In brief: Armenians still mourn the 1915 genocide by Ottoman leaders of its Armenian population. Sadly, we’ve visited too many memorials of such evils around the world.
“Who, after all, speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?” – Adolf Hitler, 1939.
Learning about the history of a people is one of the reasons we cherish travel. Sadly, in too many parts of the world, museums and memorials (like the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan) recall great suffering – from wars, genocides, natural disasters, and more.
For Armenians, the horror of their history is the genocidal campaign by Ottoman leaders to eliminate its Armenian population in what is now eastern Turkey, mainly between 1915 and 1922. As Christians in a Muslim country beset by the fall of its empire and prey to stronger world powers, the Armenians became an easy scapegoat for Ottoman rulers to blame.
Seven years of killings, forced deportations, horrific concentration camps – all did their terrible work. Current Armenia has a population of about 3 million. About 1.5 million are estimated to have died during the genocide. Survivors – including tens of thousands of orphans – escaped around the world in the Armenian diaspora, especially to Russia and the United States.
The death marches that resulted from mass deportations from eastern Turkey (or at that time Western Armenia) in the Ottoman empire produced unimaginable suffering. The first deportations to camps began in 1915 – after the slaughter of Armenian intellectuals, military personnel, and others. Huge caravans of exiles moved great distances on foot and wooden carts. Many of them died. Then in 1921 the deportations from the camps renewed the horror yet again.
The camps to which Armenians were deported, in Syria and elsewhere, harshly increased the suffering and death toll due to inadequate food and unsanitary conditions. Here women and children pick over a donkey carcass at one camp.
And the whole world, especially the great powers caught up in World War 1, knew about it; but did little but grumble and complain diplomatically. One display at the Genocide Museum shows all the contemporary reports like this, as well as high-ranking foreigners who saw what was happening and tried to force action.
A few decades earlier, the 1878 treaty among the major countries handed western Armenia over to the Ottomans despite warnings about oppression even then. Again, in 1909, local gangs and military conducted a massacre at Adana that was also well known. The Ottoman rulers learned they could do what they wanted, as Hitler later understood.
The Memorial
Tsitsernakaberd (Swallow’s fortress) is the hilltop monument to the memory of those lost and dispersed in the 1915 – 22 genocide, in the same park as the museum. That swallow is known to return to its home even if its nest has been destroyed. The pyramid represents the re-birth of the Armenian nation in the decades to follow. The huge slabs of the lower structure represent the 12 provinces of the former Western Armenia where the genocide occurred.
Most visitors, descending to the eternal flame between the slabs of the genocide memorial, come to pray or cry or place floral tributes to the memory of those who suffered in the genocide. We stood for a long while, deeply disturbed by the history we had reviewed at the museum. And we felt a sense of threat from the huge stone slabs looming over us…and in recalling the many horrors like this genocide we had encountered elsewhere.
Independence Day
A few days after our visit to the Genocide Memorial, the country celebrated its revival – after the misery of the genocide and subjugation by the USSR – on 21 September 1991.
On the streets in Yerevan, but mainly in their own hearts, Armenians honored the 33rd anniversary of the day the country regained its independence as a nation. And affirmed a cultural heritage over 3000 years old – on behalf of its current citizens and those Armenians spread across the globe due to historic oppression.
Gold wreath from the ancient Armenian empire (in the National History Museum, Yerevan).
(To enlarge any picture above, click on it. Also, for more pictures from Armenia,
CLICK HERE to view the slideshow at the end of the itinerary page.)
