The Wellington City Council is rethinking its policy after being slammed as “complicit in genocide denial”. The accusation against the Council followed its decision to grant police the power to arrest Anzac Day protesters. The issue came to light on Anzac Day last year. Richard Noble arrived at a service at Wellington’s Pukeahu War Memorial Read more
The Promise, the grandest big-screen portrayal ever made about the mass killings of Armenians during World War I, has been rated by more than 111,300 people on IMDb — a remarkable total considering it doesn’t open in theatres until Friday and has thus far been screened only a handful of times publicly. The passionate reaction is Read more
This Sunday Armenians and people of good will around the world will commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide. A century ago millions of men, women and children – including Assyrians and Greeks – were brutally tortured and exterminated upon the direct order and plan of the Ottoman Turkish government, thereby emptying the region of Read more
The twentieth century saw major advances in technology and communications, economy and human rights. It was also the bloodiest century in history. Think of the mass deportations, starvation and extermination of perhaps 14 million people in Stalinist Russia and even more in Maoist China; the Holocaust of 6 million Jews under the Nazis, as well Read more
A church like that can help a person, says Armen. It can help them from giving up hope — and that is indeed something. The fact that the church is even standing here — beautiful and steadfast in a place that was only recently the site of ruins — instills a sense of courage, says Read more
The Armenian and Assyrian genocide that took place between 1914 and 1923, along with the Pontian Greek mass murders, provided the template for the Holocaust: forced emigration, expulsions, property confiscations, forced labour, public torture and executions, medical experiments, elementary gassings, starvation and death marches. These resulted in the deaths of up to 1,500,000 Armenians, perhaps Read more
One key to understanding how Pius XII responded to the Holocaust – both his hesitation to name both murderers and victims and his efforts to save as many lives as possible – is the Vatican’s diplomacy during World War I when Benedict XV (1914-22) unsuccessfully attempted to save the Armenians during the genocide of 1915-18 Read more
A century ago, in a misconceived encounter on the history-soaked precipices of Asia Minor, the sons of Anzac received their battle initiation against the German-trained forces of the Ottoman Empire. Now, in an annual event that grows in mythology and status in proportion to the passing of the years, is celebrated the shared combat ordeal Read more
Turkey’s foreign ministry has protested to the Vatican after Pope Francis referred to the mass murder of Armenians as “the first genocide of the 20th century”. The Pope alluded briefly to the Armenian genocide during a meeting with Armenian Catholic Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni of Cilicia. An estimated 1 to 1.5 million Armenians died Read more