Document A: UN Convention on the Crime and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Modified)

Context: The United Nations was formed in the aftermath of WWII to replace the League of Nations with hopes to stop wars between countries, create international agreements, and to provide a platform for dialogue. The following is an excerpt from the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Article 1The Contracting Parties (countries who sign the treaty) confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake (take on) to prevent and to punish.

Article 2In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting (forcing) on the group conditions of life calculated to

bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part (intentionally making living conditions so miserable that people die);

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Source: Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948. http://www.un-documents.net/a3r260.htm

Document B: The Events of 1915 and the Turkish-Armenian Controversy over History (Modified)

Turkey does not deny the suffering of Armenians, including the loss of many innocent lives, during the First World War. However, greater numbers of Turks died or were killed in the years leading to and during the War. Without belittling the tragic consequences for any group, Turkey objects to the one-sided presentation of this tragedy as a genocide by one group against another.

Ottoman Government took a number of measures for safe transfer during the relocation. However, under war-time conditions exacerbated by internal strife, local groups seeking revenge, banditry, famine, epidemics, and a failing state structure all combined to produce what became a tragedy.

Nevertheless, no authentic evidence exists to support the claim that there was a premeditated plan by the Ottoman Government to kill off Armenians. Moreover, the Ottomans did not harbor racist attitudes that would facilitate such a horrific crime. Loss of life, regardless of numbers and possible guilt on the part of the victims, is tragic and must be remembered. However, it is factually problematic, morally unsound and legally unfounded to call this episode a “genocide.”

Source: Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “The Events of 1915 and the Turkish-Armenian Controversy over History: An Overview.” Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Website. Retrieved October 30, 2015.  http://www.mfa.gov.tr/the-events-of-1915-and-the-turkish-armenian-controversy-over-history_-an-overview.en.mfa

Document C: Textbook Passage on the “Armenian Massacre”

One group in southeastern Europe that suffered greatly for its independence efforts was the Armenians.  By the 1880s, the roughly 2.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire had begun to demand their freedom.  As a result, the relations between the group and its Turkish rules grew strained.

Throughout the 1890s, Turkish troops killed tens of thousands of Armenians.  When World War I erupted in 1914, the Armenians pledged their support to the Turks’ enemies.  In response, the Turkish government deported nearly 2 million Armenians. Along the way more than 600,000 died of starvation or were killed by Turkish soldiers.

Source: Passage retrieved and adapted from www.coursehero.com

Document D: Photo of “Turkification”

Context: Djemal Pasha reviewing turkified Armenian orphans at Damascus. During this “Turkification” campaign, government squads also kidnapped children, who were integrated into Turkish, Kurdish, and Arab families and were raised as Turks, Kurds, or Arabs.

Source: Aram Andonian. The memoirs of Naim Bey : Turkish Official Documents relating to the Deportations and Massacres of Armenians (1964).

Document E: First hand accountContext: The excerpt below is a first-hand account of what happened to many Armenians during WWI, given by a female survivor. The exact date this was written is unknown.

They asked all the men and boys to separate from the women. There were some teen boys who were dressed like girls and disguised.  They remained behind. But my father had to go. He was a grown man with a mustache. As soon as they separated the men, a group of armed men came from the other side of a hill and killed all the men right in front of our eyes.  They killed them with bayonets at the end of their rifles, sticking them in their stomachs. Many of the women could not take it, and they threw themselves in the River Euphrates, and they, too, died. They did this killing right in front of us. I saw my father being killed.

Source: An anonymous Armenian woman, quoted in Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide, 1993.

Document F: Map of Deportations

Source: Armenian National Committee of America. 2004.

Document G: Report from Lieutenant

Context: Lieutenant Baas was an officer in the Turkish military.  His report below describes orders he received from the Turkish government regarding Armenian deportation and how it was to be carried out.

In April 1915 an order came from the capital that Armenians living in the frontier towns and villages should be deported to the interior. In July an order came to deport to the interior all the Armenians in the town of Trebizond.  Being a member of the Court Martial I knew that deportations meant massacres.

A mandate was issued ordering that all deserters when caught, should be shot without trial.  The secret order read “Armenians” in place of “deserters”. The women and children were sent ahead under escort with the assurance by the Turkish authorities that their final destination was Mosul and that no harm will happen to them.  The men kept behind were taken out of town in batches of 15 and 20, lined up on the edge of ditches prepared beforehand, shot and thrown into the ditches. Hundreds of men were shot every day in a similar manner. The women and children were attacked on their way by the armed bandits organized by the Turkish Government who attacked them and seized a certain number.  After plundering and committing the most terrible outrages on the women and children they massacred them in cold blood. These attacks were a daily occurrence until every woman and child had been gotten rid of.

Source: Lieutenant Sayied Ahmed Moukhtar Baas. December 26, 1916.

Document H: Telegram

Vocabulary

Harrowing: extremely disturbing or distressingExtermination: mass killingReprisal: revenge

Source: This is an official telegram sent by Henry Morgenthau Sr. on July 16, 1915 to what he describes a process of "race extermination" in regards to what was happening to the Armenians at that time. Morgenthau served as the United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913-1916 and so this work comes from the United States State Department.

Document I: Armenian Population

Document states that the total Armenian refugee population from Turkey is 817,873 in 1922.

Source: United States Federal Government, 1922.