Albert J. Amateau, residing at #413 Oak Vista Drive, in the village of Oakmont, City of Santa Rosa, County of Sonoma in the State of California, being duly sworn, deposes that he has prepared and hereby submits the attached statement containing (a) facts, (b) extracts from published and/or uttered communications which disprove the allegations of Armenians that their ethnic brethren suffered genocide by the government of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1923.
These facts are submitted to oppose approval of resolution S.J.212, introduced by the Honorable Robert Dole, Senator and Republican leader of the United States Senate, at the first session of the 101st Congress of the United States. The said resolution seeks to designate April 24, 1990, as the "National Day of Remembrance" of the 75th anniversary of the alleged Armenian genocide of 1915-1923 perpetrated by the government of the Ottoman Empire.
I was born in Milas, Turkey, on April 20, 1889. In 1905 I was a student at the American International College in Izmir (Smyrna), Turkey. At the time, The Reverend John McGlaglan was President and I attended classes in English conducted by Professors Lawrence and Evan-Jones. These details to make it possible to ascertain the truth of my statements.
There, I became acquainted and friendly with many Turkish born Armenian students, most of whom were my seniors. Because my Grandfather, whose name I bear, had been the French Consul in Izmir, I was mistakenly considered a Christian and a Frenchman. The Armenian students felt that they could freely discuss their membership in Armenian secret societies, i.e., Huntchak and Tashnak Zutiun, and their active participation in secret military exercises to prepare themselves for military duty in their planned subversive war against the Ottoman Empire and nation. In alliance and collaboration with Tsarist Russia.
In 1906 a number of wealthy Armenians in Izmir were assessinated. Mr. Hayik Balgosian and his friend, Mr. Artin Balokian, had been shot by two men in front of the Balgosian mansion in Karatash, an affluent section of Izmir. Days later, the large establishment in the center of the Izmir Bazaar, the SIVRI-SSARIAN, wholesale dry goods warehouse and store, was bombed. Mr. Agop Sivri-Ssarian and a number of his Armenian employees were killed. The perpetrators then sent secret messages, in Armenian printed lettering, threatening a number of Armenian merchants, doctors, lawyers and architects - unless they "contributed" the sums the leaders of the secret societies had assessed, the recepients would suffer the same fate as Balgosian and Sivri-Ssarian.
A majority of these addresses must have "contributed". A few, who evidently were satisfied with their economic, social and political status, did not approve of the plans for subversion and rebellion. They informed the Izmir Police of their suspicion of the identity of the leaders of the secret societies and that the Apostoloc Armenian church on ERMENI MAHALLESI, the main Armenian quarters in Izmir, was possibly the repository of arms and ammunition for the planned rebellion.
I witnessed the police raid on that church; and the truck loads of arms and ammunition which were taken out. Also the arrest of five priests and a number of other Armenians who were in the church at the time of the raid, including a few of my fellow students of the American College. Evidently I had not taken the disclosures of my fellow students seriously enough. Also, I could not understand the Armenian logic for rebellion against a country that had given its ethnic minorities the right to observe and practise their religion, conduct schools for the instruction of their young in their ethnic language and favored many of them with positions of trust. I knew of many Armenians in important positions in the Ottoman Treasury, Foreign Affairs, and as functionaries as consuls,.
I knew of many affluent Armenian doctors, attorneys and even a couple of bankers and architects. It was well known that the Armenians were the merchant princes of the Empire and that the Sultan favored them, especially because, of all the ethnic communities, they were the only ones who spoke the difficult Turkish language as a second language to their own Armenian.
Armenian terrorists in the United States and their duped friends have made it a career to assassinate Turkish consular officilas, supposedly in revenge for the alleged Armenian massacre in 1915. Their prelates, leaders, and even our own California governor, Mr. Deukmejian, have not seen fit to express their disapproval, and by their silence have tacitly approved of the assassinations. The leaders of the secret Armenian societies, Huntchak and Tashnak Zutiun, have continued their nefarious activities by agitating for the introduction of their alleged genocide into the instruction program of the public schools of the State of California.
They have also been able, through their boast of one million Armenian votes, to influence State representatives in passing laws to place their Armenian program for a motion picture into operation.
Now they are trying to have the Congress of the United States pass a resolution to designate April 24, 1990, as the 75th anniversary of their alleged genocide of 1.5 million Armenians by the "Ottoman Turks in 1915". I am amazed that intelligent and politically astute gentlemen, such as Senator Robert Dole, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, and others, his colleagues, have been importuned to sponsor that resolution without any proof of the veracity of the Armenian claims. There is no doubt in my mind that Senator Dole and his colleagues are honest and honorable men. They have been duped to believe the Armenian allegations as true.
To establish the truth to the satisfaction of the Senators, I am submitting extracts from statements - in fact, avowais - by Armenian leaders in their addresses and/or communications with their adherents. These extracts, and the entire statements, are unimpeachable, and the veracity of my quotes can be easily ascertained. I am also submitting statements of others, but especially of Professor John Dewey, of Columbia University, who investigated the Armenian claims of genocide.
a) EXTRACTS from the November 1914 issue of the OFFICIAL ARMENIAN GAZETTE HUNTCHAK, published in Paris, France, by the Armenian Revolutionary Committee of the ARMENIAN NATION. This was a CALL TO ARMS!
"...The entire ARMENIAN NATION will join forces - moral and material, and waving the sword of REVOLUTION, will enter this World conflict.... as comrades in arms of the Triple Entente, and particularly RUSSIA. They will cooperate with the ALLIES, making full use of all political and revolutionary means for the final victory of Armenia, Cilicia, Caucasus, Azerbayjan.... heroes who will sacrifice their lives for the great cause of Armenia....Armenians proud to shed their blood for the cause of Armenia...."
-Please note the date. It was even before the declaration of war.
b) EXTRACTS from a letter dated JANUARY 27, 1918, and published in the LONDON TIMES on JANUARY 30, 1918, signed by BOGHOS NUBAR, the recognized leader of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, TASHNAK ZUTIUN. This was a complaint that the Allies had refused to invite the ARMENIAN REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE HUNTCHAK to the PEACE CONFERENCE at which the treaty between Turkey and the Allies was signed in Lauzanne, Switzerland.
"...The unspeakable sufferings and the dreadful losses that have befallen the Armenian Nation by reason of their faithfulness to the Allies.... The fact well known only to a few that ever since the beginning of the war, Armenians fought by the side of the Allies on all fronts... Armenians have been belligerents 'de facto' since their indignant refusal to side with the Turks... our volunteers fought in Syria and Palestine (at the time part of the Ottoman Empire) in the decisive victory of General Allenby.... After the breakdown of Russia, the Armenian legions were the only forces to resist the advances of the Turks whom they held in check until the armistice was signed. Thus they helped the British forces in Mesopotamia (at the time also part of the Ottoman Empire) by hindering the German/Turkish forces from sending troops elsewhere."
----Please note the reference to refusal to side with the Turks, the nation where they were born and of which they were a part. There is no claim of genocide.
c) EXTRACTS from the MANIFESTO, delivered by His Excellency, HOVHANES KATCHAZOUNI, PRIME MINISTER of the ARMENIAN REPUBLIC (established after the First World War) at the CONVENTION of the ARMENIAN REVOLUTIONARY FEDERATION, in Bucharest, Romania, JULY 1923. This was in the nature of a report.
"...In the fall of 1914, when Turkey had not yet entered the war but was already making preparations, Armenian revolutionary bands began to form with great enthusiasm... The ARMENIAN REVOLUTIONARY FEDERATION had active participation in the formation of these bands and the military action against TURKEY... In the fall of 1914 Armenian volunteer bands fought against TURKEY... This was an inevitable result of the psychology on which the Armenian Nation had been nourished during an entire generation... the winter of 1914 and the spring of 1915 were periods of great activity, greatest enthusiasm and hopes... We had no doubt that the war would end with complete victory for the Allies and Turkey would be defeated and dismembered, and its Armenian population would at least be liberated... We had embraced Russia wholeheartedly without any compun(...)... we believed that the Tsarist government would grant us self government in the Caucasus and in the Armenian vilayets (Turkish provinces where many Armenians resided), liberated from Turkey, as a reward for our loyalty, our efforts and our assistance. Unfortunately Russia did not keep its word..."
One and a half million Armenians are claimed to have been massacred. The avowals of their leaders prior to and after the First World War prove that there had been no massacre - their leaders would have referred to it or claimed it as their calamity, or at least as their contribution to the Allied cause. The allegations of massacre and/or genocide are a later invention to compel the new Turkish Republic to cede to them the five vilayets where they had installed the Armenian Republic, which they later had to give up to the Turkish Republic after a brief war. The Armenians have ever since been trying to obtain either the territory to add to the Russian Armenian Republic, or a large sum of money as the price for stopping the terrorism.
The Armenian people must blame their own leaders and their secret revolutionary societies for the subversive actions which led to their participation in the war with the Allies. They can blame Russia for reneging on its promise, and the Allies for not giving them due credit for their help, but they certainly have no reason to blame the Turkish Republic and/or even the now defunct Ottoman Empire, as their own leaders confessed. Let us now see what Professor John Dewey, of Columbia University, has to say -a broad minded Christian gentleman who went to the Middle East in 1928 to investigate the Armenian claims of genocide. This is extracted from his report published in THE NEW REPUBLIC, vol. 40, November 12, 1928:
"Few Americans who mourn, and justly, the miseries of the Armenians, are aware that till the rise of the nationalistic ambitions, beginning with the 70s, the Armenians were the favored portion of the population of Turkey; or that in the Great War, they treacherously turned Turkish cities over to the Russian invaders; that they have boasted of having raised a hundred and fifty thousand (150,000) men to fight a civil war, that they burned at least one hundred (100) Turkish villages and exterminated their populations. I do not mention these things by way of appraising or extenuating blame, because the story of provocations and reprisals is as futile as it is endless. Finally, one recalls that the Jews took their abode in "fanatic" Turkey when they were expelled from Europe, especially Spain, by "Saintly" Christians, and they have lived in Turkey for some centuries, at least in as much tranquility and liberty as their fellow Muslim Turks, all being exposed alike to the rapacity of their common rulers. To one brought up, as most Armenians have been, in the Gladstonian and foreign missionary traditions, the condition of the Jews of Turkey is almost a mathematical demonstration that religious differences had no influence in the tragedy of Turkey, only as they were combined with the aspirations for political separation, which every nation in the world would have treated as treasonable..."
Professor Dewey had evidently not been told of the rejection by the Jewish Communities of Turkey of the appeals by the European Zionists for political and financial assistance. Insofar as the Jews of Turkey were concerned, the Zionist proposals were "subversive", unless and until the Ottoman government agreed to them. At no time did the Jews of Turkey nurse aspirations for political separation from their Ottoman saviors, who had received them when no other country allowed their either entry or residence. In 1922 in Izmir, Kemal Ataturk, when he captured 100,000 Greek soldiers who had been allowed by the Allied governments to invade and occupy Turkey in Asia, said: "OF ALL THE ETHNIC MILLETS (Communities) THE JEWS ELECTED TO REMAIN LOYAL TO THEIR MOTHERLAND." Now for a brief view of Armenian atrocities against Muslim and Jews - EXTRACTS from a letter dated December 11, 1983, published in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, as an answer to a letter that had been published in the same journal under the signature of one B. AMARIAN, claiming 1.5 million victims of genocide by the Ottoman Turks:
"..We have first hand information and evidence of Armenian atrocities against our people (Jews) which preceded the so-called massacre of Armenians which you allege in 1915. Members of our family witnessed the murder of 148 members of our family near Erzurum, Turkey, by Armenian neighbors, bent on destroying anything and anybody remotely Jewish and/or Muslim. Armenians should look to their own history and see the havoc they and their ancestors perpetrated upon their neighbors... Armenians were in league with HITLER in the last war, on his promise to grant them self government if, in return, the Armenians would help exterminate Jews... Armenians were also hearty proponents of the anti-semitic acts in league with the Russian Communists. Mr Amarian! Prove that, as you say, a large scale massacre of Armenians occured. I don't need your bias." Signed ELIHU BEN LEVI, Vacaville, California. Attached as the last page of this statement is proof of Armenian collaboration with Hitler.
My friend, Franz Werfel, of Vienna, Austria, a writer, wrote a book entitled THE 40 DAYS AT MUSSA DAGH, a history of the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks. The story was told him by his friend, the Armenian Bishop of Vienna and Werfel never doubted the Bishop's account. He did not investigate what he wrote. Years later, when the true facts about Mussa Dagh were established by the research of neutral investigators - which was never denied by the Armenians - Werfel discovered that he had been duped by his friend, the Bishop, with a concocted story. Werfel confessed to me his shame and remorse for having written that story, in which he had blamed the Ottomans as the aggressors and terrorists.
THE TRUTH
Fifty thousand Armenians, residents of villages in and around Erzurum in Turkey surreptiously ascended a mountain called Mussa Dagh (dagh is Turkish for mountain) with arms, ammunition, victuals and water, sufficient to withstand a siege of many days. Before ascending that mountain, they had captured hundreds of Muslim Turks and Jews, their fellow citizens and neighbors, with whom they were supposedly on good terms. They murdered them all in cold blood, for no other reason than they were Muslims and Jews. Thereafter, every night armed Armenian bands came down from that mountain and attacked the rear of the Ottoman and German armies fighting the Russian invaders. This was at the very beginning of the First World War, and part of the secret plans made by the Russians and assigned to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.
The Turks were mystified. The Armenian attackers would disappear. Try as they did, at first the Ottomans were unable to trace the disappearing Armenians, but finally they discovered that Mussa Dagh was the hiding place. The Ottomans found the mountain fortress unassailable. They laid siege and waited 40 days before the Armenian rear guard conceded defeat and laid down their arms. But the Ottoman forces found the mountain empty. The large army had disappeared down the other side of the mountain where they had found an exit to the Mediterranean. French and British men-of-war had been signalled and they picked up the main army, transporting the soldiers to Alexandria, Egypt, then under the control of the British. Less than 500, the rear guard who gave themselves up, were zaptured by the Ottomans.
Yet, in telling the story to Werfel to write, the Bishop had claimed 50,000 victims captured and put to death - an invented story, just as is the story of 1.5 million massacred in 1915. If 1.5 million Armenian lost their lives during that war, they died as soldiers, fighting a war of their own choosing against the Ottoman Empire which had treated them decently and benignly. They were the duped victims of the Russians, of the Allies, and of their own Armenian leaders. A few thousand Armenians may have lost their lives during their relocation, caused by their own subversion.
In making this expose of the truth and disclosing my home address, I know that I risk Armenian harrassment. I have already been subjected to telephone and written threaths! However, the truth must be told. As one born in the Ottoman Empire, from which I emigrated in 1910 and have never returned to live, I must declare:
1) I am not and never have been employed or paid by any government in Turkey.
2) I am not now and never have been financially interested in any business in Turkey.
3) My parents died before the Second World War. My sister and brother-in-law, residents of the Island of Rhodes, were captured and murdered by Hitler's Nazis. I have no relatives or friends in Turkey. It should be evident that I have no motive in taking the risk, other than my conscientious duty to tell the truth out of my love for my native land. I beg the Honorable Senators and other government officials to demand from the Armenians proof of their claims and explanation of the statement of avowals made by their own leaders. Under the circumstances and in view of the above proof, I cannot conceive that the Senators can in good conscience pass that resolution.
It is not enough to say that they do not mean to hurt the Turks or Turkish/American relations. By entertaining that resolution without proof, they are actually going against the interests of Turkey and the safety of the United States and of NATO.
Source: http://www.sephardicstudies.org/aa3.html
Note: The following information is given about Albert J. Amateau in his obituary:
Obituary of a 20th Century Sephardic Advocate, Rabbi Albert J. Amateau, 106, Sephardic-Leader Dies: New York Times, February 29, 1996 - Albert J. Amateau, who spent years as a social worker, rabbi, lawyer, Federal official and businessman and still found room for a lifetime of civic and charitable endeavors, died on Feb, 9 at his home in Santa Rosa, Calif. He was 106. A native of Turkey, where his maternal grandfather settled after being Chief Rabbi of Palestine, Mr. Amateau came to the United States in 1910 and immediately plunged into the swirl of immigrant life in New York. A descendant of Jews, who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and settled in Turkey, Mr. Amateau, who married the niece of the Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire, was deeply involved in Sephardic affairs in the United States.
***
The following letter can be found at http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/amateau.htm:
To: Jewish Bulletin
San Francisco, CA
March 20, 1996
To the Editor:
Your March 8 issue contained an obituary article on Albert Amateau, the Sephardim leader and —I’m proud to say — my friend, who died at the age of 106 in Santa Rosa. Mr. Amateau’s social activism, humanitarianism and concern for justice continued throughout his remarkable life, which spanned from the nineteenth century to almost the end of this one, and from the now-defunct Ottoman Empire to modern-day America. The late Joseph Papo, in his comprehensive work, “Sephardim in Twentieth Century America,” devotes an entire section to the contributions of Albert J. Amateau to the welfare of the Sephardim in this country. His oral history, recorded by me in 1985, is deposited at the Western Oral History archives of the Judah Magnes Museum.
One of Mr. Amateau’s attributes was a passionate sense for social justice, which he often voiced in defense of his native country, Turkey, against the false allegations of its enemies and detractors in the United States. One of these involved the accusation of the “genocide” of Armenians in Turkey in the early part of this century. Mr. Amateau had witnessed Armenian terrorism against Muslim Turks (and not the other way around) and the confiscation by the government of the large cache of arms and ammunition stored in an Armenian church in Izmir. How sadly ironic, therefore, that the one issue which he most ardently and unremmitingly contested —the equating of the Jewish holocaust with the massive deaths of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire — was repeated as fact in your newspaper (article on “Actor in play about genocide”) in the very same issue which included his obituary. Mr. Amateau’s sister and family on the island of Rhodes were obliterated by the Nazis. None of them or any of the six million Jews of Europe were part of an armed insurrection. Mr. Amateau would have been outraged at the suggestion!
Rachel Bortnick
Dallas
Note: The following information is given about Albert J. Amateau in his obituary:
Obituary of a 20th Century Sephardic Advocate, Rabbi Albert J. Amateau, 106, Sephardic-Leader Dies: New York Times, February 29, 1996 - Albert J. Amateau, who spent years as a social worker, rabbi, lawyer, Federal official and businessman and still found room for a lifetime of civic and charitable endeavors, died on Feb, 9 at his home in Santa Rosa, Calif. He was 106. A native of Turkey, where his maternal grandfather settled after being Chief Rabbi of Palestine, Mr. Amateau came to the United States in 1910 and immediately plunged into the swirl of immigrant life in New York. A descendant of Jews, who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and settled in Turkey, Mr. Amateau, who married the niece of the Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire, was deeply involved in Sephardic affairs in the United States.
***
The following letter can be found at http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/amateau.htm:
To: Jewish Bulletin
San Francisco, CA
March 20, 1996
To the Editor:
Your March 8 issue contained an obituary article on Albert Amateau, the Sephardim leader and —I’m proud to say — my friend, who died at the age of 106 in Santa Rosa. Mr. Amateau’s social activism, humanitarianism and concern for justice continued throughout his remarkable life, which spanned from the nineteenth century to almost the end of this one, and from the now-defunct Ottoman Empire to modern-day America. The late Joseph Papo, in his comprehensive work, “Sephardim in Twentieth Century America,” devotes an entire section to the contributions of Albert J. Amateau to the welfare of the Sephardim in this country. His oral history, recorded by me in 1985, is deposited at the Western Oral History archives of the Judah Magnes Museum.
One of Mr. Amateau’s attributes was a passionate sense for social justice, which he often voiced in defense of his native country, Turkey, against the false allegations of its enemies and detractors in the United States. One of these involved the accusation of the “genocide” of Armenians in Turkey in the early part of this century. Mr. Amateau had witnessed Armenian terrorism against Muslim Turks (and not the other way around) and the confiscation by the government of the large cache of arms and ammunition stored in an Armenian church in Izmir. How sadly ironic, therefore, that the one issue which he most ardently and unremmitingly contested —the equating of the Jewish holocaust with the massive deaths of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire — was repeated as fact in your newspaper (article on “Actor in play about genocide”) in the very same issue which included his obituary. Mr. Amateau’s sister and family on the island of Rhodes were obliterated by the Nazis. None of them or any of the six million Jews of Europe were part of an armed insurrection. Mr. Amateau would have been outraged at the suggestion!
Rachel Bortnick
Dallas
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