The Elimination Of The Armenian Genocide

What does it take for a genocide to be officially declared as a “genocide” and widely recognized by different nations as such? During the rise of World War I, in 1915, the Ottoman Empire set a plan to eliminate the Armenian race and portray it as a “threat” to the development of the Turkish nation. Over the course of just 3 years, this plan annihilated over 3/4 of the Armenian population in the Empire, or 1.5 million individuals. This devastating historical event might sound familiar, because just a few decades later the most large-scaled genocide in the history of humankind conducted by the Nazis took the lives of around 6 million Jews and over 10 million civilians from the countries conquered by Germany at the time of World War II. Today,

However, the Armenian Genocide has been declared a “genocide” only in 29 countries around the world and outlawed by just 4, while major world powers, such as the USA and the UK, refuse to use this term. The nation responsible for the Armenian massacres has obtained a policy of denial and prohibits the use of the term “genocide”. The European Court of Human Rights recently stated that the denial of the Armenian genocide by a Turkish representative is a “valid opinion” and persecuting him for his opinion would be a “violation of his human rights”. These two crimes against humanity are treated in a differently, but they still significantly resemble each other. The Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide are similar, because they happened under very similar circumstances: they both resulted because of a nation’s governmental policies supporting the supremacy of a sole race, both utilized effective national propaganda, and both characterized with using especially brutal methods to demolish the targeted

From seizing property and business, through sterilization, and finally to the most brutal measures - concentration camps - Nazi Germans not only killed Jewish people but stripped them off their dignity and humanity (USHMM). There was no distinction between men, women and children, or old and young people. Jews were brought to concentration camps where they were either selected for hard manual labour or were taken to the gas chambers, where they were killed by poisonous gasses. Those, who were chosen to work, usually had to work until they collapsed dead, so ultimately there was no option for escape. Only in Aushwitz, over 1 million jews found their death (USHMM). Siblings, twins and people with different physical or mental disabilities were taken to a part of the camp where doctors conducted experiments on them. They were drugged, injected with different substances, and held in starvation, which led to permanent consequences for the health of the ones who were saved or managed to get away (USHMM). Holocaust survivors who were experimented on have reported kidney and lung failures, development of cancer, etc. Concentration camps were the peak of human cruelty - they separated families, exploited people beyond their abilities, and showed no mercy towards anyone. Before the Holocaust ever began, Armenians also faced