Donald Bloxham Reads The Testimony Of Ruben Vardanian

DONALD BLOXHAM READS THE TESTIMONY OF RUBEN VARDANIAN

April 17, 2015 10:30
EXCLUSIVE

Donald Bloxham

Mediamax presents 100 Seconds project devoted to Armenian Genocide
Centennial. The project is based on testimonies of Genocide survivors
published by the National Archive of Armenia.

Donald Bloxham is a Professor of Modern History, Editor of the Journal
of Holocaust Education.

For 100 seconds project he reads an extract from Armenian Genocide
survivor Ruben Vardanian’s testimony.

National Archives of
Armenia Collection of Documents

Testimony of survivor Ruben Vardanian on the Massacre of the village
of Goms in Mush district of Mush province

At the end of Easter 10 to 15 policemen came to our village. They told
us that the government wanted us all. In the morning, they surrounded
the village and some of them broke in, gathered everyone, women and
children and drove them out. They shot those who tried to flee. Two
people were killed there. After starting off, the policemen killed
another four people who tried to flee. They also caught a man and
cut off his head with a sword.

After walking for some time we were returned back to our village which
was full of people from other villages. Turks from the town had come
who selected beautiful women and girls and took them away. Our friend
Rasul came, selected my mother, my three brothers and me and took us
to Baghesh to keep in his house. We stayed there for a month. Once
I went to our village with the Turkish children to look for food and
goods. All the houses in our village were destroyed; the wooden parts
were taken away. There were corpses in the church, around it and in
the yard; the Turks counted 80 corpses of women and children.

Producer: Ara Tadevosyan Filming: Peter Ross Post Production: Tumo LLC

The source of Ruben Vardanian’s testimony: National Archives of
Armenia, Armenian Genocide by Ottoman Turkey, 1915, Testimony of
survivors, Collection of documents, Yerevan-2013.

VivaCell-MTS is the general partner of 100 seconds project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwluIErwH0E
http://www.mediamax.am/en/news/100seconds/13850/#sthash.tsOYDIa7.dpuf
http://www.mediamax.am/en/news/100seconds/13850/

Not Mentioning The Country Of Import Of Fish Forage For Lake Sevan T

NOT MENTIONING THE COUNTRY OF IMPORT OF FISH FORAGE FOR LAKE SEVAN TROUT

16:04 April 16, 2015

EcoLur

On 16 April 2015 the Armenian Government granted privileges to
“Sevan Trout” CJSC postponing the payment of VAT for imported good
for three years.

“Sevan Trout” CJSC was founded in 2014 in the frames of “Complex
Program on Recovery and Fish Development of Trout Reserves in
Lake Sevan”. The company shall ensure the production of trout fish,
processing and realization of product fish. For this purpose young fish
plant has been constructed in the territory of Karchaghbyur community,
Gegharkounik Region. In upcoming three years the company intends to
construct Sevan trout processing plant and 118 items of good costing
2,667,790,000 AMD will be imported from Denmark, Germany, Norway,
Italy, Russian Federation, Chili, Sweden, Spain and Finland.

It’s noteworthy that the country of import of fish forage top in the
list is not mentioned. It only says that 160,000 kg of fish forage
costing 180,000,000 AMD will be imported.

http://ecolur.org/en/news/officials/not-mentioning-the-country-of-import-of-fish-forage-for-lake-sevan-trout/7239/

US Will Not Survive A Nuclear War Against Russia – Jean-Paul Baquias

US WILL NOT SURVIVE A NUCLEAR WAR AGAINST RUSSIA – JEAN-PAUL BAQUIAST

(c) Sputnik/ Iliya Pitalev
US
14:22 17.04.2015(updated 14:38 17.04.2015) Get short URL
1545241
A nuclear strikes exchange between the United States and Russia
will lead to the complete destruction of the United States, leaving
Russia and China in a far better position, editor of the French portal
Europesolidaire Jean-Paul Baquiast said.

A potential nuclear war with Russia will have fatal consequences for
the US, whose territory would be completely destroyed in the event
of mutual rocket exchange, Jean-Paul Baquiast said.

His comment came in the wake of recent internet speculation about the
US’ possible intent to carry out a preemptive nuclear attack on Russia.

(c) AP Photo/ Phil Sandlin Russia, US Nuclear Disarmament Goes Without
‘Stagnation’ – Official The concerns have risen after General Robin
Rand was appointed as head of the US Air Force Global Strike Command.

There are assumptions that he might take an example from American
General Curtis LeMay who became famous in 1949 for preparing a plan
for a massive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.

Unable to subdue Russia by conventional methods, Washington is
preparing to destroy it with its armed forces, Jean-Paul Baquiast
wrote. In the event of an armed conflict, American politicians may
carry out a preemptive nuclear strike.

“Chances of the United States to destroy Russia without consequences
for itself are small,” Baquiast said.

However, even the highly efficient S-500 missile system, which Russia
is currently working on, would be unable to protect the country against
a massive launch of ballistic missiles from US submarines, he noted.

In turn, Russia would launch its missiles from its submarines off
the coast of the United States. And if the Americans manage to hit
only a part of the Russian territory due to its large size, the US
will be destroyed completely, the journalist wrote.

Read more:

http://sputniknews.com/us/20150417/1021016791.html#ixzz3XZJttmuS

Armenian Genocide Issue: Israel’s Policy Becoming More Favorable To

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ISSUE: ISRAEL’S POLICY BECOMING MORE FAVORABLE TO ARMENIA

16:44 * 17.04.15

Recognition of the Armenian Genocide was formerly a taboo in Israel,
whereas that state is gradually shifting its foreign policy focus
which is more favorable to Armenia, and the Pope’s liturgy proved
shock therapy for the morally degrading world regardless of religious
affiliation, Head of the Jewish community in Armenia Rima Varzhapetyan
told Tert.am.

“As regards European Jews, I can only say that not only the
Christendom was impressed by the Pope’s remarks, but they also proved
shock therapy for the whole morally degrading world regardless of
religious affiliation. And all of them, both Christians and Judaists,
sobered up. And nothing human is alien to the people of Israel,”
Ms Varzhapetyan said.

According to her, recognition of the Armenian Genocide is “almost
a moral matter” for Israel, and that state will certainly recognize
and condemn the heinous crime.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is sending its members to numerous
communities in the United States to participate in commemoration of
1.5. million victims of the Armenian Genocide.

Armenia will host Israeli Culture Days on May 13-18, and numerous
well-known political figures, and “two very important persons” are
expected to arrive in Armenia.

Without naming them, Ms Varzhapetyan said that the powerful Turkish and
Azerbaijani lobby, as well as sponsors, in Israel may exert pressure
to prevent their arrival in Armenia.

Armenian political analysts are cautiously optimistic about some
progress in the attitude of Israel and European Jews to international
recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

“The ice is breaking,” said Hmayak Hovhannisyan, the chairman of the
Union of Armenian Political Analysts.

He said Israel has so far avoided acknowledging the Armenian Genocide
on a state level, being surrounded by Muslim that that haven’t
recognized the tragedy either.

According to Styopa Safaryan, Chairman of the Armenian Institute
of International and Security Affairs, there are reasons to expect
positive moves by Israel in light of past years’ deterioration in
the country’s relations with Turkey.

“So there’s nothing surprising about the fact that we had many visits
last year,” he told our correspondent.

http://www.tert.am/en/news/2015/04/17/rimavarjapetian/1649383

RA NA Deputy Speaker Eduard Sharmazanov Delivers A Speech At The IPA

RA NA DEPUTY SPEAKER EDUARD SHARMAZANOV DELIVERS A SPEECH AT THE IPA CIS PLENARY SESSION

17.04.2015

On April 17 the RA NA Deputy Speaker Eduard Sharmazanov took part
in the solemn plenary session of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly
of Member Nations of the Commonwealth Independent States (IPA CIS)
in Tavrichesky Palace of Saint Petersburg, which was dedicated to
the 70th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. The
Chairperson of the IPA CIS Council, the Speaker of the RF FA Federal
Council Valentina Matvienko presided over the session.

The NA Deputy Speaker gave a speech, where he noted in particular:
“Ahead of the 70th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic
War we mark the Armenian Genocide Centennial. At first glance the
relation of these two events is invisible and seems to be indirect,
but I should note that in 1915 one and a half million Armenian people
have fallen victims of that very Nazism and fascism. It was the
impunity of Turkey that bore Mussolini’s fascism and Hitler’s Nazism.

Its vivid example was Hitler’s announcement before the German military
commanders: “Who after all speaks today of the annihilation of the
Armenians?” This once again proves that the policy of Germany was
the continuation of the policy of the Young Turks’ Nazism.

The Great Patriotic War, in fact, was one more experience for our
people, experience of victory, when the Armenians, together with other
peoples, fighting against fascism and Nazism, withstood the evil,
the victim of which they became in the Ottoman Empire.”

http://www.parliament.am/news.php?cat_id=2&NewsID=7433&year=2015&month=04&day=17&lang=eng

Basque Country’s Parliament Adopts Armenian Genocide Condemning Stat

BASQUE COUNTRY’S PARLIAMENT ADOPTS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CONDEMNING STATEMENT

11:39, 17 April, 2015

YEREVAN, APRIL 19, ARMENPRESS: The Parliament of the Basque Country
(País Vasco) on April 16 adopted a statement, condemning the Armenian
Genocide. Armenpress reports, citing the Facebook profile of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia that following
the resolution, adopted in the European Parliament, the Parliament
of the Basque Country demanded from Turkey to recognize the Armenian
Genocide.

The President of the Parliament read the declaration, devoted to the
100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, which states that the
massacres, committed during the World War I, are the most horrible
among the genocides in the history of the humanity, in the result of
which millions of men, women and children were killed and thousands
of refugees fled to other continents and many found shelter in the
countries of the European Union.

“We think that the record, recognition and the establishment of
justice are fundamental values for the progressive and constructive
coexistence of these two nations in the future, as we realize that
the reconciliation can be sustainable only in case of one truth and
one memory”, – says the declaration.

http://armenpress.am/eng/news/802150/basque-country%E2%80%99s-parliament-adopts-armenian-genocide-condemning-statement.html

ANKARA: Turkey: We Will Disregard European View On Armenia

TURKEY: WE WILL DISREGARD EUROPEAN VIEW ON ARMENIA

World Bulletin, Turkey
April 15 2015

The European parliament is due later on Wednesday to debate a
resolution to mark the 100th anniversary of the killing of as many
as 1.5 million Armenians.

World Bulletin / News Desk

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Turkey would disregard
the European parliament’s views over the 1915 mass killings of
Armenians, which the Pope this week described as genocide.

“Whatever decision they may take, it would go in one ear and out the
other,” Erdogan told reporters at Ankara airport before departing on
an official visit to Kazakhstan.

http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/157894/turkeywe-will-disregard-european-view-on-armenia

Turkey Vows To Ignore Any EU Parliament Genocide Resolution

TURKEY VOWS TO IGNORE ANY EU PARLIAMENT GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

Yahoo! News 7
April 15 2015

Ankara (AFP) – Turkey on Wednesday warned the European Parliament it
would ignore any resolution calling on Ankara to recognise the 1915
killings of Armenians in World War I as genocide.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said any such statement would go
“in one ear and out from the other”.

The European Parliament is due to vote later Wednesday on a “motion
for resolution on the commemoration of the centennial of the Armenian
genocide”.

The vote takes place against the backdrop of growing tensions over
the characterisation of the tragedy ahead of the 100th anniversary
of the Ottoman-era massacres this month.

“Whatever decision the European Union Parliament makes today would
go in one ear and out from the other because it is not possible for
Turkey to accept such a sin or crime,” Erdogan told reporters at an
Ankara airport before leaving for Kazakhstan.

The resolution in parliament calls on Turkey to “recognise the Armenian
Genocide and thus to pave the way for a genuine reconciliation between
the Turkish and Armenian people.”

The EU parliament had itself recognised the killings as genocide
in 1987.

Furious with Pope Francis’ use of the word “genocide” at the weekend
to describe the killings, Turkey responded by summoning the Vatican’s
ambassador in Ankara and recalling the Turkish envoy to the Holy See
in a show of protest.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, whose country is a NATO member
and long-time European Union hopeful, warned the pope not to use
“blackmail against Turkey”.

“We will not let our nation be insulted over history,” Davutoglu
said in an address to his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)
in Ankara.

“The pope has also joined those traps set against the AK Party and
Turkey,” he said, railing at the “unfair accusations” made ahead of
Turkey’s June 7 elections.

– ‘No stain’ –

The United States on Tuesday called for a “full, frank” acknowledgement
of the mass killings while shying away from calling the massacres a
“genocide.”

“I don’t know right now what sort of decision they will make… but I
barely understand why we, as the nation, as well as print and visual
media, stand in defence,” Erdogan said, referring to the European
parliament.

“I personally don’t bother about a defence because we don’t carry a
stain or a shadow like genocide,” he said.

Armenia and Armenians in the diaspora say 1.5 million of their
forefathers were killed by Ottoman forces in a targeted campaign to
eradicate the Armenian people from Anatolia in what is now eastern
Turkey.

Turkey takes a sharply different view, saying hundreds of thousands
of both Turks and Armenians lost their lives as Ottoman forces battled
the Russian Empire for control of eastern Anatolia during World War I.

Erdogan on Wednesday said Turkey was home to some 100,000 Armenian
citizens, who were working in the country, some illegally.

“We could have deported them but we did not. We’re still hosting
them in our country. It is not possible to understand such a stance
against a country which displays” hospitality, he said.

Turkey is also still home to a small Turkish-Armenian community,
mostly based in Istanbul, who number around 60,000.

Armenians around the world will commemorate the 100th anniversary
of the tragedy on April 24, the same day as Turkey is planning major
commemorations of the World War I battle of Gallipoli.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/27148658/turkey-vows-to-ignore-any-eu-parliament-genocide-resolution/

Mass For Centenary Of Armenian Metz Yeghern: Jesus Fills The Abyss O

MASS FOR THE CENTENARY OF THE ARMENIAN METZ YEGHERN: JESUS FILLS THE ABYSS OF SIN WITH THE DEPTH OF HIS MERCY

States News Service
April 13, 2015 Monday

VATICAN CITY

The following information was released by the Vatican Information
Service (VIS):

On the second Sunday of Easter, or Divine Mercy Sunday, Pope Francis
celebrated Holy Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica to commemorate the
centenary of the martyrdom (Metz Yeghern, or Great Evil) of the
Armenian People, and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church St. Gregory
of Narek (c. 951 c. 1003), Armenian monk, theologian, poet and
philosopher, whose feast day is celebrated on 27 February.

His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, Patriarch of Cilicia of the
Armenian Catholics concelebrated with the Holy Father, in the presence
of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All
Armenians and His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of
Cilicia. The president of the Republic of Armenia, Serz Sargsyan,
also attended the Mass.

In his homily, the Pope commented on the Gospel of St. John, who
was in the Upper Room with the other disciples on the evening of
the first day after the Sabbath, and who tells us that Jesus came
and stood among them, and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ and He showed
them His hands and His side; He showed them His wounds. And in this
way they realised that it was not an apparition: it was truly Him,
the Lord, and they were filled with joy. On the eighth day Jesus
came once again into the Upper Room and showed His wounds to Thomas,
so that he could touch them as he had wished to, in order to believe
and thus become himself a witness to the Resurrection.

To us also, on this Sunday which Saint John Paul II wished to dedicate
to Divine Mercy, the Lord shows us, through the Gospel, his wounds.

They are wounds of mercy. It is true: the wounds of Jesus are wounds
of mercy. ‘With His stripes we are healed’. Jesus invites us to behold
these wounds, to touch them as Thomas did, to heal our lack of belief.

Above all, He invites us to enter into the mystery of these wounds,
which is the mystery of His merciful love.

Through these wounds, as in a light-filled opening, we can see the
entire mystery of Christ and of God, said Pope Francis: His Passion,
His earthly life filled with compassion for the weak and the sick His
incarnation in the womb of Mary. And we can retrace the whole history
of salvation: the prophecies especially about the Servant of the Lord,
the Psalms, the Law and the Covenant; to the liberation from Egypt, to
the first Passover and to the blood of the slaughtered lambs; and again
from the Patriarchs to Abraham, and then all the way back to Abel,
whose blood cried out from the earth. All of this we can see in the
wounds of Jesus, crucified and risen; with Mary, in her Magnificat, we
can perceive that, ‘His mercy extends from generation to generation’.

He continued, Faced with the tragic events of human history we can
feel crushed at times, asking ourselves, ‘Why?’. Humanity’s evil can
appear in the world like an abyss, a great void: empty of love, empty
of goodness, empty of life. And so we ask: how can we fill this abyss?

For us it is impossible; only God can fill this emptiness that evil
brings to our hearts and to human history. It is Jesus, God made man,
Who died on the Cross and Who fills the abyss of sin with the depth
of His mercy.

The saints teach us that the world is changed beginning with the
conversion of one’s own heart, and that this happens through the
mercy of God. And so, whether faced with my own sins or the great
tragedies of the world, ‘my conscience would be distressed, but it
would not be in turmoil, for I would recall the wounds of the Lord:
He was wounded for our iniquities. What sin is there so deadly that
it cannot be pardoned by the death of Christ?’.

Keeping our gaze on the wounds of the Risen Jesus, we can sing with
the Church: ‘His love endures forever’; eternal is his mercy. And
with these words impressed on our hearts, let us go forth along the
paths of history, led by the hand of our Lord and Saviour, our life
and our hope, concluded the Pontiff.

Secret Archives Show Vatican Tried To Stop Armenian Genocide

SECRET ARCHIVES SHOW VATICAN TRIED TO STOP ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Newsmax
April 15 2015

VATICAN CITY — Why did Pope Francis’ controversial comments on Sunday
about the “Armenian Genocide” cause such a furor in Turkey?

To help understand the true history behind the 1915-16 atrocity,
Aleteia interviewed German historian and author Michael Hesemann, who
was in Rome for Sunday’s Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica commemorating
the 100th anniversary of the genocide, otherwise known as Metz Yeghern,
or the Great Evil.

The atrocity involved the Ottoman government’s systematic extermination
of its minority Armenian subjects inside their historic homeland,
which lies within the territory constituting present-day Turkey. The
total number of people killed in what is also known as the Armenian
Holocaust is estimated at between 1 million and 1.5 million.

In a new book entitled, “The Armenian Genocide” [Volkermord an
den Armeniern], Hesemann reveals for the first time the content of
never-before-published documents on “the greatest crime of World
War I,” and how Pope Benedict XV and Vatican diplomacy tried to stop
the deportations of the Armenians into the Syrian desert, save the
victims and prevent the massacre of an entire people.

In this interview, Hesemann shares his findings, which include
evidence of Masonic involvement, and expresses both his admiration
for Pope Francis for drawing attention to the genocide of Christians
and ethnic minorities, and his disappointment over the absence of
the German Ambassador to the Holy See at Sunday’s commemorative Mass.

Dr. Hesemann, what led you to write a book on what documents contained
in the Vatican Archives reveal about the Armenian Genocide?

Actually it was a kind of coincidence. I work as an historian for the
“Pave the Way Foundation” in an intensive study of all the aspects
of the life of Eugenio Pacelli, the man who eventually became Pope
Pius XII.

>From 1917-1925, Pacelli was Nuncio in Munich, so I went through the
files of the Apostolic Nunciature in Munich, only to discover one
folder with the title “Persecution of the Armenians.”

I opened it and found a letter of the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal
von Hartmann, to the Chancellor of the Reich, Graf (Count) Hartling,
in which he calls the persecution of the Armenians “not less brutal
than the persecutions of the Christians in the first centuries of
Christianity.” The Archbishop requested an urgent German intervention,
unfortunately in vain.

In the same file I found a copy of a letter written by Pope Benedict
XV to the Sultan, asking for mercy for the innocent Armenians. These
documents both touched me and aroused my curiosity. I felt I had just
touched the tip of an iceberg and was sure I would find more data,
and indeed I did — some 2,500 pages so far.

I soon realized that no historian had ever worked with most of these
documents, and that all this information was obviously unknown even
to the leading experts on the Armenocide.

Given the importance of their content, I decided to write a book,
putting the documents in the context of what we already know about
the events of 1915-18.

What was the most surprising and unexpected insight you discovered
in the Vatican Archives about the Armenian genocide?

The most surprising insight was that the Armenian genocide was in
fact just part of a bigger plan — the extermination of all non-Muslim
minorities in the Ottoman Empire.

The ruling “Young Turk” movement came in contact with European ideas
of nationalism and the concept that only a homogenous state can be
a strong state. That is why they believed that the weakness of the
Ottoman Empire was caused by its multi-religious and multi-ethnic
character.

ALERT: Assess Your Heart Attack Risk in Seconds, Take This Test.

They wanted to “heal” this “weakness” by eliminating all foreign
elements, which first meant the Christians who numbered 19 percent
of the population in early 1914. Besides the Armenians, also Aramaic
and Assyrian Christians, Catholic and Greek Orthodox Christians were
persecuted and murdered.

The Turkish claim of a conspiracy between Russia and some Armenian
leaders was nothing but a lie to justify those measures. If that were
really the case, why did they kill innocent women and children, too?

And why didn’t they spare the other Christian groups, which were
never under suspicion? Indeed, the Turkish secretary of the interior,
Talaat Bey, quite frankly told Johann Mordtmann of the German Embassy,
according to a report to Berlin: “The (Turkish) government uses the war
to get rid of our internal enemies — the indigenous Christians of all
denominations — without diplomatic interventions by foreign nations.”

This is also what we read in some of the Vatican documents, e.g. a
report written by Fr. Michael Liebl, an Austrian Capuchin missionary,
who learned in Samsun: “Not the Armenians, the Christians were
sentenced (to death) at a secret meeting of the Young Turks 5 or 6
years ago in Thessaloniki.”

What measures did Benedict XV take diplomatically to help save the
Armenians from deportation into the Syrian desert?

Already in June 1915, the Vatican had a vague idea of what had
happened in Eastern Anatolia. One month later, there was no doubt
about the horrible massacres carried out against most of the male
Armenian population. For the whole of August 1915, Msgr. Dolci —
the Apostolic Delegate in Constantinople — did everything humanly
possible to interfere diplomatically — without any success.

When drastic reports reached the Vatican in September 1915, Pope
Benedict XV wasted no more time and decided to act. He sent an
autograph to Sultan Mehmet V, pleading for mercy for the Armenians.

The Turks refused even to receive it. For two months, Msgr. Dolci
tried everything to present it to its addressee, but it was not
received by the Sultan.

Only when he asked both the German and the Austrian ambassador for
help was he granted an audience. When another four weeks later the
Sultan answered, most of the deportations were already completed. All
promises of the Turks to end the massacres or spare one group or the
other — or to let them return home — turned out to be lies.

In December, Pope Benedict referred to the failure of any diplomatic
intervention in his allocution to the Cardinals at the Consistory of
December 6, 1915. In it, he spoke of “those sorrowful people of the
Armenians, almost completely driven into their extermination.”

In June 1916, the Armenian Catholic Patriarch had to inform the Holy
See: “The project of the extermination of the Armenians in Turkey
is still going on. (…) The exiled Armenians … are continuously
driven into the desert and there stripped of all vital resources. They
miserably perish from hunger, disease and extreme climate. (…) It
is certain that the Ottoman government has decided to eliminate
Christianity from Turkey before the World War comes to an end. And
all this happens in the face of the Christian world.”

Why is this only coming to light now?

Well, good question. Of course, the files from the pontificate of
Benedict XV have only been open since the 1990s. Besides this, not
too many historians have access to them. And perhaps just nobody had
any idea what he would find there — it’s only a guess.

Among the documents contained in your book, you include a letter
written by the Superior of the Capuchins in Ezrurum, Fr. Norbert Hofer,
to the Vatican in October 1915, which states: “The punishment of the
Armenian nation (for alleged uprisings) is merely a pretext used by
the Masonic Turkish government to exterminate all Christian elements
in this country.”

Many readers may be surprised to hear mention of the Masons in relation
to the Armenian Genocide, particularly in light of the desire at the
time to unite Turkey with Sunni Islam as the state religion?

Can you explain how the Masons factor in to the Armenian genocide,
and who are the “Young Turks” which you referred to earlier?

Yes, of course. It would have been easy and rather populist to blame
Islam for the Armenian genocide, especially as we are facing the
horrible events of our own time in the very same region, with Islamic
States’ massacre against Christians and Yazidis in the north of Syria
and the Iraq.

But none of the responsible politicians, neither Talaat nor Enver nor
Cemal Pasha, was a fanatic Muslim. The Young Turks were anything but
fundamentalists. They were a young, revolutionary movement started
by Turkish academics who had studied in most cases in Paris, where
they came in contact with both the ideals of Masonry and European
nationalism. Many of them were accepted by Masonic lodges and indeed
the lodge of Thessaloniki became a kind of national headquarters
for them.

Pope Francis’ controversial comments on Sunday about the “Armenian
Genocide” cause such a furor in Turkey?

To help understand the true history behind the 1915-16 atrocity,
Aleteia interviewed the German historian and author, Dr. Michael
Hesemann, who was in Rome for Sunday’s Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica
commemorating the 100th anniversary of the genocide, otherwise known
as Metz Yeghern [the Great Evil].

The atrocity involved the Ottoman government’s systematic extermination
of its minority Armenian subjects inside their historic homeland
which lies within the territory constituting present-day Turkey. The
total number of people killed in what is also known as the Armenian
Holocaust is estimated at between 1 and 1.5 million.

In a new book entitled, The Armenian Genocide [Volkermord an den
Armeniern], Hesemann reveals for the first time the content of
never-before-published documents on “the greatest crime of World
War I,” and how Pope Benedict XV and Vatican diplomacy tried to stop
the deportations of the Armenians into the Syrian desert, save the
victims and prevent the massacre of an entire people.

In this interview, Hesemann shares his findings, which include
evidence of Masonic involvement, and expresses both his admiration
for Pope Francis for drawing attention to the genocide of Christians
and ethnic minorities, and his disappointment over the absence of
the German Ambassador to the Holy See at Sunday’s commemorative Mass.

Dr. Hesemann, what led you to write a book on what documents contained
in the Vatican Archives reveal about the Armenian Genocide?

Actually it was a kind of coincidence. I work as an historian for the
“Pave the Way Foundation” in an intensive study of all the aspects
of the life of Eugenio Pacelli, the man who eventually became Pope
Pius XII.

>From 1917-1925, Pacelli was Nuncio in Munich, so I went through the
files of the Apostolic Nunciature in Munich, only to discover one
folder with the title “Persecution of the Armenians”.

I opened it and found a letter of the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal
von Hartmann, to the Chancellor of the Reich, Graf (Count) Hartling,
in which he calls the persecution of the Armenians “not less brutal
than the persecutions of the Christians in the first centuries of
Christianity.” The Archbishop requested an urgent German intervention,
unfortunately in vain.

In the same file I found a copy of a letter written by Pope Benedict
XV to the sultan, asking for mercy for the innocent Armenians. These
documents both touched me and aroused my curiosity. I felt I had just
touched the tip of an iceberg and was sure I would find more data,
and indeed I did — some 2500 pages so far.

I soon realized that no historian had ever worked with most of these
documents, and that all this information was obviously unknown even
to the leading experts on the Armenocide.

Given the importance of their content, I decided to write a book,
putting the documents in the context of what we already know about
the events of 1915-18.

What was the most surprising and unexpected insight you discovered
in the Vatican Archives about the Armenian genocide?

The most surprising insight was that the Armenian genocide was in
fact just part of a bigger plan — the extermination of all non-muslim
minorities in the Ottoman Empire.

The ruling “Young Turk” movement came in contact with European ideas
of nationalism and the concept that only a homogenous state can be
a strong state. That is why they believed that the weakness of the
Ottoman Empire was caused by its multi-religious and multi-ethnic
character.

They wanted to “heal” this “weakness” by eliminating all foreign
elements, which first meant the Christians who numbered 19% of the
population in early 1914. Besides the Armenians, also Aramaic and
Assyrian Christians, Catholic and Greek Orthodox Christians were
persecuted and murdered.

The Turkish claim of a conspiracy between Russia and some Armenian
leaders was nothing but a lie to justify those measures. If that were
really the case, why did they kill innocent women and children, too?

And why didn’t they spare the other Christian groups, which were
never under suspicion? Indeed, the Turkish Secretary of the Interior,
Talaat Bey, quite frankly told Johann Mordtmann of the German Embassy,
according to a report to Berlin: “The (Turkish) government uses the war
to get rid of our internal enemies — the indigenous Christians of all
denominations — without diplomatic interventions by foreign nations.”

This is also what we read in some of the Vatican documents, e.g. a
report written by Fr. Michael Liebl, an Austrian Capuchin missionary,
who learned in Samsun: “Not the Armenians, the Christians were
sentenced (to death) at a secret meeting of the Young Turks 5 or 6
years ago in Thessaloniki.”

What measures did Benedict XV take diplomatically to help save the
Armenians from deportation into the Syrian desert?

Already in June 1915, the Vatican had a vague idea of what had
happened in Eastern Anatolia. One month later, there was no doubt
about the horrible massacres carried out against most of the male
Armenian population. For the whole of August 1915, Msgr. Dolci —
the Apostolic Delegate in Constantinople — did everything humanly
possible to interfere diplomatically — without any success.

When drastic reports reached the Vatican in September 1915, Pope
Benedict XV wasted no more time and decided to act. He sent an
autograph to Sultan Mehmet V, pleading for mercy for the Armenians.

The Turks refused even to receive it. For two months, Msgr. Dolci
tried everything to present it to its addressee, but it was not
received by the sultan.

Only when he asked both the German and the Austrian ambassador for
help was he granted an audience. When another four weeks later the
sultan answered, most of the deportations were already completed. All
promises of the Turks to end the massacres or spare one group or the
other — or to let them return home — turned out to be lies.

In December, Pope Benedict referred to the failure of any diplomatic
intervention in his allocution to the cardinals at the Consistory
of Dec. 6, 1915. In it, he spoke of “those sorrowful people of the
Armenians, almost completely driven into their extermination.”

In June 1916, the Armenian Catholic Patriarch had to inform the Holy
See: “The project of the extermination of the Armenians in Turkey
is still going on. (…) The exiled Armenians … are continuously
driven into the desert and there stripped of all vital resources. They
miserably perish from hunger, disease and extreme climate. (…) It
is certain that the Ottoman government has decided to eliminate
Christianity from Turkey before the World War comes to an end. And
all this happens in the face of the Christian world.”

Why is this only coming to light now?

Well, good question. Of course, the files from the pontificate of
Benedict XV have only been open since the 1990s. Besides this, not
too many historians have access to them. And perhaps just nobody had
any idea what he would find there — it’s only a guess.

Among the documents contained in your book, you include a letter
written by the Superior of the Capuchins in Ezrurum, Father Norbert
Hofer, to the Vatican in October 1915, which states: “The punishment
of the Armenian nation (for alleged uprisings) is merely a pretext
used by the Masonic Turkish government to exterminate all Christian
elements in this country.”

Many readers may be surprised to hear mention of the Masons in relation
to the Armenian genocide, particularly in light of the desire at the
time to unite Turkey with Sunni Islam as the state religion.

Can you explain how the Masons factor in to the Armenian genocide,
and who are the “Young Turks” which you referred to earlier?

Yes, of course. It would have been easy and rather populist to blame
Islam for the Armenian genocide, especially as we are facing the
horrible events of our own time in the very same region, with the
Islamic States’ massacre against Christians and Yazidis in the north
of Syria and the Iraq.

But none of the responsible politicians, neither Talaat nor Enver nor
Cemal Pasha, was a fanatic Muslim. The Young Turks were anything but
fundamentalists. They were a young, revolutionary movement started
by Turkish academics who had studied in most cases in Paris, where
they came in contact with both the ideals of Masonry and European
nationalism. Many of them were accepted by Masonic lodges and indeed
the lodge of Thessaloniki became a kind of national headquarters
for them.

Talaat Bey — the man responsible for the Armenocide — was even
Grandmaster of the Grand Orient of the Turkish Masonry. That’s a
historical fact. The ideology of the Young Turks can be described
as “proto-fascism.” Only race did not play any role as the unifying
element, since there is nothing like a “racially pure” Turk. Rather,
it was substituted by religion, namely Sunni Islam.

Islam was therefore instrumentalized for political reasons. It gave all
those who were involved in the killings a rationale, a justification
for their deeds. But behind it was the master plan of a political
ideology, which misused religion for its purposes, and so sought the
homogenization of the Turkish nation.

As an historian who has studied in depth the events and circumstances
surrounding the Armenian genocide, particularly those documented in
the Vatican archives, what do you make of Turkey’s reaction to Pope
Francis’ statements on Sunday in which he called the Armenian massacre
a “genocide”?

I am very grateful to the Holy Father. On Sunday, we not only saw a
beautiful, worthy and solemn commemoration of the Armenian martyrdom,
we also experienced the victory of truth over diplomacy.

If you know how fanatically Turkey tries every means to debunk the
events of 1915-1916, if you follow the chronology of their threats
against nations much bigger and more powerful than the Vatican —
nations such as France, Germany and the U.S. — you get an idea what
it takes to stand up and call a “genocide” what was indeed the first
genocide of the 20th century. Thank you, Pope Francis! What a great,
wonderful, political Pope, who indeed acted as the moral conscience
of the world and taught us that, as Christians, we should never be
afraid of the truth.

The Turkish reaction to his brave remark could be expected. It is
always the same. They claim that the Pope was misinformed, although
he knows the truth from his own archives. By the way, when will the
Turks open theirs?

The Turks even spoke of racism. Should we now assume that, from the
Turkish point of view, it is not racist at all to kill nearly a whole
nation, a religious and ethnic group, but it is racist to call this
a genocide?

It is so sad that the Turks don’t realize how they exclude themselves
from the community of civilized nations by such acts. I mean, I am
German and my nation committed the most horrible crime in history,
the Shoah. But at least we admitted what we did, we deeply regret it
and we tried anything possible for reconciliation and compensation.

As a Catholic, I believe that every sin and every crime can be
forgiven, if you only confess and regret. But what you neither regret
nor confess cannot be forgiven either. Turkey only has one chance to
overcome the trauma and guilt of the darkest chapter of its history,
and that is to confess and regret! And we will all forgive. If not,
these wounds will always be wide open, even after 100 years.

What lessons do the history of the Armenian genocide hold for us today,
particularly in light of present-day persecution of Christians in
Africa and the Middle East?

If there is one lesson we should learn from the Armenian genocide,
it is this: Never turn around, never look away when your brother
suffers persecution.

We all, all nations of the civilized world and first of all Germany —
Turkey’s ally — share the Turkish guilt, because we allowed this to
happen. By opportunism, by giving other topics priority, by what Pope
Francis rightly called “the globalization of indifference,” which
is so evil. “Cain, where is your brother Abel?” That’s why nobody
can ever say that he has nothing to do with the Armenian genocide,
the holocaust or the fate of our Christian brothers in Syria and Iraq.

For ignoring their fate and their suffering makes us guilty, too. Not
preventing a crime which happens before your very eyes makes you an
accomplice of the perpetrator. We should never be ignorant, we should
never be indifferent, but rather learn to act responsibly.

This is why I was so very ashamed that, of all the diplomats present in
St. Peter’s Basilica that morning commemorating the Armenian martyrs,
the one who was missing was Annette Schavan, the German Ambassador
to the Holy See. Especially since, as I explained before, Germany as
Turkey’s ally holds a special responsibility for their martyrdom. In
her case, opportunism won over the truth. And that is a shame. We
can only be people of the future if we are not afraid of the past.

http://www.newsmax.com/World/GlobalTalk/turkey-armenian-genocide-aleteia-world-war-I/2015/04/15/id/638611/