Armenian Genocide Research Paper

The Armenian Genocide, which is also known as the Armenian Massacres, was a campaign to exterminate the Armenian population from the Ottoman Empire. The genocide started in 1915, during World War 1, and ended after the war in 1923. Over a million lives were lost just because the Turks had thought of the Armenians to be different from themselves and detrimental to their war effort. Sadly, these atrocities were an example of later genocides such as the Holocaust. According to author Christopher Catherwood, Hitler “Famously cited the annihilation of the Armenians when he made plans to carry out genocidal warfare against the Jews” (Armenian Genocide). These events set the stage for many modern genocides and as a result of this, they should not …show more content…
At this stage, the perpetrators begin to build armies and militias that are ready to induce mass killings. Also, they begin to plan their “Final Solution” to the targeted group and use terms such as “purification” or “ethnic cleansing” to back up their intentions of mass killings. In the Armenian genocide, around 1915 was where the Ottoman government began to plan their massacres. This started when they made their “Ten Commandments” which was a very secret document that only Ottoman government officials had access to. These “Ten Commandments” were very similar to Hitler’s Nuremberg laws. All of the commandments were a way of stripping the rights of the Armenians and detailing how they were going to exterminate them. A British ambassador states the commandments. Specifically, commandment 5, “Apply measures to exterminate all (Armenian) males under 50, priests and teachers, leave girls and children to be Islamized” and commandment 8 “Kill off in an appropriate manner all Armenians in the Army” (Memorandum by the Committee of Union and Progress outlining the strategy for implementing the Armenian Genocide). These plans, which were not known to many at the time, were what allowed the massacres to begin. Everything was ready, and now, the Turks were fully prepared to do everything they could to exterminate the …show more content…
They create death lists, separate people from their families, and kill them. At this point in the Armenian Genocide, World War 1 was well underway and the Turks had no intention of stopping. They had singled out all the Armenians because of their religion, their rumors about working with their enemy, Russia, and just because they are different from Turks. They now had a “Ten Commandments” list of what they were going to do, now they just had to carry it out, and they did. They began to force Armenians out of the country and anyone who opposed them was beaten and killed. Even people who didn’t oppose it were still killed or tortured. The Turks sent huge numbers of Armenians to Asia Minor where they would either be killed immediately or would eventually die from horrible conditions. A New York Times newspaper from October 7th, 1915 reads, “Since (last) May, 800,000 Armenians, men, women, and children, have been slain in cold blood in Asia Minor” (800,000 Armenians Counted Destroyed). At this point this tragedy had become a worldwide disaster, and other countries tried to stop it but it kept going until after World War 1, around 1923, when a new nationalist Turkey movement was formed and Turkey was declared a republic. By this time, they just forgot it and moved on. Other countries tried to do something about it and put the leaders on trial; however, most of

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