Amazon.com: Caravans to Oblivion: The Armenian Genocide, 1915: G. S. Graber: Books

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Armenia was the first nation to accept Christianity as a state religion. Tragically, the national aspirations and even the physical survival of the Armenian people have been subject to the demands of more powerful nations. The culmination of this vulnerability came in October 1915, when Turkish military authorities rounded up and drove vast numbers of Armenians into the desert, where perhaps a million of them perished. To this day, the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge that a government-sponsored massacre occurred. Graber, who has previously written on the SS and its genocidal policies, clearly demonstrates that a gigantic slaughter took place. He also makes a strong case that government officials, at least at the regional level, encouraged and in some cases organized the slaughter. Graber further asserts that this "genocide" was centrally planned and organized by the national government with the clear intention of making Ottoman lands "Armenian free." A compelling and deeply disturbing study. Jay Freeman

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CARAVANS TO OBLIVION

"It is absolutely necessary to eliminate the Armenian people in its entirety, so that there is no further Armenian on this earth and the very concept of Armenia is extinguished."—From a speech presented to the Turkish Committee of Union and Progress, February, 1915

Acclaimed author and historian G. S. Graber has crafted a searing narrative of "the forgotten genocide." Using newly available sources, Graber offers definitive proof—denied even today by the Turkish government—that there was nothing less than a centrally organized government attempt to systematically eliminate the Armenian population in 1915.

Placing the events of this effort within a broader historical context, the author brings insight and perspective to the political, economic, and cultural upheaval that led to the murder of over one million Armenian men, women, and children. Firsthand accounts recall the climate that ignited the flames of anti-Armenian sentiment as the Ottoman Empire collapsed and a new leadership emerged. The political party of the Young Turks, Ittihad ve Teraki (the Turkish Committee of Union and Progress), espoused the notion of Turanism, a mythic glorification of Turkish ethnic identity, and was devoted to restoring Turkey's shattered national pride. And even though Armenians had distinguished themselves as productive and loyal citizens in times of peace and able-bodied soldiers in times of war, they were now branded as traitorous enemies, destroying Turkey from within.

The tragic fate of the Armenian people would be sealed by the political maneuvering of foreign powers eager to capitalize on the fall of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Graber examines how and why the West—principally France and Great Britain—was eager to look the other way. Following a pattern that the engineers of modern genocide would repeat time and time again, the Turks systematically gathered Armenian men and used them as slave labor before executing them en masse. The women and children were then packed into caravans for "relocation." Most would die along the way from disease and exposure. Those who survived would be shot on some arid plain, which would become their final destination.

The slaughter of the Armenians, and the diplomatic backsliding that precipitated it, would serve as an all-too-efficient blueprint. In the twentieth century, genocides decimated over 119 million people worldwide—84 million more than the number who died in both world wars and all the revolutions and civil wars fought in this century combined. More than a compelling chronicle, Caravans to Oblivion offers chilling insight into how genocide happens.

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Caravans to Oblivion: The Armenian Genocide, 1915 (Hardcover)

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