Did Turkey commit genocide to the Armenians?

Answer 1

The Young Turks in 1915 had very nationalistic ideas in spreading the Ottoman Empire and creating a Pan Turkic nation by removing the Armenians, taking their belongings and land. While the rest of the WORLD was busy with WWI, they achieved what they set out to do by first executing any of the men that were of any importance in the community. These included lawyers, judges, doctors - the educated and somewhat powerful. Once the powerful were gone, it was time for the males in the family to be eliminated. This was done once again either by quick execution OR immediate "draft" into the Turkish army whereby they were marched to death camps and executed by the thousands, not even bothering to march them for at least a day's distance. Word came back that these executions were taking place and some areas tried resistance. In the meantime, with most of the men (by men, I am referring to boys of the age of 13 and up) gone, executed in front of their families, or killed in march - the women, children and elderly were told they had less than an hour to pack their belongings to "meet" their husbands, fathers, brothers, etc. Of course if you are told you have to leave immediately as a woman with young children or you will be executed OR you can join your husband, etc - they basically took the latter choice, not knowing that their husbands were already dead and they would be marched in exactly the opposite direction, into the Syrian desert. After several weeks of walking with literally the clothes on their back and no food, they began dying of starvation and disease. The Euphrates River along their death march was littered with bodies floating down - children were left orphaned or died of starvation, too. The young turks released hundreds of hardened criminals from their jails in return for enlistment into their gendarme regime. These criminals were enlisted into accompanying the women, children and elderly into the desert and given free reign to do as they pleased with them as long as they would not be able to come back to their goods, their property or their homeland. Armenia was reduced to approximately 20% of her original size and over 1.5 million Armenians were killed. There is not a single Armenian family that was not affected by the genocide in one way or another. Armenia was an ancient country that dates back over 8,000 years. Armenia even has Karahounge, the Armenian Stonehenge that outdates the English Stonehenge by over 5,000 years. Her original borders were the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Because of Armenia's location in the middle of Asia and Europe it has always been in the middle of conflict, but it wasn't until the Ottoman Turks in 1915 that most Armenian lives were gone and her borders shrunk by over 80%. To this day, the Turkish people vehemently deny there was ever a genocide. Not a single reparation has ever been made to any Armenian who lost their valuables, their homes, their families. Not only are Turks not allowed to admit the genocide but if any of them ever even questions the denial, they would be arrested by the Turkish government and charged with being non-Nationalistic and for the past almost 100 years their denial has been responsible for genocide being repeated in several other cultures throughout the world. As a matter of fact, the denial by the Turks is so vehement and their hatred of Armenians is so vehement that when Hrant Dink (a famous Armenian journalist & Armenian newspaper publisher who lived in present day Turkey)was assassinated in broad daylight, the shooter was hailed as a hero!

Answer 2

The Nazis came to take care of Hitlers nonsense ( to get rid of certain religions.)My great great aunt was a little girl when they came and my great great grandpa was in America at that time.

My ancestor was deeply scared and so she hid in a clothes chest filled with clothes, while she was in hiding, the Nazis were lining up people and shooting them, when she came out everyone was dead, I do believe she then travelled to America to live with the rest of her family, Imagine hiding in a chest just as a child and when you come out everyone save it be you are dead!

There are very few Armenians left today, as a guess there are 23.

Answer 3

In 1915, leaders of the Ottoman Empire, including Turkey, took steps to eliminate Armenians from their territory. Forced deportations and massacres were performed from 1915 -1918. The Armenians were Christian and had a lot of national pride. The Armenian nation was in the way of the expansionist efforts of Turkey - and fundamentalist Islam - and these people were a minority of non-islamic believers.

Answer 4

In 1915, Ismail Enver Pasha, one of the leaders of the Ottoman Empire (the country that would become Turkey) and the Young Turk Revolutionary Organization, coordinated the genocide of the Armenian people living in the eastern part of Anatolia. It was a coordinated attempt to drive the Armenians out of their ancestral lands and to eliminate not only them, but all traces that they had ever lived in eastern Anatolia.

The first group attacked and murdered were the Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul. Next, entire villages were expunged of the majority-Armenian, majority-Greek, and majority-Assyrian inhabitants and the names of the cities completely altered to create "theoretical" Turkish names in a process called Turkification. Over 100 cities and townships were Turkified in this way. The Armenians were marched to Deir ez-Zur in the Syrian desert without food and water (the Pontic Greeks and the Assyrians were marched to other places). In addition to numerous deaths from starvation and thirst, there were numerous massacres and concentration camps along the route to Deir ez-Zur. That genocide was the goal is basically assured. This is not to mention the courageous work of Gregoris Balakian who detailed how the system was organized.

In contrast to the Community Answer, it should be noted that the Young Turks like Ismail Enver Pasha, Mehmed Talaat Pasha, and Ahmed Djemal Pasha were not fundamentalist Muslims and they were not inspired by any form of Islamism or Radical Islam. These men were extreme nationalists who wanted to create a modern ethnically Turkish state and saw Islam only as an ethnic identifier (in much the same way the Irish Republican Army saw Catholicism as an ethnic identifier). To compare this genocide to the current actions of Islamic State, al-Qaeda, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the Taliban is incorrect. This is more accurately correlated with the Nazi Holocaust or the Rwanda genocide where a certain national goal, in terms of ethnic distribution, was in mind, not a religious goal.

Answer 5

Yes. They attacked Armenians and stole much of their land.

Answer 6

i think it was because they thought the armenians were helpin gthe Russians and also because of they werent Muslims