Ambassador to Turkey Henry Morgenthau. who was in Turkey from 191316. affirmed in his memoirs that the Ottoman Government clearly understood it was "giving the death warrant to a whole race. they understood this well. and. in their conversations with me. they made no particular attempt to conceal this fact." We have access to literally thousands of pages of testimony by survivors describing the endless raping. murder. mutilation. and enforced starvation. Without getting into the gory details. let me just relate to you what one German eyewitness. a missionary and teacher in Aleppo. described. After reporting the various horrors. the hacking off of hands. the piles of convulsive bodies. the slitting of throats. he concludes that "the object of the deportation is the extermination of the whole Armenian nation." I have heard the argument from those opposed to this resolution. that the passage of this resolution will put a thorn in the side of our NATO ally. Turkey. I feel very strongly that to let issues of political expediency enter into this debate is to desecrate the memory of the 1.5 million Armenians who were wiped from the face of the Earth between 1915 and 1923. and erases the lesson we might draw from their tragedy.
Keywords matched
deportation