Holocaust Education Week Presents Nazi Germany, Armenians and Jews

Toronto, Canada—It was an eye-opening experience for the people of Temple Har Zion and the Armenian Community Centre to learn that there are so many links between the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust, as presented in a lecture by Prof. Eric D. Weitz, Distinguished McKnight University Professor of History and Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair in the College of Liberal Arts, where he is also Chair of the History Department. 

Len Rudner, National Director of Community Relations for the Canadian Jewish Congress, noted in his introductory remarks, “This is the 27th year of Holocaust Education Week, an event sponsored by the UJ Federation’s Holocaust Education Centre of Toronto. It is one of the most comprehensive Holocaust education programs in the world. Our goal is to educate people of all ages, ethnic backgrounds and religions about the Holocaust and the extreme dangers of religious and racial intolerance.” In that spirit, the lecture was organized by the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (A Division of the Zoryan Institute), with the participation of the Armenian Community Centre the Armenian General Benevolent Union of Toronto, and the Canadian Jewish Congress-Ontario Region.

Prof. Weitz began his lecture by discussing Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word “genocide.” Lemkin, who  was deeply influenced by his study of both the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust, devoted his life to creating international law for the prevention and punishment of genocide, adopted as the United Nations Genocide Convention in 1948. In his autobiography, Lemkin expressed disappointment and concern that the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide had not been punished by the Allied Powers. Some of the other points Weitz discussed are presented below. 

• Contrary to orders, German Army medic Armin T. Wegner, took many pictures of the Armenian Genocide, some of which have survived and become iconic representations of this terrible crime against humanity. Wegner was the same German humanitarian who, in 1933, dared write a personal letter to Adolf Hitler protesting Nazi Germany’s treatment of the Jews. That act resulted in his own persecution by the Nazis and his exile from Germany.
• The use of technology to facilitate the destruction of the Armenians and Jews was used by both the Young Turks and the Nazis. For example, the trains to deport Jews efficiently to the concentration camps have become a widely recognized symbol of the Holocaust. Similarly, the Ottomans used trains to move large numbers of Armenians to eastern Turkey where they were subsequently marched to the desert of Der Zor and their ultimate death.
• Germany’s foreign policy, as the military and political ally of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, was interested in seeing that empire succeed in its war aims so that Germany itself could expand its influence eastwards into the region. Accordingly, when German consular officials in the Ottoman Empire continually wrote to Berlin protesting the Turkish annihilation of the Armenians, the German government by and large chose to ignore it. This is the same policy followed during World War II in its expansion eastward into Poland and beyond.
• German officers served with Turkish commanders as military advisors. They observed the Armenian Genocide first-hand, some were actively involved, and some went on to become Nazi supporters.
• The cold, impersonal reporting by some German officials in the Ottoman Empire as they described the extermination of the Armenians was echoed in the reports by Nazi bureaucrats regarding the number of Jews exterminated in the eastern front.
• The absence of punishment for the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide by the Allied Powers gave confidence to Hitler to declare in August 1939, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians,” while justifying to his generals his plan to kill, oppress, and brutalize the Poles, and to conclude that he could get away with exterminating the Jews and committing other crimes against humanity.
• The radical nature of both political parties—the CUP in the case of the Turks and the Nazis in the case of the Germans—took control of the government and succeeded in mobilizing significant sectors of society to be involved in the mass killing, or at least condone it.

Giving a positive example of similarities, Prof. Weitz mentioned that there were many cases of gentiles who saved Jews, as were there Turks who also saved Armenians.

Not being familiar with the connections between the two cases of genocide, and empowered by Prof. Weitz’s historical information and analysis, the audience raised numerous earnest questions about the linkages and particularly the relation of geo-politics to denial. It was pointed out by one audience member that the recent denial of the Holocaust by the President of Iran and the recent support for Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide by the President of Israel caused a great outcry around the world, because of the pain both those denials caused survivors of the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide and their descendants.

“This was a timely collaboration between Jewish and Armenian organizations,” said another member of the audience, referring to the recent controversy surrounding the Anti-Defamation League in the United States, which publicly opposed official American recognition of the Armenian Genocide, House Resolution 106, and the recent complicity in that effort by top officials in Israel and the United States.

Prof. Weitz closed his lectures by stating that genocide is not only a political decision but a personal choice, not an accident. He stated that the “Holocaust and Armenian Genocide are too important to be left just to the Armenians and Turks or the Jews and Germans, as the common history and lessons they contain should be used to help ensure that no community has to suffer in the future what they did in the past.”

George Shirinian, IIGHRS Executive Director, stated his “firm belief in the solidarity of Armenians and Jews, as well as other national groups who have endured the overwhelming trauma of genocide, as these are inter-related and part of a continuum of human tragedy. We have much to teach the world, and we have much to learn from one another.”

 The International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (A Division of the Zoryan Institute) is dedicated to the study and dissemination of knowledge regarding the phenomenon of genocide in all of its aspects. This is achieved through the annual Genocide and Human Rights University Program, public lectures, seminars and publication of Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal in partnership with the International Association of Genocide Scholars and the University of Toronto Press.