1595) Letter to Jerry Wolffe Ref: "Armenia: The Forgotten Genocide"

Dear Mr Wolffe
a- Presuming that you have the courage to look at the other side of the medal and evaluate documents instead of individual hearsay stories, I attach my own study of the `population dilemma' I attach my chapter, contents of which will validly and documentarily prove that there never lived 1.5 million Armenians in subject zones and the given numbers were living in respective dates, based on given references. I welcome any contradictory comments, based on "facts".
As you would be estimating from available data, the total losses of the Armenians during the relocation period and for a minimal number of 450.000 recorded by name and a maximum number of 700.000 declared by Bogos Nubar leader of the Armenian Delegation, the actual loss during the hard marching is estimated around 200.000 and about 40.000 of these would be the losses due to bilateral butcheries en route. Untill 1918, surrender of the Ottoman Empire, for sure another 100.000 must have died for epidemics and starvation, like over 500.000 muslims and 30% of the Army died of identical reasons, typhus, dysentery, cold, starvation etc. As you will be seen from Armenian records, only during the two year rule of the tiny Armenian Republic between 1918 - 1920 some 195.000 people died in Armenia without fighting because of deprivations, despite American and other Relief aids (under protection of famished Turkish soldiers)

b- Armenian's Revolution agitated by Hunchaks and Dashnaks and supported by Russia and Allies, is an undeniable fact. For full details, please refer to "CEDAR RAPIDS REPUBLICAN" dated Aug. 15, 1915 and read the Victory of the Armenians and alliance with Russians. Please read all of the long article reported by Associated Press correspondent Mr. Schreiner in the area. (Other documentary evidence can be found in National Geographic of 1915), This treason happened when the Ottomans were fighting against Allies and Anzacs at Dardanelles, against Russia in the East and against British, Arabs and the French on the south and Armenians within the inside with fifth column warfare. Did the Jews in Germany, France and occupied countries or American of Japanese ethnicity ever took arms against their home country? Did Americans take any prisoners when Japanese soldiers surrendered in Okinawa? The examples are too many to count...

c- Regret the prejudice and grudge against Turks as a race, when our DNA s are almost identical. There are no good or bad races, nations or religions. As one desperate Armenian woman working illegally in Turkey for a living (as one of the 70.000 as illegal visitors - workers) put in simple words, there are good and bad persons in every country, nation, race. I have reports of signed by Russian army generals about the incredible butcheries done by Armenian volunteers. Would you like to see those as evidence instead of "hearsays"?

d- The war zones had to be evacuated and made free for the army. Turks, Kurds and all in the zones were deported, and the latter without any provisions or transit camps or soup - food kitchens en route. The Muslim casualties in the same period is estimated 2.5 million. Does this mean of any value to you, Sir ?

e- The same bad roads were used by the Army and all people, Where there was railways, they could go by train and casualties were much les.. The Ottoman Army only in Dec. 1914 within about two weeks lost 80.000 out of 90.000 men in the East because of the delay - resistance caused by the Armenian vokunteers and almost a complete army perished because of cold, no logistic supply, a blizzard of extreme cold, typhus, starvation and soldiers frozen like statues on open field or inside caves. Was there any reason for conditions to much improve for Armenians as a priority when Turkish army perished for alike reasons and fight put up by Armenians. The relocation decree was taken as late as May 1915, after the Van City was occupied and the final warning made to Patriarchate was rejecetd.

Conclusion: I have several friends which we are affectionately connected in full love and understanding. I regret that subject ladies had only unbfortunate luck and arrives to a racist generalization which you seem to endorse. There are much more serious crimes and atrocities that happened since then and are still going on, It will be a shameful hypocrisy to elavate only what happened to Armnenians (when many of them were traitors and fought their own country) (faithful ones were still serving and fighting on the Turkish side but were too few)as if they are another selected nation. The world needs more of compassion and love to pass on to our next generation instead of hatred and grudge you seem to market enjoyably in your columns.

Yes, I want to face all the great Armenian historians or scholars, who can PROVE BY DOCUMENTS that such a crime was intentionally committed, when there was NO CAUSE, NO TIME, NO MEANS, NO ADVANTAGE for planning or implementing. Yes, who is running away from a civillized debate, continously throwing slings of mud, brainwashing young children brains with hate, like you see in attached "poster competition".

Let us talk, intelligently to each other instead of white washing the whole world with this HUGE FALLACY and LIE swindling many of their money.

Kind regards

Sukru S Aya Istanbul (an old and all time friends of unbiased Armenians)

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Attachment by Sukru Server Aya

Chapter 15: POPULATION: CONTROVERSY or MATHEMATICAL AVERAGE?

The “opening code” of the whole genocide puzzle, of course is concerned with the number of people in question. As you will see from below figures, given estimates differ greatly. However, looking to the “reliability and neutrality of the source”, readers will still have to make a guess. The most competent historian in demography is Prof. Justin McCarthy, but since he is labeled “pro-Turk”, we will try to use other 'general data' and reach to an estimate by logical 'average'.

The “genocide balloon” may speak of 1,500,000 or even 2,000,000 people killed. Is that possible? To start with, let us see how many Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire, how many of them were relocated, how many reached their destinations in 1915, but returned with the Russian or French Armies or immigrated to the Greek Islands, Cyprus, France, the U.S., Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and Russia in large numbers or returned to Turkey.


Below are various estimates, made for “Christian Armenians living within Ottoman Empire borders:”

a.	Kirkor Zohrab, estimate of the Patriarchate	2,560,000*
b.	Armenian historiani K.J. Basmachian	2,380,000*
c.	By Armenian delegation given at the Paris Conference in 1919	2,250,000*
d.	30.12.1918 Given by Venizelos at the Paris Confer.(pre-World War I, 1914)	2,100,000
e.	Living in 1918 Difference 840,000 dead or immigrated	1,260,000*
f.	Letter by Bogos Nubar to French Ministry 11/12/1918 declaring - Relocated Alive in Caucasus-Persia-Syria-Iraq Difference 310.000 dead or immigrated	700.000 * 390.000
g.	1895 - Francis de Presence	1,260,000
h.	1900 - Tournbize	1,300,000
i.	1905 - Ottoman state census	1,294,851
j.	1912 - British Blue Book (Annual Register)	1,056,000
k.	1913 - L.D. Contenson	1,400,000
l.	French Yellow Book (1 555,000)	1 475,000
m.	Armenian Patriarch Ormanian	1 579,000
n.	Lepsius	1 600,000
o.	1915 - October, pg.329 Nat. Geographic (All area including Russia, Persia)	2,000,000
p.	Grabill, pg.51, All over the Empire in 1914	1,800,000 - 2,000,000
r.	Zurcher, pg.119 - 120 “Turkey”	1,500,000
s.	pg. Encyclopedia Britannica - 1914	1,500,000
t.	1918 - July, pg.61, Nat.Geographic (Total Empire population. 18,000,000)	2,000,000
u.	Katchaznuni, living in 1920 (after emigration and losses)	nearly 1,000,000
v.	Armenian historian Lalaian - detailed, living in Armenia only-- in 1918	885,000
w.	“ living in Armenia only in1920	690 500
x.	Deaths in Armenia under the Dashnak-ruled Republic (famine-epidemics)	195,000
y.	Armenian historian Kevork Aslan	1,800,000
z.	Revue de Paris	1,300,000
	Arnold Toynbee's book “Nationality and the War” 1915, written before he joined Propaganda Division had indicated Armenian population as Tbilisi Constanza Russian Provinces (Yerevan, Kars, Nakchivan, Shura, Alexadropol) six Turkish provinces Total according to Toynbee in 1915	155,000+ 161.000+ 750.000+ 600.000+ 1,511,000 =

(The above figures exclude those in relief camps, or who returned or migrated to other countries or lived undisturbed in other parts of Western Turkey and large cities)

The readers or researchers who do not want to use Justin McCarthy's head-count figures must make a guess or take an average, between a low of 1,000,000 and a high of 2,000,000, and estimate that the total number of Ottoman-Armenians within the “large borders of 1914” should be 1,500,000, with a 10% ± margin…

Readers are reminded that the figures indicated with asterisks were inflated somewhat by the Armenians just before the Paris Conference, 'to justify that they had a large enough population to fill the huge land area they were expecting from Black Sea down to the Mediterranean.' One of the reliable sources would be the British Blue Book, based on American missionary reports, as well as their own Consuls spread throughout Ottoman Empire, down to cities with only 20,000 inhabitants.

It will be a paradox to expect the British to reduce the numbers, for any advantage or arguments in favor of Turks. Statistics show that the Armenian population in the areas they named 'Turkish-Armenia' was no more than 20% of all the people living in the area.

According to Turkish state statistics, out of the total 1,300,000, the number that lived in the six provinces was a mere 628,000. But according to the Istanbul Armenian Patriarchate's later declaration, the total number was 1,200,000, of which 1,018,000 were said to be living in the subject provinces. The difference here is 390,000. The Armenians claimed they comprised 38% of the population in the area; The Turks claim that it was about 20% and even in two cities (Van, Erzurum) where Armenians were concentrated, they still were a minority!

Discrepancies exist even for population of Istanbul, where census taking should have been easier.

- Edwin Grosvenor indicates in his explicit book of 1877, Armenians in Istanbul only 165,000

- The memo given to Paris Conference in 1919 shows (Istanbul + Izmir + Syria) 230,000

- 1913 Armenian Patriarchate figure for Armenians in Istanbul 163,670

- Estimate of British Officers on the spot after occupation of Istanbul in 1920 83,000

The second phase of the controversy arises in the number of Armenians living in the six provinces who were relocated to the southern parts of the empire, particularly to the Zor District in Syria. We need to take into consideration the fact that many Armenians employed in key occupations or professions (doctors, pharmacists, important artisans etc.) were excluded from the relocation process. Shortly thereafter in late June 1915, Catholics and Protestant Armenians were too exempted/excluded.

While there were many Armenians fighting in volunteer gangs or brigades against the Turks, there were others fighting alongside the Turks at the Dardanelles, or handling the correspondence in the army encryption and decoding sections, because “only they could speak other languages”.

We have to make another estimate regarding the number of Armenians (Turks were simply deported, without any provisions) relocated from the subject six provinces overland to Syria.

Head of the Turkish Historical Society Yusuf Halacoglu, based on archive records, gives the figure 428,758 for those who were relocated. Those who traveled by train from Cilicia region, were never attacked. Few columns from other districts traveling overland on foot or ox-carts, were in some cases attacked by Circassian and Kurdish brigands, mostly in retaliation of what Armenians gangs had done to them. The routes were the only available roads, that even military had to use. Some provisory gendarmes (the good ones were in the fighting army) performed well, whilst others were unwilling or unable to risk their lives to protect the columns they were guarding. Many of them were later put on trial and some punished by the Army. Yusuf Halacoglu gives the number of about 60,000 persons who died because of hardships, fatigue, starvation, widespread epidemics such as typhus, which is about 15% of the moved people. Full text of the “Regulation” has been quoted in Chapter 14. The relative law, referred in several excerpts, did not even mention the name “Armenian” since it applied to “every one in the war zones”. Needless to say that the results of applications depended on the “man and money power and capability of each governor”.

Bearing in mind that the whole country was suffering epidemics and shortages of food, even the army fighting on three fronts (plus internal against Armenian fifth-columns) was short of clothing, boots and provisions. The province governors were conducting such a large scale movement for the first time, with no additional staff but very little extra allowances. Imaginable dramatic conditions, (shortage + incapacity + inability) cannot be classified as an “intended annihilation”. Just a few months earlier in January, 80,000 soldiers starved, froze to death on the Russian front, because of the imprudence of the Ottoman administration. Did things improve (!) much in three months?

According to German Army records, their loss of soldiers because of epidemics and shortages was about 10% of the total force, dying in the rear lines. Even their commander in chief General Goltz died of typhus in the Southern front. The situation with the Turkish Army, was reported to be much worse, due to lack of sanitary means and personnel, poor clothing and less than one-third of the daily standard food ration. The death rate in the Turkish armies, in the rear lines, was said to be close to 30%.

Now let us see what others said about the number of deported or relocated people:

a- A British memorandum on “relief needs” dt. Oct. 30, 1918 speaks of deportation of “over 1.000.000 “

b- Cypriot historian Sonyel gives this figure as 800,000 deported.

c- Raymond Kevorkian speaks of 870,000 deported to Syria.

d- Boghos Nubar, head of Paris delegation, states in 1918 that the deported number was 700,000 only

and that 390.000 were alive (loss of 310.000 from 1915 until 1918)

e- British Foreign Office, Geographical Section, indicated the total living population in subject provinces

(Erzurum, Sivas, Diyarbakir, Harput, Van, Bitlis) as 3,601,075 of which 665,815 were Armenians and

2,687,748 Moslems, the rest Greek, Nestorian and others.

According to these figures, how can the French Parliament and others, plus some ignorant writers or historians speak of 1,500,000 killed in the process of relocation? This is an absurd claim, having nothing to do with historical scholarship or minimal arithmetic. Maybe the above excerpt of Guenther Lewy and the report by Bergfeld helps explain the habit of “blatant exaggeration” succeeds and convinces dupes at all times.

The third and most important issue concerns the Armenians who survived, and safely reached their destinations. Some settled there and started new business, some went back after the surrender of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. Some returned with French and British armies from the south, Zor areas.

Again, we have different sources and records:

a - The most important and reliable document is the letter of American Consul J.B. Jackson, one of the most bigoted men from consular pool, dated Feb. 8th, 1916 in which he gives a broken down list of survivors in 10 main cities, reporting to ambassador Morgenthau that a total of 486,000 are alive.

b - Ataturk, in his only book “Nutuk” (The Speech) quotes a cable dated 31.5.1919 he received from the Ministry of War (under occupation), attaching a Note of the British Embassy in which they were asking the status of the Armenians in the Sivas area. (Ataturk) Mustafa Kemal, then the Inspector General sent by the Ottoman Army for the security of the area, replied to this message with his encrypted cable dated 3.06.1919, informing that “the Armenians living in Sivas and around, as well as the immigrants who came later, are safe, engaged in their own business, and that there has been no incident at all”. These historical documents imply that by 1919, the Armenian population which was deported or relocated out of this area in 1915 had returned, most of them resettled in their old homes, while there was another lot of migrating Armenians looking for settlement. Logically, these should have been the Armenians who came with the Russian occupation of the area, but stayed after the Russians pulled out in 1917 due to the Revolution.

Some excerpts in previous chapters (13) give plenty evidence of the Armenian presence and crimes in the area.

c- Another very reliable source is the report of Dr. F. Nansen, head of the “League of Nations Emigrants Committee” who according to Akabian's book (pg.253) was giving the following figures:

* Emigrated from Turkey to Russian Armenia and Caucasus 400,000

* Refugees who fled abroad 400 or 300,000 min. 300,000

* Living in Istanbul, Izmir, Syria (Venizelos report Paris Confer.) 230,000

* Remaining cities of Anatolia (declared by Venizelos in Paris Conf.) 150,000

Total number-living persons according to Armenian sources-1919 1,080,000

Note: We have various confirmations that 150,000 Armenians went back to Cilicia when occupied by France and their special Battalion D'Orient - (see other chapters) which committed atrocities. However, after the French agreement with Kemalist Turks in 1920, and French evacuation of the “internal war areas” in these provinces, 150,000 Armenians, plus a few Greeks, left with the French Armies causing an economic vacuum. (Grabill pg.260)

d- Katchaznuni, in his manifest of 1923 wrote that nearly 1,000,000 Armenians were alive in 1918 prior

to the evacuation of 1917 by Russians after the Revolution and founding of their short lived Republic.

e - Historian Lalaian in separate excerpts speaks of 885,000 Armenians alive (in those areas only) and

that by 1920, they lost 195,000 lives because of starvations and bad management by the Dashnaks.

f - 880,000 reported to the Paris Conference by Venizelos (Boghos Nubar's claim) as living in 1919.

g - Akaby Nassibian gives other breakdowns as follows in her book: (pg.249, 253, 211, 72)

- According to joint British Arm. Relief committee: Greece - Syria - Palestine - Caucasus 750,000

- Immigrated to Russia from Turkey, 310,000 or 400,000 other sources say 500,000

- Fled to other countries 350,000

- In Egypt waiting acceptance 5,000, plus at Basra waiting transport 14,000 19,000

h - James Barton, (head of American Board of Foreign Missionaries and Relief Organization) reported to the Paris Conference in April, 1919 that 100,000 Armenian refugees in Aleppo and Damascus were waiting to return to their homes. Stanley Kerr, an American Relief Official wrote that 170,000 of these were eventually repatriated.

i - George Montgomery, an American official at the Paris Conference, gave a detailed tabulation of Armenians alive in Turkey in 1919, which amounted to 594,000 + 450,000 in Caucasus + 60,000 in Persia = 1,104,000

Total (Apart from those in other countries or immigrated)

j - German missionary J. Lepsius, arrives to a total of 948,500 or rather 1,108,000 survivors in 1921, including those in Caucasus - Armenia, Palestine, Arab lands under British-French mandate and by 1925 more than 30,000 had emigrated to France and about 100,000 to U.S.

k - According to Caleb F. Gates, president of Robert Collage, the Armenian population statistics in January, 1921, as confirmed by the Armenian Patriarchate, was as follows: Armenians in Ottoman provinces, approximately 600,000; Armenians alive: 944,900; = Armenian total losses: 355,000.

Naturally, Armenians (although they received 98% of all relief supplies - guarded by Turkish soldiers when within borders of the Empire- were not immune to epidemics and starvations,(which swept out some 20% of population in areas where there was no war) and like over 500,000 Moslems who died in inter communal wars, exiles, epidemics, starvations, they too suffered. Death made no selection. It will be very improper to count these deaths as “massacred by Turkish armies” and declare Armenian race “immortal” (much that they claim to be of noble Arian race). Let us not forget that more than half of the people returned to their homes after mid-1915 when deportations were stopped and in larger numbers with the advance of Allied forces after Ottomans lost the war. Those coming back from Russia, had to go back when Kemalist forces took control over the area and the Republic of Armenia had to surrender in 1920 with the treaty of Gumru. It is not known, how many people took these hard long trips by ox-carts or on foot back and forth, but it is not difficult to guess that some 30% of those traveling or camping died. We have two reliable Armenian authorities confirming that almost 200,000 died within two years in Caucasus under the rule of the Armenian Republic and these are counted as massacred by Turks as well.

Looking at the people alive before 1914, those who were moved and those who survived until 1920, we can take a guess that at least some 200,000 Turkish-Armenians living in the six provinces, died of various natural causes (maybe some 30,000 - 40,000 killed in bilateral butcheries). The Ottoman State ruling at that time, (fighting wars on three fronts for their existence on three fronts, may be found “guilty of being unable to provide proper means during the relocation process”. But those who make an assessment of “massacre or genocide” fail to remember that it was the same government which lost 80,000 of their 90,000 soldiers in less than two weeks on the Russian front, (because of deprivations, lack of management and prudence), and that this disaster was partly caused by the sudden and unexpected resistance put by the Armenian Volunteer forces fighting for Russians. The Ottomans “naively thought in August, 1914 Erzurum Congress of Dashnaks” that they would fight on the side of the Turks, against the gift of “promised autonomy, in the long wanted six provinces”. The refusal of that generous offer, was the first breakpoint; the Sarikamish disaster in which the Armenians played an effective part knowing the area was the second breakpoint and finally the Van Revolt in March-April ending with the occupation of the city by Armenians and delivery to Russians on May 20th, was the third breakpoint; and with the landing of ANZAC forces in late-May in the Dardanelles, attack in the South Suez front, and Russian advance, plus the fifth-column activities of some 25,000 - 40,000 volunteer units, the Ottomans had “every justification” to push out “all people” from the war zones, and had no time to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent. This is “my evaluation”. The readers may make their own judgments considering the authenticity of the above given reference sources, which apparently the “slanderers never look at”. No one speaks of the Sarikamish disaster of just a very few months earlier, and draw a parallelism! The condition of fighting soldiers was much worse than the conditions and supplies to relocation caravans. No one blames the British-French blockade of ports, responsible for starvations, and the fact that they “let the relief goods go through blockades”, to Christians only!

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Armenia: The Forgotten Genocide
Apr 5, 2007

By Jerry Wolffe
Of The Oakland Press

The massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923 is being remembered by two Oakland County residents of Armenian descent.
The 92nd anniversary of the beginning of the slaughter is April 24.

Souren Abrahamian of Southfield, who will be 100 on June 15, was 8 years old when 35 members of his family were slain. He will be in the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center in Dearborn on April 22, when speakers tell of the genocide.

Abrahamian is the author of "From Van to Detroit," the story of his journey from the Armenian village of Van to the Motor City. He came to America in 1921, settling in Highland Park.

"For no reason, in a couple of months we had to leave our homes and migrate toward Russia," recalled Abrahamian of the genocide's beginnings in 1915.

Virginia Haroutunian, 70, of Bloomfield Hills also remembers the pain and anguish of her mother, Victoria.

Victoria Ahigian-Haroutunian was a genocide survivor. She was among the thousands of people who were marched by force from parts of Armenia to the DerZor Desert in Syria, leaving thousands dead along the journey.

Haroutunian's mother died in 2000 at age 90 of heart failure. Virginia Haroutunian wrote a book, "Orphan in the Sands," which details her mother's tale of survival. She will speak about her mother's tribulations at the Plum Hollow Country Club in Southfield on April 11.

Besides the 1.5 million Armenians butchered during the seven-year period, at least 500,000 were refugees.

"Even though I was born on the safe shores of America and graduated from the University of Michigan Music School in 1958, my demons were from another time and place," Haroutunian said, recalling her emotionally distant mother and telling the story of her mother's life as a child who spent time in orphanages.

Her mother went to many cities in Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Greece, before arriving on Ellis Island in the United States in 1928 Q where she spent 21Z2 months in segregation.

"She only experienced hatred by the Turks toward the Armenians," said Virginia Haroutunian, who taught in Pontiac schools for 30 years before retiring in 1988.

"From the age of 7 onward, she had not experienced love and therefore could not show it," she said of her mother. "I inherited her pain. I could not feel affection or show it. Music and food sedated my pain. The re-evaluation of my mother's past when I was 50 years old led to an understanding of my mother and surprisingly of myself."

She said the "Orphan in the Sands" book, "is about the evolution from the depths of black despair to the liberation of the human spirit."

Her mother, Victoria Ahigian, married Michael Haroutunian in Troy, N.Y., on Feb. 24, 1929. He was a cobbler and they took a train back to Pontiac. Victoria's cousin, Harry Ahigian, was instrumental in sending her money to help her buy steerage passage to America.

"I never found out what my mother went through until 1988," said Virginia Haroutunian. She would say, TNobody likes to hear a sad story,' and she wasn't proud about the way she was treated." Abrahamian arrived in the United States in 1921 and roomed with his brother in Highland Park, where some Armenian survivors lived, and worked in a grocery store before getting a job working as a civil engineer for the federal government.

When he retired in 1974, he received the distinguished service award, he said. He still doesn't understand the failure of the United States to officially recognize the genocide.

"It's a crime that the United States doesn't recognize the Armenian genocide," said Abrahamian, adding Germany and France have recognized it but England has not. "We want the Turks to own up to what happened."

Contact Jerry Wolffe at (248) 745-4612 or jerry.wolffe@oakpress.com.

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From: Hold Water
Sent: April 10, 2007
Subject: One quick path to compromise the credibility of the Oakland Press

Dear Mr. Wolff,

You must be aware there is a thin line between history and journalism. The duty of one who calls him or herself a professional in either vocation is to analyze all relevant information before arriving at an objective conclusion.

I am sharing this letter with your colleagues so that they may learn what an embarrassingly irresponsible job you have performed with your April 5 piece, "Armenia: The forgotten genocide," and also so that if any of them will be in the position to influence this topic in the future, hopefully, the more honorable among them will be aware of their own duty.

Imagine if the history of our country were to be written exclusively through the sources of our enemies, avoiding American sources altogether. Would that be valid history in your view? Of course not; such would be considered as "propaganda." Similarly, anyone with the tiniest objectivity and willingness to scratch beneath the surface may see that what is called the "Armenian genocide" is nothing more than a politicized invention.

You have done an excellent job in resorting 100% to propagandistic sources. I don't know why you have chosen to do so; perhaps you have deep prejudices, and cannot distance yourself from them. If this is the case, your editor (Mr. Glenn Gilbert, I presume) would be as much, if not more so, to blame. Regardless, we must state one definite fact: those who refer to propaganda as sources wind up producing propaganda. Such is the kiss of death for any professional journalist of integrity, and ultimately, the publication they work for.

Your opening line provides an excellent example of your disregard for the facts: "The massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923..." If you have the simplest knowledge of history, you should be aware that WWI ended in 1918.

The Ottoman Empire was defeated, and occupied by one million Allied troops. The empire ceased to become an entity when the Allies planned to divide the beaten nation between themselves, leading to the emergence of modern Turkey.

So who was committing this genocide of yours up until 1923? Isn't it incredible you would unthinkingly write a line such as this, simply because it appears in some Armenian propagandists' handbook?

What is referred to as a "genocide" is in fact the forced resettlement of the Armenian community between 1915-16. This is similar to our relocation of our Japanese during WWII, with two critical differences:

Our Japanese were loyal, and our national homeland was not under direct attack and in immediate danger, with enemies intent on destroying our nation.

The Armenian leader, Boghos Nubar, wrote in Jan. 1919 (The Times of London) that the Armenians were "belligerents de facto," as they "indignantly refused to side with Turkey." When a nation's community behaves treacherously and joins the nation's enemies

during wartime, it is the nation's right – more correctly, its duty -- to defend itself.

As an unthinking propaganda proponent, you have faithfully reproduced an Armenian mortality of 1.5 million. Yet the "neutral" sources of the period (that is, Western, and Turk-unfriendly) have mostly agreed 1.5 million was the total Ottoman-Armenian population.

See, for example, the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.

Even the worst Armenian propagandists today concede one million Armenians survived. (The Armenian Patriarch wrote at the end of 1918: 1,260,000 survivors, from his inflated pre-war figure of 2.1 million.) If you subtract one million survivors from a total of 1.5 million, how can you mathematically wind up with 1.5 million dead?

You wouldn't like it if someone accused you of even the pettiest crime, without providing the evidence. Yet, here you are, freely and dishonorably blaming an entire nation of mass murder by writing, "Besides the 1.5 million Armenians butchered during the seven-year

period, at least 500,000 were refugees." You never gave a second thought as to what the factual evidence might be. (There is none; it's all hearsay, along with some forgeries.)

So every one of your astounding 1.5 million figure died of murder, having been "butchered." In point of fact, Mr. Wolff, most died of famine and disease. These were the causes of death for most of the other 2.7 million Ottomans who died, the ones you care nothing about.

Because many Armenians are influential and genocide-obsessed (and engage in underhanded tactics, such as ad hominem attacks, frightening the true historians away from this debate), we only hear of what they have to tell us. They get away with their lies, because those we rely upon as guardians of the truth -- journalists, as yourself -- do not care to perform even the most rudimentary research.

In our own U.S. archives, there is a report by a British colonel, Wooley, who estimated the Armenians had slaughtered 300,000-400,000 Ottoman Muslims in two districts alone. (The Armenians held on to eastern Anatolia on and off between 1915-1919/20, with and without their Russian allies. As the Armenians did not form a majority anywhere, and were hoping to get a piece of the Ottoman land pie, their strategy was to kill everyone who did not fit into their racial/religious prototype, including Jews and even some Greeks.) The actual toll of "Turks" murdered by Armenians was half a million.

MANY more "Turks" were killed directly by Armenians than the other way around. This is the real "forgotten genocide"... or more correctly, "never acknowledged in the first place" genocide. (I don't know how you could even qualify the Armenian episode as "forgotten." Run a search on the Internet, and see how overwhelmed you can get.)

We don't hear about this other side of the coin, because in our society, Christian Armenians are regarded as more precious human beings.

When you repeat such vicious propaganda, not only are you serving as a willing accomplice to this awful racism; but you are helping to perpetuate hatred and prejudice against Turkish people, by equating them with Nazis. You truly should be ashamed of yourself.

You are in the position of molding the minds of the readers of the Oakland Press, and you are going about your job in a way that would have made Josef Goebbels proud.

I'd suggest you do at least minimal homework before tackling a story with historical basis. Regarding this topic, one book from 2005 to consider: "The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide," by Prof. Guenter Lewy (a Holocaust survivor).

Sincerely,
Holdwater
www.tallarmeniantale.com