Volume 3, Issue 1

Table of Contents

1.  Neither Holocaust Nor Genocide-But Hate Crimes Have Become Deadly

2.  Nanjing Massacre Disputed Again!

3.  Recent Works by U of M Faculty on the Holocaust and Related Subjects

4.  The Roma: An Abstract

5.  Report on the joint OSCE/ODIHR-Council of Europe - Field Mission on the Situation of Roma Gypsies in Kosovo

6.  PRESS RELEASE: September 9,1999 - Reparations Cases Against Japanese Firms for Slavery

7.  Truth Be Told

 

Neither Holocaust Nor Genocide-But Hate Crimes Have Become Deadly
by Stephen Feinstein

On August 10, a Jewish camp became the latest site of assault by what is presumed to be an American racist. In July, members of minority communities across the country were shocked and dismayed by the killing of an AfroAmerican and KoreanAmerican in Chicago and Indiana, and the shooting of four Orthodox Jews on the Sabbath. The Chicago shooter, Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, had been a recent member of The World Church of the Creator, a Chicagobased racist and religious organization that calls itself "the most unChristian church in the world." The church's leader, "Pontifex Maximus Matt Hale," indicated on national news shows how he and his members hate "Satanic" Jews, Blacks and Asian "mud people." The Los Angeles shooter, Buford Furrow surrendered in Las Vegas, believing he had killed several Jewish children. He is also charged with the murder of a U.S. Postal employee of Philippine origin. His car was found containing firearms and a copy of a viciously antisemitic book by Hoskins, Vigilantes of Christendom.

Many Americans might look at these disturbing events as another round of the "old stuff' the same old antisemitism and racism which has been here for centuries, amplified by the latest American trendsthe use of weapons and the shooting at children. In fact, it may be something very different, a radical response to the pushing of boundaries by Jews, Asians, Latinos and other minorities, especially new Americans, and the   powerful negativity associated with Internet web sites. It is not a phenomenon isolated in the Chicago or Los Angeles areas. During the past several months, the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota has had several calls from secondary school teachers in Minnesota requesting aid for parents who fear their children are "becoming Nazis." Last Spring, several students commented about being harassed on the West Bank connector bus by a "white student" about their "Jewish" or "Aryan" looks. Jewish organizations annually receive a modest amount of hate mail. According the Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center, 17% of all hate crimes are antiSemitic. The shootings at Littleton, Colorado fell on April 20, Adolf Hitler's birthday.

In a strange way, the Chicago shootings can be linked to American involvement in the Balkan war for Kosovo. About a week after the United States and NATO started bombing Serbia, an email appeared on several lists, written in both Polish and English. It denounced American policy and stood firmly with the Serbs "because Serbia has refused to submit to the Jew World Orderit refused to allow their nation to become a vassal of the Jews." According to racists, the Clinton administration is "ZOG' -- Zionist Occupied Government, part of the world Jewish conspiracy (JewUSAsalem). The real individuals behind American policy are the alleged Jews: Madeleine Albright, William Cohen, plus Sandy Berger and James

Rubin. Racist email sites consistently print names of all Jews in public office, and often in other top positions. James and Benjamin Williams, of Reading, California, have been linked to the burning of three synagogues, the murder of a gay couple, and also an elderly man. They are alleged to be members of the Aryan Nation. The solution for White Supremacists is clear: Matt Hale has said that "until the Jewish parasite is removed from the government of the United States, we Creators shall oppose all military endeavors brought in its name ...."

The new racism as represented by The World Church of the Creator and other such racist churches dishonors Christianity (which, after all, was begun by Jews) and possesses a venomous, but highly organized propaganda sector thanks the Internet. Needless to say, a good part of the ideology is called "Tales of the Holohoax," normally called Holocaust denial. To get to young people, the church sells a cartoon version of denial literature. The negative propaganda also includes quotes from the Talmud, showing Jewish disdain for "goyim" and "the obligation of Jews to cheat." The Jews, according to this garbage, control the media, including Disney Productions, TimeWarner, Miramax, ABC, CBS and NBC. The three most influential Jewish newspapers in the United States are The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. This is all similar to the ideas of Hitler and Goebbelswithout the advantage of the Internet.

New to the argument is that the relative prosperous economic period we are now experiencing has a down side: The Pontifex Maximus has written "Already, it has been reported that the youngest generation (25 years and younger) will have, for the first time in this country, a lower standard of living than their parents." In this scenario, whites suffer, Jews and Asians make it on their own, AfroAmericans "use welfare," and gays fail to reproduce the. white race. These are all cliches, but attractive to the white racist mind. The new Internetbased violence is dangerous and possibly lethal for reasons linked to modernity itself. Racists no longer need to spend much money to produce their literature. The Internet opens the possibility of largescale access to the minds of young people. One racist Internet site had over 300,000 "hits" on its counter. As Jews and minorities have made greater strides through education, risktaking and vertical social mobility, they have crossed hitherto closed boundaries through the open society principle. White racists see themselves as victims. But in addition, all groups of color spoil the utopian aesthetic landscape of white raciststhat of a beautiful world of only white people. Most specifically, racists probably fear their grandchildren may be people of color, as the racist writes: "In 1920, for example, one out of every three people on this planet were White. Today, only one out of twelve are White. If present trends continue, one can only imagine what the complexion of the world will be like in another one hundred years."

In Minnesota, we hope that law, education and defense organizations linked to religious and secular structures can help prevent the rise of bigotry. To assume that those things won't happen here is to ignore incidents of racism in both cities and small towns, in corporations and on university campuses. It should not be forgotten that in 1946, Minneapolis (not Saint Paul) was labeled "the capital of American antisemitism." Most importantly, except for Holocaust affirming web sites that are well designed and accessible for younger people, such sites are not as popular as those with severely negative messages. Curricula about prejudice, racism, the Holocaust and other genocides (including those on our own soil) are important on all levels. So are courses on the history and workings of racism in this country. But with younger people, technology and "sound bytes" are it. Length and sophistication may not matter, only a short and powerful message. Ironically, many of the Jewish students at the North Valley Jewish Community Center were on a field trip to the Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance when the latest violence struck.

In all of this, several things are clear: first, racism is a fact of life, and all steps must be used to keep it in check. Material progress is never a guarantee for eradicating this negativity. Secondly, Christians, especially Protestants, must raise their voices collectively against bigotry. For racists, America should be White and Protestant, which puts Catholics and minority religions at risk as much as Jews. Thirdly, while such thought may be dangerous, governments must not seek to cure the disease by restraining First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. Better to have the smell out in public than hidden. But at the same time, we should also ask if the United States, with all of its greatness and possibilities, possesses a festering and possibly fatal flaw. That such a flaw may exist does not suggest these events are close to a nearHolocaust or genocidal scenario. However, writers like Franklin Littell have suggested, as part of an "earlywarning system," that the evidence of racism and violence we have experienced recently are the first signs of serious difficulties that have sequels.

Stephen Feinstein is Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota.

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Nanjing Massacre Disputed Again!

Los Angeles Times staff writer Sonni Efron reported in early June of this year the continued highlevel dispute over American author Iris Chang's interpretation of "The Rape of Nanjing."

Efron reported that "Chang has come under attack not only from Japanese ultranationalistswho assert that the 1937 massacre of Chinese civilians by Japanese troops never took placebut also from Japanese liberals, who insist it happened but allege that Chang's flawed scholarship damages their cause."

The Japanese publisher is accused of caving in to rightwing threats. However, Hiromu Haga, editor in chief of publishing firm Kashiwa Shobo, said "it wasn't the threats but Chang's unwillingness to correct what he alleges were significant errors that led to the cancellation of publication." Chang in her interview with Efron asserted that the "errors" were not mistakes at all but differences of opinion.

According to the LA Times some Japanese and U.S. scholars are concerned that the increasingly bitter flap will leave Westerners with the misimpression that little has been written in Japan about Japanese atrocities in Asia, including those in Nanking, now known as Nanjing. In fact, the National Diet Library holds at least 42 books about the Nanjing massacre and Japan's wartime misdeeds, of which 23 have been published since 1992, 21 of them by liberals investigating Japan's wartime atrocities. In addition, geriatric Japanese soldiers have begun publishing their memoirs and giving speeches and interviews in increasing numbers, recounting the atrocities they committed or witnessed. And after years of governmentenforced denial, Japanese middle school textbooks now carry accounts of the Nanjing massacre as accepted truth, as well as Japanese sexual exploitation of "comfort women" and biological and chemical warfare used in China because of the trailblazing research" of Japanese scholars.

Meanwhile a bestseller by revisionist Tokyo University education professor Nobukatsu Fujioka has sold nearly 1.2 million copies. According to the LA Times, the rightists are crowing over the cancellation of Chang's book, which they have been vilifying as "antiJapanese" and a "forgery of history." The conservative Sankei newspaper, Japan's fifthlargest daily, said in an editorial that publication of Chang's book would "damage the pride of Japanese."

"It is fortunate that many Japanese will not be misled by its erroneous historical description," the newspaper concluded. Fujiwara and other liberals, who have struggled for three decades to document Japan's World War II atrocities and to pressure their government to apologize and atone, want Chang's book to appear in Japan.

Denial of atrocities by perpetrators is nothing new. The Turkish government still denies the Armenian Genocide, 19151922, and the Serbian government denies their "work" and "rape" camps during the Bosnian War. Germany has acknowledged its crimes and has paid reparations, although Austria had to confront its past for the first time in September 1999 when the first Holocaust conference, The Presence of the Absence, was held in Vienna. Austria has claimed it was the "first victim" of azism, and that there was no Austrian government between March 193 8 and August 1945, and hence Austria has no obligation for compensation. This premise was severely challenged at this conference. American and other Holocaust deniers do not represent a country but individual "opinions" and distortions of fact.

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Recent Works by U of M Faculty on the Holocaust and Related Subjects

A Child 's Tapestry of War, Denmark 194045 by Anne Ipsen Goldman.

ally centered on the Jewish experience, homogenizing experiences of Jewish women and men into a generic Holocaust "knowledge." Recently, scholars have begun to separate out women's stories and to recognize that experiences of the Holocaust were uniquely gendered. This recognition has been slow in coming, and more slowly still is the acknowledgment that experiences were also largely defined by one's

The book is not directly about the Holocaust because Anne Ipsen was a child at the time and not Jewish.  Nevertheless, the story of the Danish Jews is one of the threads in this 'war tapestry'. It adds a perspective of the times and strange events. In particular, Chapter I I 'White People and Buses' is my father's memoir. He was a Danish physician (a person in 'white') and went to Germany during the last days of the war (on the 'white buses') to help bring Scandinavian and other concentration camp prisoners to safety in Sweden.

Ipsen Goldman says, "when I speak to groups about the rescue of the Danish Jews, I explain that the dramatic events of the rescue can best be understood in a broader context and I attempt to answer the following questions:

-Dr Ipsen Goldman is a professor of Biostatistics at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. And is available to speak at schools and to groups

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The Roma: An Abstract
By Christina Rieck

Holocaust scholarship has traditionally centered on the Jewish experience, homogenizing experiences of Jewish women and men into a generic Holocaust "knowledge." Recently, scholars have begun to separate out women's stories and to recognize that experiences of the Holocaust were uniquely gendered. This recognition has been slow in coming, and more slowly still is the acknowledgement that experiences were also largely defined by one's ethnicity.  The overwhelming majority of victims in the Holocaust were Jewish, but over half a million Roma and Sinti, or Gypsies, also perished at the hands of the Nazis.

The Roma are a distinct ethnic group originating from northern India. They traveled out of their homeland sometime between the fifth and twelfth centuries. In every place they stopped they were met with violent persecution, though none perhaps as violent as that which confronted them during the Nazi era.  Their history is similar to that of the Jews: hated, feared, enslaved, murdered, and constantly pushed on from wherever they may have settled. Their fate under the Third Reich was similar as well. But, the experiences of Romany women and men during the Holocaust illuminate the differences between them and their fellow victims.

The Roma adhere to strict purity codes that dictate every aspect of their lives, from eating to washing to sexual relations. Failure to abide by these codes means permanent excommunication from the group. Romany social structure necessitates marriage and children for every adult. Consequently, sexual purity, marriage vows, and children are all held sacred in Romany communities. The Nazi death camps violated every aspect of Romany life. Again, the similarities in experiences by Romany and Jewish victims are highly illuminating, as are their differences.

 

Editor's Note: The fulltext version of this paper will be available online soon at our web site: www.chgs.umn.edu This paper was presented to the Department of Women 's Studies as Christina Senior Thesis. In her thesis she brings out many of the striking similarities of Jewish and Romany experiences (historically and under the Nazis), but she also emphasizes the gendered aspect of these victims of genocide. Her constructive arguments are highly compelling and suggestive of further research she could doin the archives and through oral histories.

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Report on the joint OSCE/ODIHR-Council of Europe
Field Mission on the Situation of Roma Gypsies in Kosovo

During the Summer, 1999 a joint OSCE/ODIHRCouncil of Europe field visit was organized to inquire about the situation of the Roma community in Kosovo. The team was composed of the Chair of the Specialist Group on Roma/Gypsies of the Council of Europe, Mrs. Josephine Verspaget, and the Advisor on Roma and Sinti Issues at the OSCE/ODIHR, Mr. Nicolae Gheorghe. They were accompanied and assisted during their visit by Mrs. Judith Kiers, Democratization Officer at the OSCE Mission in Kosovo.

The number of Roma living in Kosovo before the war is estimated by some Roma refugees from Kosovo and Serbia living in third countries to be around 100 150 000. It is, however, extremely difficult to assess their exact number as in the 1981 and 1991 censuses many Roma did not declare themselves as "Roma", either because of a feeling of being fully integrated in either the ethnically Albanian or the Serb community or for fear that their registration as "Roma" could prevent their integration within the society and deprive them of their basic rights. In the 1991 census, the number of Roma in Kosovo was around 45 000.

Kosovo has a mixed Roma population, being composed of groups speaking the Albanian, Romani and Serbian languages. The Albanian Roma (all of them being Muslim) define themselves as Albanians or Muslims. Sometimes they are known as "Haskalija" or "Majup", which is the commonly used and derogatory word for Roma. Others call themselves "Egyptians; this is currently a self-identification in order to escape the derogatory qualification as "Majup".

There is also a group of Orthodox Roma, more integrated into the Serbian society, and a small Catholic Romani community. However, despite their different levels of integration, all Roma are treated as secondclass citizens by both the Serb and the Albanian side.

The number of Roma still living in Kosovo at the time of the field mission is difficult to assess. A rough preliminary assessment made by the OSCE Kosovo Mission and the UNHCR is of about 10000 persons for the areas visited by the delegation including the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps.

This joint mission was organized in response to the alarming testimonies of Roma refugees from Kosovo expressed during the Balkan Roma Peace Conference (Sofia, 1819 June 1999), the reports of human rights organizations on the violations of human rights of the Roma in Kosovo during and after the war, the information provided by the media about the situation of the Roma in Kosovo and the visit of the Advisor on Roma and Sind Issues of the OSCE/ODIHR to Roma refugee camps in "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" from 27 May to 2 June 1999.

Findings

It appeared clearly to the participants in the mission that the international community has not been able so far to protect the Roma, especially after the war and the subsequent return of the ethnic Albanians to the places where they lived before the conflict. Many houses belonging to Roma were and are being burned; sometimes even entire Romani neighborhoods have been burnt, as was the case in the city of Mitrovica. The Roma are frequently threatened and harassed and are victims of violence and allegedly of rape. Some of them were kidnapped by ethnic Albanians, who sometimes wear KLA uniforms. The places where they are imprisoned are often unknown. Roma are generally afraid to leave their houses, neighborhoods or even the provisional accommodation camps. They are deprived of their freedom of movement as a result of their fear of being harassed, kidnapped or beaten by ethnic Albanians. The testimonies gathered state that acts of violence are committed by ethnic Albanians who do not belong to the same neighborhoods as the victims, the Roma victims being identified by their skin color.

The mission was appalled by the terrible living conditions in some Internally Displaced Persons camps, such as Obilic and Djakovica. It seemed clear that people cannot continue to live in these conditions and that refugee status in third countries may be the only available option for them. They have no place to return to and their lives are allegedly at risk.

Despite some local variations in the situation of the Roma groups, most of the Roma interviewed by the joint mission expressed their strong wish to leave Kosovo and to seek for asylum in third countries. They cannot see any acceptable future for them in Kosovo and think that there is little or no space for reconciliation after the experiences of the last few months.

Roma have been collectively accused by the ethnic Albanians of collaboration with the Serbs. However, it appeared to the participants in the mission that few Roma seem to have voluntarily joined the Serbs; many of them were manipulated or even forced by the Serbs to provide services. Some Roma and other witnesses provided the mission with evidence of coercion. The Roma in Pristina were, for example, forced to attend proMilosevic demonstrations. Others wereforced (for example in Orahovac) to do physical work or provide transportation for the Yugoslav army. Some were arrested in their homes and forcibly enrolled in paramilitary groups around Pristina. They were used as an instrument to commit atrocities against the ethnic Albanians.

The joint mission found a general perception among Roma that the United Nations Security Forces in Kosovo (KFOR) has not offered sufficient protection to the Roma and be between 20,000 and 100,000. There is

has often been slow to respond currently a continuous movement of Roma appropriately to the problems faced by displaced persons between Kosovo and the Roma. This can be explained by a Serbia, especially in border areas such as lack of awareness among the KFOR and the international organizations of the number of Roma in Kosovo and the place they occupy in the society. Nevertheless, Resolution 1244 of the United Nations states in Article 9 that the KFOR has to ensure a secure environment. The delegation noticed that when properly informed about the existence of the Roma and their alarming situation, some KFOR units expressed willingness to provide better protection for the Roma.

The joint mission also explored the regional dimension of the situation of the Roma from Kosovo, as many of them are DPs in Serbia and Montenegro or took refuge in neighboring States such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Hungary and other countries. In Serbia, the number of Roma DPs during and after the war is estimated by Roma representatives to Mitrovica. According to UNHCR and Roma representatives, there is a potential for large movements of Roma from Serbia to "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" in the coming weeks. In "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonian", there are currently 548 Roma in the Stenkovac II IDP camp and 1999 in Dare Bombo. About 6 000 Roma from Kosovo are accommodated in Romani families throughout the country with the status of "temporary humanitarian protection". About 3 000 of them are staying in Suto Orizari (Skopje area). Most of the Roma still living in IDP camps wish to be evacuated to third countries outside of the Balkan region. 5 000 to 8 000 currently live as IDPs in a refugee camp near Podgorica, Montenegro, in tents provided by UNHCR. Large groups of Roma (about 600 to 1000) have been repeatedly attempting to flee by sea to Italy. There are about 150 Roma refugees from Kosovo in the refugee camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as reported recently by UNHCR Sarajevo.

Recommendations

It is clear that KFOR should develop methods to ensure a better protection for the Roma in Kosovo, in accordance with its mandate under Resolution 1244 of the Security Council of the United Nations to establish a secure environment. Such measures could include a more proactive attitude and the development of good relations with the local Romani communities. Awareness raising training on Roma issues should be provided to KFOR, Civpol and other international actors if deemed appropriate. In general, the OSCE participating States and the Council of Europe member States should consider seconding persons with expertise in Roma issues, including experts who are themselves of Romani ethnicity, to Kosovo in order to help the international community deal with this issue.

Violence against Roma should be strongly and publicly condemned by the representatives of the international community responsible for peace, reconciliation and reconstruction of Kosovo.

Recent kidnappings and other violations of the human rights of Roma must be investigated and the offenders adequately punished. The concept of "collective guilt" of the Roma should also be addressed.

The extent of the alleged involvement of the Roma in the events which took place during the NATO bombing should be thoroughly documented and made public so that cases can be brought before the courts and the Roma who were not involved can return safely to their homes and the reconciliation process initiated.

As prospects develop for a safe return to Kosovo, the return of Roma refugees and displaced persons should be carefully monitored by the international governmental and nongovernmental organizations present in the field.

The issue of the Roma in Kosovo and neighboring countries should be considered as an issue for the Stability Pact for SouthEastern Europe and for the reconstruction plans for Kosovo. The international community should also make sure that the Roma in Kosovo will benefit from the reconstruction process on an equal footing with the other groups and that they will be granted the same rights.

A discussion of the situation of the Roma in Kosovo will take place at the OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Roma and Sinti Issues, to be held in Vienna on 6 September 1999, and at the 8th meeting of the Council of Europe Specialist Group on Roma/Gypsies (Sofia, 2023 September 1999). The OSCE will have ongoing meetings during the Fall, 1999, regarding the fate of the Roma in Yugoslavia.

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PRESS RELEASE: September 9,1999

Reparations Cases Against Japanese Firms for Slavery

The Alliance for Preserving the Truth of SinoJapanese War (APTSJW) welcomes the recent developments in the federal and state courts that have accepted the filing of class action lawsuits against Japanese businesses for engaging in slavery practices during and before WW II. Following three cases filed in California state courts by former American prisoners of war captured by the Japanese Imperial Army in the Philippines, a South Korean has filed a similar case in the federal district court in Tacoma, Washington on September 7th (Tuesday) accusing Nippon Steel Corp. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. for work performed against his will and for the mental and physical abuses he suffered as a slave.

It is also expected that there will be a landmark class action lawsuit to be filed in the federal district court in the State of New York, by a group of over 500 victims against a long list of Japanese conglomerates for enslaving American military and civilian prisoners of war in the 1940s. The huge case has been under research and investigation for more than three years and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. This will be the largest slavery lawsuit against Japanese companies ever. It will be comparable to many of the litigations against the Swiss Banks, Austrian Bank, the large German companies (i.e. Siemens, Volkswagen, Bayer AG, and Deutsche Bank) and companies in other countries. The total amount of settlements for several of these lawsuits since 1997 has exceeded $3 billion dollars so far. The Japanese cases will likely result in comparable settlements if not far more favorable to Japan's victims.

APTSJW and affiliates of the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia are also contemplating to file additional class action lawsuits in U.S. courts on behalf of other victims or next of kin.

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Truth Be Told
By Sara Nuss-Galles

Though it offers little comfort one would expect that facts remain facts, a massacre remains a massacre, a death march a death march, and a million dead could never be denied. Unfortunately, we have learned that this is not so, that when horrors are revisited, there are those who attempt to change history, even in the face of irrefutable evidence. The circumstances surrounding the death and suffering of more than a millions Armenians living in Turkey around 1916 are such an issue. In April 1997, Drew University's Graduate School sponsored The Armenian Genocide,Political & Historical Controversies, a conference that sought to examine the event, as well as the calculated web of spin, massage, and revision that is determined to erode the facts.

For nearly 3,000 years Armenians lived near the Black Sea in what is now eastern Turkey. During the 16th century the area was absorbed into the Ottoman Empire and the local non-Islamic population adjusted to the institutionalized inequity that accompanies such political shifts. "As long as the Ottoman Empire was strong the system tended to work in one way or another," enabling Armenians and other minorities to "get along," explained Professor Richard Hovannisian of University of California, Los Angeles.

Setting a historical backdrop for the horror upon which the conference focused, the introductory keynote speaker described how the Islamic empire's enfeeblement disrupted the formerly tolerable status quo. "The system began breaking down and the persecution and exacting taxes increased." As the 201 Century neared, Turkish nationalism swelled and, with it, resentment of outsiders escalated.

The Christian Armenian population endured pillaging, rape, and, the, a series of massacres. Although some Armenians converted to Islam and others fled to America, establishing an enclave on the Lower East Side of New York City, Hovannisian said that most remained. Believing themselves integral to Turkish commerce and life, "they did not envisage this society without them." Rather than viewing the calamities as a portent, the scholar said, the prevailing Armenian attitude was that the Turks were merely trying to scare them.

Much as Germany later used the cover of World War 11 to exterminate Jews, Hovannisian said, Turkey "used World War I to end the Armenian problem by ending the Armenians." Between 1915 and 1917 the Young Turk regime conducted a systematic, premeditated, centrally planned genocide against the Armenian people, he said. They used executions, conscription into army deathlabor units, torture, starvation, relocation, forced marches, and abandonment in uninhabitable deserts of Iraq and Syria.

By the 1918 defeat of Turkey and Germany, the Armenian death toll had climbed staggeringly high. Gradually, survivors, among them women who had been raped and given birth to "the evidence of their shame," returned home.

Those are the facts, Hovannisian said in conclusion, and they are supported by voluminous newspaper accounts, testimonies, and diplomatic communiquès. Survivors received neither apologies nor compensation. Punishment of military and civilian perpetrators was limited to executing a handful of generals while far more became generals in the next war. In 1915 some two million Armenians lived within Turkey; today there are fewer than 60,000.

Denial Begins

Scarcely a year had passed before Turkish government authorities embarked on an "active campaign of denial," Robert J. Lifton, the second keynote speaker, informed conference attendees. Initially, they used scapegoats, blaming "unscrupulous officials, Kurds, and common criminals," for what were classified as security measures gone awry. Avoidance, another strategy employed, was accomplished by combining diplomatic and political pressure with official pressure with official silence, the City University of New York scholar noted.

By the 50th anniversary of the genocide, "another side of the story" was being fed to journalists, educators, and public officials. Lifton said the recast Turkish version alternately blamed Armenians' provocative behavior and wartime conditions that cost even more Turkish than Armenian lives. Turkey's interference extended to trying to prohibit mention of the genocide in the United Nations' report, pressuring the Reagan and Bush administrations to defeat congressional bills for an official remembrance, and lobbying against mentioning the genocide in American textbooks. Lifton further reported that threats arose against Jews living in Turkey if the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council or an academic conference in Tel Aviv referred to the genocide.

"The basic argument of denial remained the same" for eight decades, the CUNY professor said. "It never happened; Turkey is not responsible; the term 'genocide' does not apply."

The Scholarly Spin

In the 1980s, however, the tactics changed. The Turkish government began establishing "institutes to further knowledge: of Turkey, a move that escalated and broadened the debate.

Here the plot thickened, ensnaring Lifton unwittingly into the fray. His 1986 book, The Nazi Doctors, included seven brief references to the Armenian genocide. In 1990 the Turkish ambassador to the United States contacted Lifton regarding his use of "questionable secondary sources" on issues that were "hotly debated" among scholars. The ambassador's letter clarified that "a tragic civil war perpetrated by misguided Armenian nationalists" cannot be compared to a premeditated attempt to eradicate a people. For Lifton's education the ambassador enclosed relevant articles by "American experts."

What the ambassador did not realize, Lifton revealed, was that two confidential items had inadvertently been enclosed in the mailing: a memo to the ambassador written by a scholar who has been central to the controversy, Heath W. Lowry, detailing the "Lifton problem" and Lowry's drafted response for the ambassador to send to Lifton (which he did, verbatim).

Subsequently, Lifton coauthored an article in spring 1995 in Holocaust and Genocide Studies with Roger W. Smith, College of William and Mary, and Erik Markusen, Southwest State University, that "...exposes an arrangement by which the government of Turkey channeled funds into a supposedly objective research institute in the United States, which in turn paid the salary of a historian who served that government in its campaign to discredit scholarship on the Armenian genocide." The article revealed that the taxexempt Institute of Turkish Studies, Inc., directed by Lowry, planned to endow chairs at U.S. universities.

In 1994 Lowry had assumed the first Ataturk Chair in Turkish Studies at Princeton University. Just as he had denied and reworked history at the institute, his new position at the university enabled Lowry to perpetuate "pseudoscholarly denial of known genocide," Lifton and his coauthors charged. Since Lowry's appointment, the national press has continuously scrutinized the Princeton situation; a relevant 1996 New York Times article ran under the headline, "Princeton Accused of Fronting the Turkish Government."

Deniers of the century's first genocide bear what political theorist Hannah Arendt later termed "the banality of evil," Lifton said, "an imaginative blindness that prevents one from reflecting upon the consequences of one's actions." Warning that scholars who lend authority to genocide denial invite its repetition, he called upon those "wishing to be true to their calling to expose denial and bear witness to truth."

As to why scholars, who should be seekers of truth, engage in denial, Lifton deferred to Israel Charny, executive director of Hebrew University's Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide. When 69 scholars (including Lowry) signed a fullpage advertisement in the 1980s in which they "questioned insidiously the evidence of the Armenian genocide," Charny and colleague Daphna Fromer sent them questionnaires. Despite irate denial of tangible gain, the report revealed that many respondents had benefited from Turkish grants.

Charny submitted a paper exploring scholarly denial for the conference. He identified two types: "innocent deniers," unaware of seeking benefits yet "unconsciously tied to the hand that feeds them," and those seeking personal or career advantage. The former suffer "rationalization and intellectual confusion," Charny wrote, claiming insufficient empirical evidence of genocide and acknowledging deaths while shifting responsibility form government to "famine, war, and disease." The latter compromise two types, those "oriented more toward material goals" and those striving for "the satisfactions that come with power." Ultimately, Charny stressed, the issue remains "thou shalt not kill."

Seeing Is Believing

Witness bearers at the conference included Henry Morgenthau III, whose grandfather was American ambassador to Turkey during World War 1. The speaker related that the elder Morgenthau's memoirs published in 1918 referenced the atrocities. On questioning Turkish leaders about reports of women, children, and old people being marched into the desert to be killed, the ambassador was told, "We can't make distinctions. Those who are not guilty today will oppose us in the future."

Further witness was home in a panel titled "The Evidence of the Missionaries," relating accounts of those who went to the Holy Land to convert "heathens." The four panelists shared evidence from " 150 missionaries who correspond regularly with home and personal journals." Before the tragic events began, one missionary penned that a German officer had confided to him, "Something terrible of which we never dreamed would happen in 1915."

Letters cited that "a case was built up in the minds of common people" to frighten them into perceiving Armenians as threatening and treasonous. By describing instances of self defense as "scheming Armenian sedition," Turkish authorities paved the way for the tragic deportations.

Against official advice, missionary Mary Louise Gratham accompanied Armenian villagers part way on their deportation. It was "the counterpart of the worst description of hell," she penned in letters sent through the state department. She learned that a notorious publicity campaign featuring photographs of weaponry allegedly hidden by Armenians had been planted by officials intent on fanning Turkish fears.

Witness to murder and death by starvation, Gratham said there was no time to be afraid and that "death would have been welcome." When circumstances of the march became even worse, Turkish officials "bribed her to remain behind in order to take care of orphans." On leaving, people entrusted her with money and jewelry to hide at the mission. After repeatedly outwitting the regime, Gratham was eventually arrested for her clandestine relief work. Miraculously the gutsy missionary talked her way out of the treason charge.

In fitting testimony, The United Methodist Archives, housed at Drew University, contributed visual proof of the atrocities. Among dozens of massive albums filled with photographs taken by missionaries from 1880 until the 1940s, two were from Western Asia.

Archivist Dale Patterson related that the albums were used to educate the Methodist public on situations and needs around the world. Until recently, he said, no one had recognized precisely what the photos depicted. The, during a display on preservation in 1993, an album happened to be open to one of those pages and caught the attention of a visitor. The images and photographer's log documented the suffering: "Massacred Armenians, Bozanti," "Starving Armenians who have fallen by the wayside," and "Armenian graveyard, Bozanti, Near East." The photographs showed bodies neatly laid out, riverbeds bearing skulls and skeletons, and washed out mass graves.

Based on studies of people who help others in terrible times, participant Dr. Ervin Staub concluded, "One person can greatly influence others by action or passivity." The University of Massachusetts scholar called on the international community to work to "create a climate where passivity is not OK and where bystanders are also evil." In that way, neither genocide nor its denial will be repeated.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in Drew Magazine (Summer 1997) and is reprinted here with the permission of the author and the Drew University Alumni Association.