hi everyone! today is the 105th anniversary of the armenian genocide. we commemorate 1.5 million armenians who were killed at the hands of the ottoman turks. this genocide is not universally recognized and there are many deniers, but i can tell you it happened and needs to be
recognized. it affected every one of my ancestors and, for this reason, armenians are spread out across the world. through this genocide, we lost much of our country (the yellow part is now in eastern turkey and the orange part is current armenia).
every year on this day, i do my best to educate all of the people who have never heard of the atrocities of 1915. we as an armenian people are a small group, but we’re strong and proud. you can kill us and deny what happened, but we will never forget and will always demand
recognition. the armenian genocide was the first genocide of the 20th century and inspired the holocaust. in orchestrating the holocaust, hitler said “who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the armenians?”
here is a short summary of the events of the armenian genocide: on april 24, 1915, the young turkish government rounded up hundreds of armenian men, scholars and intellectuals and killed them all. this act was preceded by years of violence and discrimination against
armenians as well as other attempts to exterminate out people. after this, the rest of the armenians, young and old alike, were forced out of their homes and sent to march without food or water. my great uncle was a child and grew his hair longer so that the turks who came to
their house would think that he was a young girl and wouldn’t kill him on sight. many armenians were stripped naked and forced to march in the desert. if they
fell behind, or stopped to rest, they were shot. often, they simply dropped dead out of hunger, thirst, heat, and pure exhaustion. not only were armenians forced to march across a desert with no end, but they were drowned, raped, thrown off cliffs, crucified, and burned alive.
it was not unique to watch your entire family murdered in front of you. this happened to one of my great grandmothers. i feel that it is important to note that there were very few kind turkish people, but some of them would take in and protect children. this was a rare occurrence
what often happened instead was that children who were orphaned were sent to orphanages and raised to believe they were turkish, converted to islam, and given to turkish families. other times, women and children were sold into slavery or forced to join harems.
many stories of victims are lost. after the atrocities, no one wanted to share their stories. i have 8 great-grandparents who were victims of the genocide and of them we only know the entirety of one story and fragments of 2 others. there are some families who know none.
there are some families who don’t know that they are armenian. if you want to learn a bit more, i recommend the films The Promise as well as Intent to Destroy. the latter a documentary, the former a historical fiction. the genocide is still actively denied. on premiere night of
The Promise, there were turkish protesters outside of the theater waving turkish flags and yelling at myself, my family, and other armenians who came to watch the movie about how the genocide isn’t real and about turkish superiority.
the armenian genocide was finally recognized in congress this year in the Armenian Genocide Resolution. it passed with a majority of votes in both the house and the senate, but the atrocities still have not been recognized on a presidential level (though many campaigns have
had presidential candidates promising to recognize what happened). there are genocide deniers, but there should not be. the experiences of my armenian people should not be negated and forgotten. these are facts and they are not fabricated. i’ll end with my fav quote about being
armenian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose history is ended, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, whose literature is unread, whose music is unheard, whose prayers
are no longer uttered.
Go ahead, destroy this race. Let us say that it is again 1915. There is war in the world. Destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them from their homes into the desert. Let them have neither bread nor water. Burn their houses and their churches.
See if they will not live again. See if they will not laugh again. See if the race will not live again when two of them meet in a beer parlor, twenty years after, and laugh, and speak in their tongue. Go ahead, see if you can do anything about it. See if you can stop them
from mocking the big ideas of the world, you sons of bitches, a couple of Armenians talking in the world, go ahead and try to destroy them.”
-William Saroyan
մենք քիչ ենք բայց կը մնանք միշտ հայ։ We are few, but we will always be Armenians.
thank you if you made it this far in the thread, please help me spread knowledge and recognition for the armenian genocide. if you have questions or would like more resources, dm me. i’m more than happy to share some :)
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