HOLOCAUST EDUCATION WEEK PRESENTS NAZI GERMANY, ARMENIANS AND JEWS
AZG Armenian Daily
27/11/2007
Toronto, Canada-It was an eye-opening experience for the people
of Temple Har Zion and the Armenian Community Centre to learn
that there are so many links between the Armenian Genocide and the
Jewish Holocaust, as presented in a lecture by Prof. Eric D. Weitz,
Distinguished McKnight University Professor of History and Arsham and
Charlotte Ohanessian Chair in the College of Liberal Arts, where he
is also Chair of the History Department.
Len Rudner, National Director of Community Relations for the Canadian
Jewish Congress, noted in his introductory remarks, "This is the
27th year of Holocaust Education Week, an event sponsored by the UJ
Federation’s Holocaust Education Centre of Toronto. It is one of the
most comprehensive Holocaust education programs in the world. Our
goal is to educate people of all ages, ethnic backgrounds and
religions about the Holocaust and the extreme dangers of religious
and racial intolerance." In that spirit, the lecture was organized
by the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies
(A Division of the Zoryan Institute), with the participation of the
Armenian Community Centre the Armenian General Benevolent Union of
Toronto, and the Canadian Jewish Congress-Ontario Region.
Prof. Weitz began his lecture by discussing Raphael Lemkin, who coined
the word "genocide." Lemkin, who was deeply influenced by his study
of both the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust, devoted his
life to creating international law for the prevention and punishment
of genocide, adopted as the United Nations Genocide Convention in
1948. In his autobiography, Lemkin expressed disappointment and concern
that the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide had not been punished
by the Allied Powers. Some of the other points Weitz discussed are
presented below.
Contrary to orders, German Army medic Armin T. Wegner, took many
pictures of the Armenian Genocide, some of which have survived
and become iconic representations of this terrible crime against
humanity. Wegner was the same German humanitarian who, in 1933, dared
write a personal letter to Adolf Hitler protesting Nazi Germany’s
treatment of the Jews. That act resulted in his own persecution by
the Nazis and his exile from Germany.
The use of technology to facilitate the destruction of the Armenians
and Jews was used by both the Young Turks and the Nazis. For example,
the trains to deport Jews efficiently to the concentration camps have
become a widely recognized symbol of the Holocaust.
Similarly, the Ottomans used trains to move large numbers of Armenians
to eastern Turkey where they were subsequently marched to the desert
of Der Zor and their ultimate death.
Germany’s foreign policy, as the military and political ally of
the Ottoman Empire during World War I, was interested in seeing that
empire succeed in its war aims so that Germany itself could expand its
influence eastwards into the region. Accordingly, when German consular
officials in the Ottoman Empire continually wrote to Berlin protesting
the Turkish annihilation of the Armenians, the German government by
and large chose to ignore it. This is the same policy followed during
World War II in its expansion eastward into Poland and beyond.
German officers served with Turkish commanders, as military
advisors. They observed the Armenian Genocide first-hand and some
were actively involved, and some went on to become Nazi supporters.
The cold, impersonal reporting by some German officials in the
Ottoman Empire as they described the extermination of the Armenians
was echoed in the reports by Nazi bureaucrats regarding the number
of Jews exterminated in the eastern front.
The absence of punishment for the perpetrators of the Armenian
Genocide by the Allied Powers gave confidence to Hitler to declare in
August 1939, "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the
Armenians," while justifying to his generals his plan to kill, oppress,
and brutalize the Poles, and to conclude that he could get away with
exterminating the Jews and committing other crimes against humanity.
The radical nature of both political parties-the CUP in the case of
the Turks and the Nazis in the case of the Germans-took control of
the government and succeeded in mobilizing significant sectors of
society to be involved in the mass killing, or at least condone it.
Giving a positive example of similarities, Prof. Weitz mentioned that
there were many cases of gentiles who saved Jews, as were there Turks
who also saved Armenians.
Not being familiar with the connections between the two cases of
genocide, and empowered by Prof. Weitz’s historical information and
analysis, the audience raised numerous earnest questions about the
linkages and particularly the relation of geo-politics to denial. It
was pointed out by one audience member that the recent denial of
the Holocaust by the President of Iran and the recent support for
Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide by the President of Israel
caused a great outcry around the world, because of the pain both
those denials caused survivors and descendants of the Holocaust and
the Armenian Genocide.
"This was a timely collaboration between Jewish and Armenian
organizations," said another member of the audience, referring to
the recent controversy surrounding the Anti-Defamation League in the
United States, which publicly opposed official American recognition of
the Armenian Genocide, House Resolution 106, and the recent complicity
in that effort by top official in Israel and the United States.
Prof. Weitz closed his lectures by stating that genocide is not only
a political decision but a personal choice, not an accident. He stated
that the "Holocaust and Armenian Genocide are too important to be left
just to the Armenians and Turks or the Jews and Germans, as the common
history and lessons they contain should be used to help ensure that
no community has to suffer in the future what they did in the past."
George Shirinian, IIGHRS Executive Director, stated his "firm belief
in the solidarity of Armenians and Jews, as well as other national
groups who have endured the overwhelming trauma of genocide, as these
are inter-related and part of a continuum of human tragedy. We have
much to teach the world, and we have much to learn from one another."
The International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies
(A Division of the Zoryan Institute) is dedicated to the study and
dissemination of knowledge regarding the phenomenon of genocide in
all of its aspects. This is achieved through the annual Genocide
and Human Rights University Program, public lectures, seminars and
publication of Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International
Journal in partnership with the International Association of Genocide
Scholars and the University of Toronto Press.