“The Story of Henry Morgenthau” the Book of the Month

YEREVAN — Towards the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute is launching “The book of the month” project.

The books will be selected very carefully: they must be the memoirs of the Armenian Genocide survivors, research papers and other publications of great importance. The aim of this project is to introduce the readers with rare and still unknown works related to the topic in order to make them aware of the subject and provide an in-depth knowledge about the Armenian Genocide.

The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute selected “The Story of Henry Morgenthau” to be the book of February. These memoirs have the significance of a unique source for the history of the Armenian Genocide, particularly, to reveal the folds of the crime, determined and planned by the Turkish Government, and to identify and explore the thoughts of the Turkish criminal regime of that time. The memoir of U.S. Ambassador is a monumental work indeed, where the represented facts and testimonies undeniably prove that the Armenian genocide was planned and premeditated.

Morgenthau gives deep analysis of the situation reinforcing it by information from official sources. Besides, he describes the process of decision-making, the intrigues of Young Turk government, as well as introduces the reader to the German propaganda policy, which made Turkey involved in the World War I.

The story of Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, presented in accuracy of an eyewitness and an analyst, is an important primary source against the policy of denial in Turkish modern historiography.

“When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact. . . I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915”.

Henry Morgenthau
U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, 1913-1916