turkish linguists against the West: the origin of linguistic nationalism in Atatûrk’s Turkey, Middle Eastern Studies 40, no. 6 pgs. 1-25 (2004).

^[62] See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzxI14MxHo0.  No one can deny that these posts are offensive and tasteless, but the Internet offers bad with the good.  Take it or leave it.  Better yet, learn to separate the wheat from the chaff.

^[63] See Ussama Makdisi, "Ottoman Orientalism," The American Historical Review 107, no. 3 (2002): 768-96.for an interesting perspective on the history of deliberate promulgation of a modern image of the Ottoman state.

^[64] See Carter V. Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire : The Sublime Porte, 1789-1922, Princeton Studies on the Near East; (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980)..  It is amusing, yet telling, to understand that the Turks themselves knew that the Gulhane decree was essentially useless in promulgating reforms  We read in Harold Temperley, "British Policy Towards Parliamentary Rule and Constitutionalism in Turkey (1830-1914)," Cambridge Historical Journal 4, no. no.2 (1933): 156-191. pg. 159 the following:-

“As long as Mahmud [Sultan Mahmud II, 1808-1839, who in the name of modernization orchestrated the slaughter of 7 or 8 thousand Janisarries in 1826] lived he was the best proof of the argument that the Sultan was the best reformer.  But he died in 1839 and was succeeded by a weak son of sixteen, Abdul Mejid, who was quite incapable of vigorous or independent action.  But a policy of reform was proclaimed by Reschid Pasha in the famous Gulhané decree [Hatt-i Humayun of Gulhane].  The Edict was issued, and named from a chamber of roses.  It smelt as sweet and withered as quickly as the flowers.  The Turks who love a play on words, surnamed it the decree of the Khulhané, i.e. of the dust hole.” [emphasis ours].

Later writers have on occasion sought to make more of the attempts at modernization than reality permits, but for a much more deliberate evaluation of the principles of representation in the Empire (see for example Roderic H. Davison, "The Advent of the Principle of Representation in the Government of the Ottoman Empire," in Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East, ed. William R. Polk and Richard L. Chambers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968).

^[65] Hanns  Froembgen and Kenneth tr Kirkness, Kemal Ataturk; a Biography (New York: Hillman-Curl, 1937) is not a very satisfactory volume for any number of reasons.  It certainly cannot be characterized as being pro-Armenian, and that is its significance for us.  He states in one place of in his text that the Armenians “as a reward for treacherous conduct in the War, the eastern Provinces were to form a state” pg. 88. Froembgen unabashedly states that Kemal’s attitude was dominated by “Turkey for the Turks” and that the minorities were liquidated or exchanged.  Winston Churchill described the outcome of the policy of the Young Turks and their successors in this way:- “Three or four hundred thousand men, women, and children escaped into Russian territory and others into Persia or Mesopotamia; but the clearance of the race from Asia Minor was about as complete as such an act, on a scale so great, could well be” Winston Churchill, The World Crisis vol. 5, "The Aftermath" (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929).

^[66] The next time around was initially the Armenian Genocide.  Some complained that the early Turcic conquerors had not forced conversion to Islam or put people to the sword.  Later, some complained that Sultan Abdul Hamid II had not done as effective a job as he might have, or more precisely, should have.  See Hannibal Travis, Genocide in the Middle East : The Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan (Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 2010) for the long history of violence.

^[67] Rifat N. Bali, The "Varlik Vergisi" Affair : A Study of Its Legacy : Selected Documents, (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2005).

^[68] Rifat N. Bali, The "Varlik Vergisi" Affair: A Study of Its Legac : Selected Documents, (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2005) see especially pgs. 235-252 for “Articles and caricatures published during and after implementation of the Capital Tax.”  See also Hatice Bayraktar, Salamon Und Rabeka : Judenstereotype in Karikaturen Der Türkischen Zeitschriften "Akbaba", "Karikatür" Und "Milli Inkilap" 1933-1945, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen,; Bd. 273; (K. Schwarz, 2006) and also Arnold Reisman, "Turkey's Invitations to Nazi-Persecuted Intellectuals Circa 1933" a Bibliographic Essay on History's Blind Spot," Covenant, the Global Jewish magazine 3, no. 1 (2009): pgs. 31-46 and his “Shoah, Turkey, the US and the UK” (privately printed, 2009.  This latter includes one especially offensive cartoon on pg. 33). 

^[69] See Christian Leitz, Sympathy for the Devil : Neutral Europe and Nazi Germany in World War II (New York: New York University Press, 2001).  A quotation on pg. 86 from this very interesting work reflecting what a British Foreign Office official “lamented”, ‘enables the neutral power to preserve its preference for one belligerent or the other.  There is something Ghandi-esque and positively immoral in this policy, but it is, I fear, typically Turkish and its astuteness and cleverness cannot be denied.’ On pg. 103 the _expression_ ‘a Janus-faced Turkish Government’ is used.

^[70] See for example Majid Khadduri, "The Alexandretta Dispute," The American Journal of International Law 39, no. 3 (1945): 406-425.  Satloff 1986, among other things explains that both France and Turkey did their best “to legitimize an illegitimate act.”[…]  “It was “an unconscionable and an illegal deal struck between two governments who showed little concern for the integrity of international law or the wishes of the local residents.” pg. 147.

 See also Lynn H. Curtright, "Great Britain, the Balkans, and Turkey in the Autumn of 1939," The International History Review 10, no. 3 (1988): 433-455, pg. 438 in particular.

^[71] See Leitz as cited above in Endnote 55 pg. 85 (quoting a British Foreign Office document).

^[72] Because it is in German it will unfortunately not be read by many Americans.  See Corry Guttstadt, Die Türkei, Die Juden Und Der Holocaust (Berlin: Assoziation A, 2008).  If ever there was a volume that merited translation to English it is this, since it covers a range of topics.  In her first chapter “Juden im Osmanischen Reich: 500 Jahre Toleranz und Wohlstand? pgs. 13-47 [Jews in the Ottoman Empire: 500 years of prosperity?]—the word ‘Wohlstand’ implies not so much having lots of money but a feeling that there is nothing lacking in one’s life—it certainly implies that prejudice was lacking).  She re-examines the myth of Ottoman multiculturalism, see esp. pgs. 23-24, and dismisses the myth; Chapter 4, entitled “Die Türkei in den Jahre 1933-1945” pgs. 157-269 [Turkey in the Years 1933-1945”], draws attention to the fact that relatively few Jews passed through Turkey on the way to Palestine.  Some 4,850 Jews had certificates, which consisted of travel papers that had been issued before the war.  The rest, some 8,000 [she gives the figure of 13,240 on pg. 256] were only able to pass through in 1944.  Restrictions and bureaucratic hurdles on Jewish immigration or transit were in effect before the war, and thus were deliberate policy on the part of the Turks, without any direct Nazi influence (pg. 247).  She makes an excellent case that Turkey actually blocked the way of Jews seeking to emigrate, and was not a helpful entity as an important country of transit.  Stanford Shaw, author of Turkey and the Holocaust, Turkey’s role in rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi persecution, 1933-1945 (1993) would not be pleased.  Of course, were he alive one could certainly tell him to put that in his pipe and smoke it?!  Chapter 5 “Türkische Juden unter dem Nationalsocializmus 1933-39”, pgs. 269-282 [Turkish Jews under National Socialism 1933-39] deals with Turkish Jews in Nazi Germany; conclusion, there were few intercessions on behalf of Turkish citizens by the Turkish Embassy in Nazi Germany.  Chapter 6 “Ausbürgerungen von Juden durch die Türkei”, pgs. 271-282 [The Denaturalization of Jews by Turkey] gives some insights on how Turkey collaborated with Germany in getting Turkish Jews disenfranchised/stripped of the citizenship. Chapter 7 is entitled “Die türkischen Juden und der Holocaust,” pgs. 283-485 [Turkish Jews and the Holocaust].  The bottom line is that the Turkish government and individual diplomats did relatively little to save Turkish Jews.  Yes, some were saved but considerably more could have been done.  Certainly Shaw overreached the facts of the case, as usual.

^[74] Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains : Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1909 (London: New York, 1998).

^[75] Malcolm Canon MacColl, "The Tolerant Turk," The New Armenia 9, no. 9 (1917): 133-135.

For an update see Marc D. Baer’s “Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks. Writing Ottoman Jewish history, denying the Armenian genocide.” (2020), Indiana University Press.

^[76] See Mesrob K. Krikorian, Armenians in the Service of the Ottoman Empire, 1860-1908, Routledge Direct Editions; (London: Boston, 1977) and the four huge volumes by Pars Tuglaci, Tarih Boyunca Bati Ermenileri Tarihi (Istanbul: Pars Yayin veTic., 2004) which are replete with richly illustrated history of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire, and even Republican Turkey.  See also Tuglaci’s The Role  of the Balian Family in Ottoman Architecture (Istanbul: Yeni Cigir Bookstore, 1990), as well as his Mehterhane'den Bandoya [Turkish Bands of Past and Present] (Istanbul: CEM Yayinevi, 1986).  For a start in who to select for honorific contributions one might focus on the role of Ohanes Dadian, of the famous Dadian clan , who were much-trusted-by-Sultan Mahmoud II, an amira Armenian who played a leading role in advancing the industrial revolution in the Ottoman Empire.  If ‘they’ don’t like that idea they can select him with equal justification for the critical role he played as Chief Powder Maker [Barut Cubaşi] could be recognized.  Sultan Mahmud II is oft heralded by today’s Turkey for initiating the great and enlightened ‘Reforms’ and ‘Rescripts’ that came into being after his death.  He sent the trusted Dadian to England to look into the possibilities of introducing to Turkey useful arts and manufactures, especially those involving iron ores.  Turkey had large amounts of high quality iron ore and wanted to capitalize on this natural resource.  See: http://www.archive.org/stream/lifeofsirwilliam00fairiala#page/172/mode/2up/search/dadian

Reference may be made to the article by Edward C. Clark "The Ottoman Industrial Revolution," International Journal of Middle East Studies 5, no. 1 (1974): 65-76. on Dadian and his many and far-reaching endeavors on behalf of the Empire.  There are a few sites on the Internet that give an inkling of the Turkish participation, but curiously, there is no mention as far as we could find of any Armenian presence.  http://dergiler.ankara.edu.tr/dergiler/44/671/8542.pdf

In fact, Hohannes T. Pushman, an Armenian, was Secretary of the Ottoman Imperial Commission.  He arranged and edited an interesting book on the exhibits in Chicago.  (see Hohannes T. Pushman, The Exhibits of the Ottoman Empire at the World's Columbian Exposition, 1893, Chicago (Chicago: Imperial Ottoman Commission, 1893).  For a more recent description of the oriental environment at various World Fair venues see Zeynep Çelik.  Displaying of the Orient: Architecture of Islam at Nineteenth-Century World’s fairs.  University of California Press, Berkeley, 1992)-for a brief overview see:

http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft8x0nb62g;chunk.id=d0e354;doc.view=print

^[77] To us at least, there seems to be something more than a bit curious about the fact that some of Turkey’s Jews kept slaves in the Empire – even till the late Empire.  Just how this was rationalized in terms of Jewish law [the halakah] and Ottoman Law is something we cannot comment on.  Apparently they were primarily female and had once apparently been Christians from the Balkans and eastern European regions.  Surely this is a matter on which we must call forth the mysterious East to divulge its secrets.  See Yaron Ben-Naeh, "Blond, Tall, with Honey-Colored Eyes: Jewish Ownership of Slaves in the Ottoman Empire," Jewish History 20, no. 3/4 (2006): 315-332.  The Donme or Jewish converts to Islam, sometimes erroneously regarded as crypto-Christians, are well-known of course Marc Baer (2007) "Globalization, Cosmopolitanism, and the Donme in Ottoman Salonica and Turkish Istanbul," Journal of World History 8, no. 2 pgs.141-170; Saadia E. Weltmann, "Germany, Turkey, and the Zionist Movement," The Review of Politics 23, no. 3 (1961): 246-269; Resat Kasaba, "Greek and Turkish Nationalism in Formation: Western Anatolia 1919-1922," European University Institute, https://mediterraneanstudies.stanford.edu/events/turkish-studies-initiative/resat-kasaba-migration-and-state-formation-aftermath-ottoman.  Some were extremely fanatic – a bit like the proverbially overzealous person converted to Roman Catholicism who became ‘more Catholic than the Pope.’ Indeed, Halide Edib was from a Donme [convert] family, as was Talaat Pasha. Stanford J. Shaw, The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic (New York: New York University Press, 1991); Stanford J. Shaw, Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey's Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945 (New York: New York University Press, 1993).

^[78] Pragmatism very often enters into the affairs of men and women.  Kemal Atatürk’s, initial positive response to requests for admittance of refugees from Nazi Germany, and İsmet İnönü’s virtual denial of some Jewish scientists and physicians after they gotten pretty much what they wanted and could absorb, was based purely on self-interest.  One would hardly think that this would be the dearth of the same in Turkey (see e.g. Avigdor Levy, Jews, Turks, Ottomans : A Shared History, Fifteenth through the Twentieth Century, (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2002); Arnold Reisman, "Jewish Refugees from Nazism, Albert Einstein, and the Modernization of Higher Education in Turkey (1933–1945)," Aleph, no. 7 (2007): 253-81. 2007 and references cited therein. 

^[79] Daniel J. Schroeter, "[Untitled]," The American Historical Review 98, no. 3 (1993): 916-17, Rifat Bali (2014) has written a candid treatment of the Jews and the Turkish state. “Model Citizens of the State: The Jews of Turkey during the Multi-party period.” Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Madison, NJ.  It offers a strong antidote to the ‘party line.’

^[80] For a well-documented and direct analysis on Turkey’s actions and attitudes towards it Jews that demolish any notions that the Turks were beneficent and tolerance towards its Jewish minority see Andrew G. Bostom, "The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims," Prometheus Books, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGpV_fiMTic.

There is also an excellent article by Edward C. Clark, “The Turkish Varlik Vergisi Reconsidered”, Middle Eastern Studies 8, no. 2 (1972): 205-216 for the effects and nominal intentions of the law.  Not surprisingly, Kemal Karpat, late professor at the University of Wisconsin challenged that article and dismissed it as having provided nothing new.  The rejoinder by Dr. Clark is excellent and starts off with “In reading Dr. Karpat’s interesting if blunt comments I gather that some of my carefully-marshalled facts contradict his preferred theory, and that he proposes to resolve the dilemma by discounting the facts.  In my opinion a re-examination of his theory would be a more rewarding enterprise” Kemal H. Karpat and Edward C. Clark, "Correspondence," Middle Eastern Studies 9, no. 2 (1973): 256-59.  Those who could not pay the levies were forced into labor camps in Eastern Turkey.  There apparently was not a single Turkish Muslim defaulter who was sent to the Aşkale labor camp [in Erzerum Ili or province].  In the foreword to Faik Ökte’s The Tragedy of the Turkish Capital Tax, Croom Helm, London and Wolfeboro, NH (1987) by David Brown there are some telling phrases.  For example on pg. xii we read “For the Jewish and Christian Turkish citizens the tax became nothing less than a small-scale financial massacre” (emphasis ours).  See also Speros Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe : The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul (New York, N.Y., 2005 for a carefully considered and documented presentation of the pogroms which essentially drove the Greek community from Istanbul.

^[81] See as an example published under the heading ‘Comment’ “Turkey bears brunt of Israel” by Kamal Kanj [an oft-arrested by Israel leader in the Druse community, and former member of the Syrian Parliament who had spoken out unendingly of Israel’s takeover and behavior in Golan Heights.  Peaceful resistance has been the Druse strategy, even as Israel pretends to be a great wooer of the Druse.  The hypocrisy has been monumental.] in Gulf Daily News, the Voice of Bahrain 17 February 2012 vol. 34 no. 2334.  (Gulf Daily News carries many articles which bridge each of these outlooks.)

^[82] There are a number of ethnic Turks like History Professor Halil Berktay at Sabanci University in Istanbul, who have been brave enough to speak out (even in light of death threats) and say that what happened to the Armenians was genocide.  See for instance the write-up in The Times Higher Education Supplement (London) 17 February 2005 “Genocide finally gets scholarly inquest” by Dorian Jones.  Jones quotes conference organizer Dr. Berktay- “This has been the most enduring taboo of Turkish nationalist mythology.  Five years ago, hardly anyone was speaking out about this.”  It will not surprise many to read that some 320 of Turkey’s academic community signed a condemnatory petition against the meeting.  Even so, there may be signs of a miniscule but nonetheless real crack in the wall of silence.  Other ethnic Turks residing outside Turkey need not be mentioned for they are not at the same kind of risk as are those living and working in Turkey.

^[83] See for example re myths being extant in Armenian history Anthony D. Smith, Myths and Memories of the Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).  In Armenian tradition one reads about Tiridates the Great who was the head of a large unified state of Armenia.  When the scholars start digging into the available ancient sources, however, there are quite a few challenges and inconsistencies that face them.  Robert H. Hewsen in his "In Search of Tiridates the Great," Journal of the Society of Armenian Studies 2 (1985-1986): 11-49 has done a sterling job of resolving many of the issues surrounding the historic figures with the name Trdat but much remains to be understood.  The sad fact is that it may never be.  Similarly, Armenians often pride themselves on being the first nation to adopt Christianity as a state religion.  This too has been a challenge to resolve and convincingly presented with all the rigorous documentation needed to make that tradition come alive.  Nina Garsoian, an expert and meticulous scholar in ancient Armenian and medieval Armenian studies, has written an important article “Reality and myth in Armenian history,” published in Studi Orientali dell’ Università di Roma ‘la Sapienza’ 13 =The East and Meaning of History.  International Conference (23-27 November 1992) pgs.118-145 (Rome, 1994) [reprinted in Church and Culture in early medieval Armenia, Aldershot, Brookfield, MA.) 1999].  It is a beautiful article that should be read by all professing an interest in Armenia.  But one thing stands out, in all this scholarship, and this statement inevitably will be seen as chauvinistic, one inevitably comes away with the feeling that sources are examined mercilessly without political agenda.  Would that the same could be said of Turkish attempts to unravel their muddy past but cannot rise to the challenge.

^[84] Erich S. Gruen, "The Use and Abuse of the Exodus Story," Jewish History 12, no. 1 (1998): 93-122.

  “Folklore and Nationalism in Turkey'' published in Turkish Folklore and Oral Literatur: Selected Essays of İlhan Başgöz (ed.by Kemal Silay, Indian University Press, 1998) pgs. 41-52 gives an interesting perspective on the recasting of Turkish history and the issuance of guidelines to achieve this in early Republican period.  Shlomo Sand’s book “The Invention of the Jewish People” (translated into English from the original Hebrew in 2009, Verso: London and New York) is a good example of how the Jews have rewritten their own history, beginning in Germany in the 19^th century, by converting it from an aggregate of varied cultures and ethnicities albeit importantly sharing one religion, into a nationalist, even racist narrative of an invented continuity for thousands of years.  Not unexpectedly, this volume has not been well-reviewed by mainstream Israelis, much less Israeli historians.

^[85] Joan Peters, “From Time Immemorial : The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine,” 1st ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1984); Norman G. Finkelstein, “Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict”, 2nd ed. (London: New York, 2003).  Also, Manfred Gerstenfeld (2007) “The multiple distortions of Holocaust memory.” Jewish Political Studies Review 19, 3/4, pgs. 35-55; and  Power, politics , and scholarship by Norman Finkelstein, Margee Little and Jake Hess (April 23, 2008) ZNet, the spirit of resistance lives.

^[86]  There is considerable difference between ethnicity and nationalism and if one is to be able to surmount ancient attitudes and beliefs, much more has to be done by way of education (see Thomas Hylland Eriksen, "Ethnicity Versus Nationalism," Journal of Peace Research 28, no. 3 (1991): 263-278; Christian P. Scherrer, "Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Violence : Conflict Management, Human Rights, and Multilateral Regimes." (Burlington, VT, 2003) and references here cited.  Some Armenians seem to have romanticized conceptions of who the Armenians are, and inevitably emphasize their martyrdom in the name of their Christian faith.  Few seem nowadays to have thought very deeply as to ‘national’ boundaries, or have contemplated in depth, much less resolved, the question of “who are we?”  This brings to mind an Australian friend whose mother was Armenian, born in Egypt of parents who fled eastern Turkey just before the genocide.  A daughter married an Englishman, moved to New Zealand, had children, who in turn married non-Armenians.  Despite a very real interest in her Armenian roots she has encountered more than a little prejudice and quasi-distancing in Australia by those who perceive themselves as ‘real;’ Armenians.  Our answer to this sort of nonsensical behavior is that anyone who feels that he or she has Armenian interests or connections and who chooses to call themselves Armenian, are Armenians.  The level of corruption and ridiculously poor leadership in the present-day ‘real’ ‘Republic’ of Armenia shows that late 19^th and early 20^th century western (some say ‘racist’) views concerning Armenians – especially those in which Armenians are described as incapable of governing themselves as an independent nation after World War I, were not too far off the mark.  Fighting words?  Maybe.  Mind the Armenian Church that stands divided in the Diaspora, wherein for many years duplicate efforts have been undertaken to sustain power and identity.  One can no longer blame ‘the Turks’ for all of Armenia’s shortcomings.  Complaints that the Ottomans ruled with heavy boots are absolutely justified, but today the descendants of the same oppressed people feel free to be oppressors of their own people.  In a like manner, even though the State of Israel came into being because of the Nazi holocaust, it apparently feels no compunction in oppressing the Palestinian Arabs (see Clifford A. Wright, Facts and Fables : The Arab-Israeli Conflict (London New York: Keegan Paul, 1989); Samih K. H Farsoun and Christina Zacharia Hawatmeh, Palestine and the Palestinians (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997) and references there cited.).  Many say that Israel’s behavior towards Gaza is genocidal.  We think that Raphael Lemkin would agree.

^[87]  Howard Zinn (2003), A People's History of the United States : 1492-Present, [New ]. ed. (New York: Harper Collins).  Douglas A. Blackmon, "Slavery by Another Name the Re-Enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II” Books on slavery are too numerous to list.  We have a book by David Brion Davis, "Slavery and Human Progress" which came out in 1984. It is excellent, but Davis has also published much more recent material.  If you go to Amazon, you will find listings.  We have not kept up with this scholarship, but in the 1970s and 1980s, it was accepted that the best scholar on slavery was Eugene Genovese. He was at the time a Marxist though he never let his politics intervene in his scholarly work on slavery. His politics have since moved to the right.  He wrote two classic volumes on slavery: "Roll Jordan Roll: the World the Slaves Made" and a sequel, "The World the Slave Owners Made", and more recently, "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II."  If you want material on the dirty deeds of the U.S. throughout the world, almost any of Noam Chomsky’s books would fit the bill. We would particularly recommend his 1992 book, “In remembrance of the 500th anniversary of Columbus' landing, "Year 501: The Conquest Continues." The footnotes in all of Noam's books are a great index to all of this material. We would also recommend the work of Michael McClintock, an ex-CIA official. In the 1980s, he published two volumes on Central America with a general title of "The American Connection.” Volume one was entitled: "State Terror and Popular Resistance in El Salvador" and Volume Two was entitled "State Terror and Popular Resistance in Guatemala."  In 1992, he published "Instruments of Statecraft: U.S. Guerilla Warfare, Counter-Insurgency, Counter-Terrorism, 1940-1960."

You might also check out the work of Gareth Porter and John Prados who have produced great amount of material from the Vietnam War through the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. On the Korean War and the politics of Korea, north and south, the best English language scholar is Bruce Cummings.  John Dower has written brilliantly about Japan and the U.S. going back to WW II and covering 9/11 and Iraq.

Finally, there is the work of Alfred McCoy who in the 1960s wrote a book entitled, "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia."  In the 1990s, he brought together all of his scholarship on the worldwide use of drugs for political purposes in his book, "The Politics of Heroin."  More recently, he has focused his attention on torture and terror by the U.S.: "Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State" and "A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror."

^[88] Journalist and writer Christopher Hedges has recalled being in Leipzig, German Democratic Republic on 9 November 1989 just before the Berlin Wall fell.  Apparently, most of the experts and pundits predicted that it would be a rather long time before there would be free traffic between East and West Berlin, perhaps longer than a year.  In fact, it turned out to be only a matter of hours before the beginning of the end had started.  See Chris Hedges addresses “Occupy Harvard Part 2” November 28 2011 at about 5:44 minutes into the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ugU6ELwbi_o#!

^[89] Dickran Kouymjian, "A Critical Bibliography for the History of Armenia from 1375 to 1605," Armenian Review 41, no. 1-161 (1988): 339-45; Robert H. Hewsen and Christopher C. Salvatico, "Armenia : A Historical Atlas." (University of Chicago Press, 2001).

^[90] It will probably never be known whether anyone really thought in the 1940s that the notion of land reclamation would ‘go anywhere’ or will ‘go anywhere’.  In the April 1945 Armenian National Committee’s “A Memorandum Relating to the Armenian Question” ([New York] Armenian National Committee, 1945).the proposition is put forward that the United Nations undertake “A solution, alike just and humane, [which] would be the joining of that part of Armenia, proposed by the Powers and delineated by President Wilson as the rightful Armenian State which yet remains, unproductive and desolate, in the hands of the Turks, to the now contiguous Armenian Republic.  Thus, a peaceful and industrious people, whose manifold and long suffered wrongs have so often led to international disquiet, would be enabled to return to their homeland and live and work in peace and tranquility” pg. 12.  The following year another booklet by James Garabed Mandalian, “What Do the Armenians Want?” ([New York]: Armenian National Committee, 1946) was published.  In that 15 page document it states “During World War I, the Turks came near annihilating this people.  They murdered one million, and ejected from their homes another million.  They confiscated their property and lands.  Nearly one million of them fought a last ditch battle and founded their republic. That is the Soviet Armenia of today…”  See Simon Payaslian, "After Recognition," Armenian Forum 2 (2001): 33-56; Nicolas Tavitian, "The Fifth Purpose of Recognition, a Response to Simon Payaslian," Armenian Forum 2, (2001): 57-62; Khatchik Der Ghougasian, "The Genocide on Armenia's Foreign Policy.  A Response to Simon Payaslian," Armenian Forum 2, (2001): 63-73; Simon Payaslian, "Reply to My Interlocutors," Armenian Forum 2, (2001): 75-76.

^[91] The learned word for a new word is a ‘neologism.’ 

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