Armeno-nazi Collaboration

[DominO123]

"Wholly opportunistic the Armenians have been variously pro-Nazi, pro-Russia, pro-Soviet Armenia, pro-Arab, pro-Jewish, as well as anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist, anti-Communist, and anti-Soviet - whichever was expedient."

 

This quote has been provided in various Turkish works and essays. I decided to check it out, I have known Carlson to be anti-Dashnak, and as well the way he accused some in the US government of having direct link with the NAZI. But this information was so untrue that I would even be surprised comming from Carlson(Arthur Derounian)

 

So, I decided to check it, and get the work.

 

Cairo to Damascus, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1951, p. 438.

 

p.438, was supposed to be where to find this quote. And I was not surprised to find out that a word has been changed, another deleted, that would change the entire meaning of the phrase.

 

So, I gave them their chance, by looking from p. 437 to p. 439

 

And here I present parts of p.437 to parts of p. 439, in order to be sure of having covered the entire pieces in which the quote has been given.

 

"The state of mind of many of the Dashnags was clearly reflected in Zohrab Jevahirjian, a photographer. "I'm a Dashnag by blood," he told me. "We are not mild toward our enemies. When the order comes to dispose of an enemy, our men do not rest until the work is done." Zohrab wanted to come to America, and was impatient with an Armenian working as a consular employee who had handled his application. Brandishing his fist, Zohrab burst out: "If he does not give me a visa I shall kill this Voskerichian. You can't play with a Dashnag. Who does he think he is--toying with me! I shall kill this man Voskerichian. I shall either come to America or kill this man."

 

The Dashnags claimed they were merely "fighting Communism," but some of them used this merely as an excuse to intimidate and murder their critics, who were largely members of the Democratic Liberal Party. Wholly opportunistic, Dashnag politics have been variously pro-Nazi, pro-Russia, pro-Soviet Armenia, pro-Arab, pro-Jewish, as well as anti-Jewish, antiZionist, anti-Communist, and anti-Soviet--whichever was expedient. At the moment the official Dashnag position is raucously anti-Communist and pro-Arab; previously, the Englishlanguage organ of the American Dashnag, Hairenik Weekly (Hairenik meaning "Fatherland"), had commended Zionism editorially: "Since the fall of Palestine's independence nearly two thousand years ago, Jewry has become a homeless element, hunted by fortune, until it understood that its only salvation lay in its return to the mother soil. This consciousness was embodied in the Zionist movement whose founders rightly perceived that a people cannot be happy until it has acquired a homeland of its own."

 

During 1946-7 the Soviets urged Armenian war refugees to return to their homeland. More than 100,000 from Europe and the Middle East responded in a mass repatriation movement--particularly those who for thirty years had lived in poverty-stricken shanty towns of unbelievable misery (not only in the Arab world but in Greece and Bulgaria as well), those who feared Moslem fanaticism, and those who were objects of economic discrimination. Believing, then, in Soviet promises, they left for what they thought would be a happier land. Dashnags everywhere in the world lauded the repatriation movement and some offered to go along. Hairenik, the Armenian-language organ of the American Dashnag, on October 15, 1947, published a lengthy editorial of a typically pro-Soviet tone:

 

Repatriation means the gathering-of-Armenians within the bosom of Mother Armenia. . . . The movement is a great and fruitful endeavor . . . and to that effort we all must bring our full cooperation. There is strength in numbers, and to the extent that the number of our people is great in our fatherland, to that extent will increase our political weight. . . .

 

There exists an Armenian American community, but we don't know how many years it will be able to withstand the current that is devouring it [the forces of assimilation]. Whoever from the Armenian American community goes to Armenia, is saved for Armenia and its future. For that reason too, as yesterday, today and tomorrow also, we must wholeheartedly rejoice when the Armenian masses are transported to Armenia. . . .

 

Every Armenian who participates in the repatriation must know, that he is sending a soldier for the defense of Armenia, or he is sending there a cultivator of the mind, or skilled hands that have mastered the arts. And enthused with this knowledge he should give at least as much as he has given in the past in order to save the fatherland.

 

As an Allied victory became evident, and the war drew to a close, the American Dashnags suddenly began the promotion of a vigorous campaign to compel Turkey to return to the Soviet Union the strategic provinces of Kars and Ardahan bordering on the U.S.S.R. They sent a delegation to the San Francisco Conference, formed committees, and published memoranda to plead this "Armenian Cause." Before the war ended they had initiated overtures for unity with leftist and liberal Armenian elements they had formerly denounced as "Communist." Hairenik Weekly printed articles from Sovetakan Hayastan, official organ of Soviet Armenia, and from Information Bulletin, published by the Soviet Embassy in Washington, as well as from Bolshevik, printed in Moscow."

 

 

I don't know what those Turkish denialists and forgers think, but I think there is a huge difference between.

 

Wholly opportunistic, Dashnag politics have been variously pro-Nazi, pro-Russia, pro-Soviet Armenia, pro-Arab, pro-Jewish, as well as anti-Jewish, antiZionist, anti-Communist, and anti-Soviet--whichever was expedient.

 

And the quote presented in Turkish sources that is.

 

Wholly opportunistic the Armenians have been variously pro-Nazi, pro-Russia, pro-Soviet Armenia, pro-Arab, pro-Jewish, as well as anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist, anti-Communist, and anti-Soviet - whichever was expedient.

 

The less we have the more we expend... they have found another thing to expend.

Edited July 28, 2003 by Fadix

[America-Hye]

John Roy Carlson (nee Derounian) was the brother of U.S. Congressman Steven Boghos Derounian.

[DominO123]

John Roy Carlson (nee Derounian) was the brother of U.S. Congressman Steven Boghos Derounian.

How do you know that?

 

BTW: From the book, he says that his mother is Muslim.

[America-Hye]

Even his purported real name was false. His real name was Avedis Derounian. My mother had dated him when they were just teenagers. As for the Muslim part, that must have been a fabrication. How many Muslims would attend Armenian Church services and social events in he 1920's and 1930's???????????

[DominO123]

Even his purported real name was false. His real name was Avedis Derounian. My mother had dated him when they were just teenagers. As for the Muslim part, that must have been a fabrication. How many Muslims would attend Armenian Church services and social events in he 1920's and 1930's???????????

Hagarag, I am not that ignorant, of course I know his true name.

 

In his work which I refered, he tells that he is half Armenian, and that his mother is Muslim, he also tells that he is a fervant Christian.

 

When you talk about 1920-1930, are you talking about his mother attending church? I dough that he would lie on something that would be that evident.

Edited July 28, 2003 by Fadix

[America-Hye]

Domino,

 

.I do not know about his mother attending church. Perhaps she was a Muslim. I know that a few generations back one of my ancestors, a Jew, married an Assyrian Catholic and became a Christian. So anything is possible., but it is very improbable. Carlson / Derounian's works were part fact and part fiction. He embellished much and exagerated.

 

My grandmother was close friends with Peter Balakian's grandmother, the main protagonaist of his recent best seller. Neither of my grandmothers knew the Derounian's mother. The Derounian brothers were members of my mother's and uncle's" "rat pack" during the Roaring 20's.

[America-Hye]

and also the 30's.

[gamavor]

When I say "The best turk is the dead turk" this is what I mean. You see, the above writing is not anymore denialist rambling and propaganda. It is ideologization of hate, that only could be cultivated in a totally and terminally ill brain.

[America-Hye]

It is nothing more than Turkish operatives spreading propaganda. The Turkish government has numerous persons employed full time in Ankara to distort the truth. They KNOW how much they have to lose should the Armenians get justice. The have all the records. They know where all the property and money went, from whom to whom. It has only been 88 years since 1915, at most three generations. With the records they have, the money trail would be very easy to follow. A good portion of the Turkish elite is enjoying the booty of the Genocide.

[gamavor]

This whole nazi-business is such a joke. Especially when it comes from turks, who up until the last day of WWII were Nazi allies. It is a lie that all Dashnags were nazis. Only the far right wing of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation had nazi tendencies. There was only one Armenian battalion in the Nazi army, true they were good soldiers but morally bankrupt. Why those bastards do not talk about the glorious 89 Tamanian Division under the commandership of major-general Sarafian that first entered Berlin?

 

 

http://membres.lycos.fr/armenianlegion/

 

 

http://arm-military.narod.ru/

[DominO123]

Gamavor, the Armenians that fough for the NAZIs when they were not war prisoners, were doing that to invade Turkey and annex the lost territory. At the end of the War, the Armenians had an accord with the URSS government to study the cases of the Armenian demands, by negociation with Turkey.

 

If one compare those that fough against the allies and those that fough for, it was 1/10.

 

One of the sources that the Turks use is Walker work, which present exactlly what I write here.

[MJ]

The Armenian Legion has nothing to do with Turkey during the WWII. It has pursued the goal of liberation of Armenia from USSR not Turkey. Furthermore, while those in the highest command of the Legion have not been war prisoners, the Legion has primarily consisted from the war prisoners. Garegin Nzhdeh has started this initiative having the liberation of the Armenian prisoners of the concentration camps as one of his primary motivations. In fact, there have been almost no Armenian prisoners in concentration camps because of this.

 

In 1944 Nzhdeh has been captured by the Soviet counter-intelligence officers and transferred to the prison of the city Vladimir (Russia) from Bulgaria. Later, per his request, he has been transferred to the prison of KGB in Yerevan as a result of his interest to mobilize Armenians for the participation in a potential war against Turkey on the side of USSR (this proposal has formally come from Nzhdeh.). This initiative has started sometime around 1946 based on the initial desire of USSR to invade Turkey. USSR leadership has for a while shown interest and engaged with Nzhdeh. However, when the plans of invading Turkey were neutralized by Churchill, the negotiations between Nzhdeh and USSR were stopped. As a result, Nzhdeh requested that he be transferred back to the prison in Vladimir, which was done. He died in Vladimir.

 

If the ratio of Armenians who have fought against USSR and against Nazis has indeed been 10/1, that is only reflective of the numbers of the Armenian prisoners in concentration camps.

[jaggerwahl]

Does anyone know what ever became of Carlson (Derounian) after he wrote "From Cairo to Damascus"?

[gamavor]

I read a booklet about Stalin’s plans to invade Turkey at the last days of the WWII, however I doubt the credibility of the story. The author, (don’t remember his name) built his theory on the premise that up until the last day of the war Stalin had kept intact 11 Motorized Infantry divisions dislocated in Caucasus and comprised mostly of Caucasians. Those troops were elite forces, equipped with artillery, tanks and aviation. Stalin feared opening of a second front via Caucasus and he never trust the Turks. As a reward he sold out territories belonging to Armenia to buy Turkish friendship. Nevertheless, even at the eve of the Moscow battle, when Germans were at the outskirts of Moscow, Stalin recalled the Far East and Siberian armies to come and help in for the contra-offensive action and it took them 2 weeks to get to Moscow, while the troops in Caucasus could have made it in 3 days.

 

There were some other interesting points regarding the Moscow battle itself. According to the author, Stalin could have repulsed the enemy and build viable line of defense far from Moscow. Strategically such deep penetration into the Russian territory was a disaster for the Nazi army. Long lines of communication often disturbed by partisan attacks as well as poor transportation links and supply of military provisions were made more difficult. Psychologically, allowing Germans to come close to Moscow played mobilizing role for the Soviet soldiers.

 

Anyway, somewhere in the spring of 1945 Stalin had appointed Marshal Bagramian as a Commander in chief of those 11 Caucasian divisions. There were plans to lounge blitz operation and in three days taking Van, Karin, Kars and Trabzon.

 

Too bad it all failed.

[THOTH]

Though the Russians were very much concerned about a possible second front develoing in the Caucuses - as the germans courted the Turks and made promisses and such (and the ruch to Stalingrad (and beyond) could be seen as part of an effort to assure the Turks that the Germans could cut Russia off from the Caucuses and thus allow the Turks to take such wihtout fear of immediate Russian reprisal - I am unaware of such mechanized units being maintined there -and find it highly doubtful that they were. Mechanized units were in short supply for the Russians until after some point in 1943 and i doubt that they would have left any idle with Moscow falling. Additionally tens of thousands (or more?) Armenians fought for the Russians against the Germans - and many were decorated for their valor. I also see a problem with timing in the author's story. Moscow was thretened in 1943 I believe - not 1945 - by then the Soviet armies were well on the move. And again - the race to capture Germany and German held baltics, Balkans etc would have (and did) drive Stalin much mor eso any ambitions against (resource poor and political albatross) Turkey.....

[Armen]

The Soviet attack on Turkey was being planned in 1947. The elders near the Turkish border in Armenia's Shirak region can tell you a lot of stories about the army enmassed there in 1947.

[Armen]

Wholly opportunistic, Dashnag politics have been variously pro-Nazi, pro-Russia, pro-Soviet Armenia, pro-Arab, pro-Jewish, as well as anti-Jewish, antiZionist, anti-Communist, and anti-Soviet--whichever was expedient.

 

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Right now in Armenia all political paries behave like that. They do not represent a political platform, a pricipal or ideology. They do not sell policy (which is the main job and idea of parties). They represent and sell themselves.