The Story of the Armenian Genocide
During World War I, the Ottoman Empire was rocked by a wave of military defeats. In the face of this threat, leaders were wary of anything that could cause internal unrest, and the presence of Armenians, whose ancestral homeland lay in the East of the Empire, was treated with extreme suspicion. Armenians were already a marginalized group in the area, and the Empire's Committee for Union and Progess (also known as the CUP, or the Young Turks) feared that Armenians would either incite a rebellion against the war-weakened empire or ally themselves with enemy troops. Therefore, in 1915, the CUP began an initiative to maintain Muslim-Turkish dominance by wiping out as many Armenians as possible.
On April 24, 1915, Armenian leaders were rounded up by authorities and deported. Local massacres claimed thousands of lives, as did death marches and deportations, where many died of starvation, dehydration, or exhaustion. Families were separated, and young children were converted to Islam and brought to live with Turkish families. Today, it is estimated that at least 664,000 of the 1.5 million Armenians who lived in the Ottoman Empire were killed through this systematic ethnic cleansing.
Today, the Turkish government still refuses to formally recognize that the events of 1915 were a genocide of the Armenian people; it maintains that Armenians were a hostile force against the government during a time of war, and violence against them was necessary to protect the state. Speech regarding the genocide is strictly censored in Turkey. Though no such censorship exists in the West, many countries--including the United States--have hesitated to honor Armenian victims for fear of souring diplomatic relations with Turkey. The phrase "Armenian genocide" did not appear in the New York Times until 2004, and a Congressional panel voted to formally recognize the genocide in 2010.
The community interviews conducted by this class are part of an attempt to preserve the Armenian memory and spread the stories of families who survived. Through the family photos, documents, and recollections of people whose ancestors escaped the killings, we are able to understand Armenians not just as victims, but as people.