Customer Reviews

Survivors: An Oral History Of The Armenian Genocide

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(3)

 

 

I never learned about the Armenian Genocide in school. I'd never heard about it until I read a book which mentioned it, sparking my curiosity enough to read this book. It's another tragic story of man's inhumanity to man. Very much like the Holocaust of WW II. The Armenians believed they were being relocated, but instead found themselves being forced to travel without food, water and sanitation. Along the way they were robbed of what few possessions they were allowed to take with them. They were tortured, raped, shot, tossed over cliffs and hurled down mountainsides. They were stripped of their clothing and forced to walk for days on end until they died from exposure to the elements. Men, women, children and the elderly were all subjected to the same obscene cruelties. The few bright spots in the book included Turks and Kurds who protected Armenians at their own expense, and Armenians who managed to survive terrible tragedies and come through it all still believing in a just God and in the essential goodness of their fellow man.

I just finished reading this book...it is riveting, well written, accessible, of manageable length (192) pages, and in general a supurb introduction to the subject for readers such as myself who didn't even know where or what Armenia was until I picked up this book. I really hope that the general public becomes more aware of the Armenian genicide and starts demanding that Turkey, and their Kurdish henchmen, own up to this awful crime and stop denying that the genicide of the Armenian nation ever happened. It is shocking that in my entire life I have never heard one word spoken in my church or in any school I have attendedabout the Armenian genicide. All I have ever heard about is the Jewish Holocaust (sp?), as if that were the first genicide of this century. A case can be made that if the world had become sufficiently enraged by the Armenian genicide, the Jewish Holocaust would never have happened. (Page 5 of the book states, "There is a universal tendency to avoid seeing, as well as remembering, the human capacity for evil. Adolf Hitler understood this well when, on August 22. 1939 he said to his military commanders regarding his plans for Poland: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"".) The book points out, in passing, that some Armenians believe that the reason the United States does not acknowledge that the Turks committed genicide against the Armenians, is because Turkey is a strong ally of the United States in the Middle East. I don't think it is possible to read this book without being profoundly affected by it. I don't personally have time to read a huge, thick book on the subject, so this 192 page, well written, emotionally powerful is probably all I'll ever have the time to read on the subject. I wish all Americans would read this book. Do read this book. Please.

If you could give six stars, this book would get it. It should be required reading for high school or college students. It should be required reading for revisionist historians like Stanford Shaw, Bernard Lewis, Justin McCarthy, and Heath Lowry--or any other Turkish "historian". Putting aside all the politics and theories, this book simply focuses on the suffering of the Armenians who went through the Genocide of 1915. It is as much a sociology book as a historical one. The parallels between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust become obvious as one reads the accounts. It is an invaluable primary source for further study of the Armenian Genocide, as most of the survivors are dying off. It is an easy read, but you will probably find yourself disgusted or teary-eyed during much of it. It is objective, simply telling the facts, including descriptions of good, helpful Turks. If you know little about the subject, this is a great place to start. For those who get to caught up in the politics of events, this is a great book to remember the horrific suffering of these human beings. And for those revisionists and neo-Young Turks who still deny the wholesale extermination of the Armenians, I can't think of a better book to force someone to start accepting the truth.

The authors have tapped into a vastly unknown arena, by seeking out survivors of the century's first genocide. It is a riveting read of testimonies, interwoven with sociological and psychological theory, to explain how the survivors have made it through and coped with the memories, losses and experiences. It is probably the largest collection of testimonies in one publication, and for students of psychology or sociology, it is a must-read.

The authors very plainly state in language that a layperson is comfortable the backgrounds and theories surrounding survivor personalities. They address the survivors' reactions to the continued denial of the genocide by the Turkish government; the interesting repeated experience of Armenian children leaving Turkish homes for orphanages, and the path many survivors have taken to end up in the United States.

A good read, sometimes a difficult one due to the subject matter, but one that is important due to an event that is largely forgotten.

This book by the Miller's is truly a masterpiece that captures what many Armenians feel deep within their hearts. The accounts from the survivors are truly disturbing and make any Armenian truly proud to have surivived such atrocities. This book serves as a testament to the 1.5 million Armenians killed between 1915 and 1923. I can say this much... I and my family will never forget!

This is a compelling book; personal accounts of the sufferings afflicted on the Armenians are placed in the historical context of the Young Turk government's nationalistic policy. The oral testimonies (as seen mostly through the eyes of victims who were children at the time )will leave readers deeply disquieted and disoriented in the fundamental assumptions with which they regard collective and personal moral issues.In reading this book, one will lock eyes with the devil and shudder at this encounter with Evil long afterwards. The authors take particular care to describe that not every Turk was a perpetrator (devil) in the slaughter and death marches; many Turks opposed the genocide and aided the young Armenian orphans. Why some helped and why others persecuted is not, however, explained. The answers to such existential questions are enjoined on the readers to discern for themselves.

During the 1970s, Donald and Lorna Miller interviewed dozens of aging survivors of the Armenian Genocide primarily in California to preserve an inside look at a terrible atrocity. Many of those interviewed were children or teenagers in 1915 though there were some elderly adult survivors commenting as well. This book presents an interesting historical record as it focuses heavily on telling the story of common people caught up in the winds of a nightmare.
"Survivors" is divided ino several sections. There is historical commentary setting up the general events leading up to, during, and after the massacres of 1915. Also of interest are descriptions of Armenian culture and pre-genocide life in the Ottoman Empire and the earlier slaughters under Sultan Hamid in 1894-1896 and the Adana massacre of 1909. However, it is the weaving together of survivor stories that really give this work its power. The descriptions of the deportations, starvation, torture, sexual assaults, attacks by Turks and Kurds, and other hardships aren't for the faint of heart. I don't recommend this book for those easily disturbed by this sort of reading. The discriptions of orphanage life, emmigration, and ultimately the moral reflections of survivors were interesting as well and ranged from uplifting to heart breaking. Additional topics discussed include the number of dead, the help of American and European charities to the orphans, and authors' view of the role of the Young Turk leadership. I would also recommend readers to look at the end notes.
This is not a book without flaws. The authors could have done a more detailed historical context to the genocide. One thing I did like was the authors gave some background to the Armenian uprising in Van and some other locations. Although I should also point out here that genocide deniers tend to play up this fact and sometimes even suggest the Armenians brought mass murder upon themselves. I personally find such thinking on the latter point offensive. Helpfully for readers, the Millers do address some of these views such as by pointing out that many Armenians in Van and elsewhere took up arms because Turks had already started to attack them. Most of the Ottoman Armenian population was loyal and most of the Armenians fighting against the Turks were actually Russian Armenians who responded to the Turkish attack in the Caucasus in 1914. The Turkish governments considering the vast majority of their Armenian population was a security threat is laughable. On the other side, the author's focus on the Armenians largely left out the horrific ordeals of other minorities in the Ottoman Empire during WWI and the early birth of modern Turkey. I have the Greeks and Assyrian Christians in mind in particular. The authors briefly mentioned persecution of Greeks and mentioned some deportations of Kurds in one of their end notes, but neither had significant elaboration and the massacres of Assyrians weren't mentioned if my memory serves me correctly. In all fairness to the authors though, this book is primarily about the Armenian Genocide.
Those and other considerations aside, the book was certainly worth my read and was both gripping and informative. It takes readers from family life and cultural heritage in a lost world to the fighting in Van to the tragedy of the deportation routes to the help of orphanages and charities to the catacylsmic destruction of Smyrna in 1922. In particular I thought the authors did a suberb job with presenting the socialogical side of the story and they also give the stories of how numerous Turks and Kurds showed kindness to the sufferers and saved many Armenians. The guilt of some Turks should not cause people to hate the Turkish people and I find it very sad that memories of 1914-1922 have led to anger to this very day (the authors discuss survivor reactions ranging from hate to forgiveness and also the sad cases where some modern Turkish officials were assassinated by angry Armenians). There are many stories in this book that may remain with the reader. They are both sad and at times inspiring and illustrate the best and the worst qualities of human beings. Overall, I strongly recommend it but with caution for those who are deeply shaken by similar writings.

Very well designed and laid out, the background to this very sad chapter in history is nevertheless one of the most poignant I have ever read. This forgotten first Genocide of the 20th Century should be in the curriculum of every senior school and read by all politicians and law makers.
The last phase of Genocide is it's denial and unfortunately most of the 103 interviewees will have died under the enormous pressure of their pain and sufferings ignored and denied for nearly 100 years.

This is a most incredible collection of quotes and accounts from non-survivor firsthand sources (like missionaries and orphanage workers), interviews from survivors themselves, and history of the genocide of 1915, Armenian life before and after the genocide, and the massacres which took place in 1909 and 1895-97, as well as a great appendix on the questions they asked the survivors (which contrary to the tired old historical revisionist claims of the Turks, are NOT leading or loaded, but rather straightforward questions about things like what life was like in their neighbourhood before the genocide, how the household was run, what types of relations they had with local Turks, feelings of guilt they may have had, how they adjusted to life in a new country or orphanage, escape attempts, that sort of thing). There's also a great section on the types of reponses survivors have had to the genocide, like guilt, anger, sorrow, depression, terrorism, forgiveness, etc. There need to be more books published like this, but of course the Turks will typically continue to deny what their government did and insult the memory of the one and a half million Armenians who were butchered, engaging in all of the usual characteristics of those who deny genocide and who try to revise well-documented historical facts. Thankfully more and more nations are officially recognising the events of 1915 as genocide. And this comes from the perspective of someone who doesn't have any Armenian blood in her, nor any marital ties to Armenians; I'm just an Armenophile odar who has felt great love for and solidarity with the Armenian people since I found out about the genocide in the spring of 1995 at the age of fifteen.

When I began reading the book and finally decided to take a break, I realized I had read half of it. Compelling stories of Armenians who suffered at the hands of the ruthless Turks in the Genocide of 1915 which is scandalously denied till today.

A great educational resource for teachers!!!