The Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust: One Man Takes a Stand

April 1 - August 7, 2015
https://www.hmh.org

Armin T. Wegner, who took pictures of dead, starving and homeless men, women and children during the atrocities against Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I, was not Armenian or Jewish. He was a German who served as a nurse in the German army during the war, and his cause was not to shock or offend but to offer visible proof of the first European genocide of the 20th century. In April 1915, the Ottoman government embarked upon the systematic decimation of its civilian Armenian population. The persecutions continued with varying intensity until 1923 when the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and was replaced by the Republic of Turkey. Although Wegner risked death for exposing his country's Turkish allies, he took numerous photos and kept diaries of the persecution, deportation and murder of the Armenians, a Christian minority. Estimates vary, but scholars agree between 600,000 and more than 1.5 million Armenians perished in Anatolia as a result of execution, starvation, disease, the harsh environment and physical abuse, many from 1915-1916. More than 60 photographic plates from his work are the focus of this new exhibit “The Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust: One Man Takes a Stand.” Turkey continues to dispute its role and the use of the term “genocide” to describe the massacres.