Holocaust education commissions, museums and nonprofit organizations that receive federal and/or state-level funding have played a pivotal role in raising awareness about the horrors of the Holocaust but sometimes overlook other genocides, treating them as mere afterthoughts. Only a few states, such as Rhode Island, Ohio, Massachusetts, Michigan and California, are truly engaged in conversations about including the study of genocides outside of the Holocaust within state and federally-funded curriculum development and teacher training programs. Moreover, while these commissions and federally-supported institutions focus on Holocaust education, some of them continue to fund and promote deniers of the Armenian Genocide.
Concerns in Tennessee
During a conference I attended this summer in Nashville, Tennessee, I witnessed the misuse of funds allocated to an Armenian Genocide denier. It is worth noting that Tennessee officially acknowledged the Armenian Genocide in 2004 when the governor declared April 24 as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. Despite this, the Holocaust Commission of Tennessee repeatedly used state funding to pay for an Armenian Genocide denier to speak at local events and engage with Tennessee educators. Although the individual in question is not widely known as a denier like Guenther Lewy or Justin McCarthy, the commission in Tennessee continues to include her in educational and community programming without showing any remorse.
Personal Encounter
My first encounter with this denier, a Holocaust educator and survivor from Miami, occurred at an event sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Miami in 2012. During a small group discussion, she announced that while she recognized the suffering my family had endured, she did not consider it genocide. Appalled by her statement, I promptly notified the program leader and followed up with a letter expressing my concerns. Unfortunately, I received no apologies for the inclusion of a denier in what should have been a safe space. When I later discovered that the same denier from Miami was speaking on behalf of the Holocaust Commission of Tennessee in Nashville, I wrote to the commission and the USHMM expressing my concerns, but I received no response. It filled me with rage that I could not attend a workshop about the Holocaust, an event that resonated with my own family history, without being confronted by Armenian Genocide denial. In a city that witnessed the birth of the Ku Klux Klan, we should have already learned the lesson of not propagating hate.
Ohio’s Inclusive Approach
The following week, I spoke at a two-day conference for educators in Dayton, Ohio. This conference shared some similarities with the one in Nashville, as the organizers attempted to be more inclusive. However, I was the only speaker addressing the Armenian Genocide, and other genocides were not discussed in depth. It was evident that there was some trepidation among the organizers about broaching the topic of the Armenian Genocide. I arrived in Dayton with a sense of anxiety about what to expect.
To my relief, the overall attitude among the organizations involved in the Dayton conference was accepting and gracious. When I spoke about the Armenian Genocide and the importance of being inclusive about human rights atrocities and genocides beyond European borders, I received a positive response from the organizers. They expressed their appreciation for my talk and assured me that next year’s conference would include more discussions about the Armenian Genocide. This experience instilled a sense of hope in me and led me to reflect on the disparity between the indifference of the USHMM and the Tennessee Holocaust Commission towards denial and the willingness of the Ohio groups to engage in a conversation about inclusion.
Collaborative Efforts in Ohio
The positive reception I received in Ohio was not solely due to my lecture but was the result of years of positive relationship building led by Armenian community members, including Ara Bagdasarian and Raz Pounardjian in Cleveland, Ohio. They have collaborated with existing groups to develop and support Armenian Genocide and Holocaust educational initiatives. Through goodwill, funding and collaboration, they have successfully integrated the Armenian Genocide into the work of organizations such as the Holocaust & Genocide Education Network (HGEN), on whose board one Armenian member, Pounardjian, serves. This model has proven effective in Ohio, demonstrating that working in harmony with Holocaust education programs can yield positive outcomes.
Ethical Implications and the Importance of Truth
It is important to remember that Holocaust programs that deny the Armenian Genocide present significant ethical dilemmas. Programs like these undermine the principles of truth, justice and the recognition of historical atrocities. It is ethically unjustifiable to use Holocaust education as a platform for promoting denialism of another genocide. Such actions erode the credibility of Holocaust programs and compromise their moral purpose of combating hatred, discrimination and genocide denial. These programs distort historical truth and perpetuate an environment of misinformation. They hinder the pursuit of accuracy and reconciliation by perpetuating a false narrative that contradicts the historical truth of the Armenian Genocide. By blurring the lines between fact and fiction, these denialist programs contribute to the erosion of historical integrity and impede the development of critical thinking among participants. Finally, Holocaust programs encourage individuals to relate to the experiences of Holocaust victims to foster empathy and understanding among participants. However, by denying the Armenian Genocide, these programs disrupt the empathetic bridge that should exist between victims of different genocides.
By ignoring or denying the Armenian Genocide, these programs perpetuate a selective approach to empathy, reinforcing a hierarchy of suffering and undermining the universality of the human experience in the face of genocide.
A Proactive Approach
Addressing the denial of the Armenian Genocide within Holocaust programs requires a proactive and principled approach. Organizers and educators must confront the ethical implications of denialism and reject any form of genocide denial. Holocaust education should be expanded to include a comprehensive understanding of other genocides, such as the Armenian Genocide, fostering a more inclusive and historically accurate narrative. Collaboration between Holocaust and genocide education groups, as well as scholars and educators, can facilitate the development of joint educational initiatives that acknowledge both genocides.
Conclusion
The presence of Holocaust programs that deny the Armenian Genocide reveals a disheartening disconnect between the intended goals of Holocaust education and the reality of denialism. By denying the Armenian Genocide within these programs, we undermine historical truth, perpetuate misinformation, and erode the empathy and understanding that should be at the core of Holocaust education. It is imperative to confront this issue, rectify the historical narrative and ensure that Holocaust education programs promote truth, justice and empathy for all victims of genocide. The good news is that while some states and national institutions have thus far shown an unwillingness to seek historical truths and promote denialism, other states like Ohio, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Michigan and California are demonstrating clear signs of progress towards inclusion and serve as symbols of hope as we continue to battle the Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide and its insipid corrosion of educational institutions in the US.
