It was, despite their protests, but it’s still not illegal to deny it. Credit: AP
France’s chief rabbi, Haïm Korsia, for instance, is unequivocal in his belief that the laws governing Holocaust denial should also cover the events of 1915-1917.
“The Armenian genocide is an unquestionable reality, there is no denying it,” he says. “The genocide had been planned in advance and carried out. There is [also] continuity between the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust – Hitler said, ‘Who remembers the Armenians?’” when he discussed the Final Solution.
“If people want to deny a reality, they must be put in place, be corrected,” Korsia adds. “Laws are important, but educating children about the Holocaust and about the Armenian genocide is even more crucial.”
Armenians had long hoped Diaspora Jews would lend such support to enshrine the memory of the Armenian victims, but over the years faced a major obstacle: the Jewish state itself.
“Israel’s position on the Armenian genocide is very significant, considering the historic dimension,” Kévorkian says. “Our two nations have suffered genocides and it’s difficult to accept this cynical posture. The reasoning behind this is regional: Israel has had a decades-long military and intelligence alliance with Turkey. They have been strategic allies – especially when Israel had few official contacts with its Arab neighbors.
“But the situation is improving. [Israeli] historians and left-wing politicians have pushed for recognition. I think Israel will eventually recognize the genocide like other countries have.”
‘All genocides are unique’
Toranian cites her disappointment that not only has Israel failed to recognize the Armenian genocide, “it also backed Turkey’s position abroad. In the U.S., the Anti-Defamation League, for example, pushed back against the official recognition of the genocide.” Although he notes that the ADL has since reversed its position, for years “those organizations played by the revisionist guide book and made the situation extremely tense.”
In France, some prominent Jewish figures adopted a similar approach. Armenian historians and public figures say they don’t want to accuse anyone specifically, either because of their advanced age or because some have passed away.
“It’s part of the past,” is how Kévorkian describes it. “Some Jewish figures used to insist on the singular and specific nature of the Holocaust – it was almost contemptuous,” he says. “Even historian researchers can be politicized sometimes. But I believe we are past that now.
“You have to understand that the French authorities took so much time to acknowledge their responsibility in the Holocaust that this generated bitterness. Some Jews were absorbed by their personal story and didn’t care as much about what others had suffered,” he says. (France only began to acknowledge its wartime role in 1995, when then-President Jacques Chirac broke a 50-year taboo and said his country owed French Holocaust victims “an everlasting debt” for its actions helping the Nazis.)
Kévorkian says that, today, he would “rather think of those who helped us – like the Klarsfeld family. They pushed doors open and did everything they could to have the Armenian genocide recognized,” referring to lawyers and historians Serge and Beate Klarsfeld and their son Arno. “These are the people who initiated the creation of the Jewish Contemporary Documentation Center, collecting documents about the Holocaust, and then they helped Armenian historians do the same. CRIF has voiced support too,” he says, referring to the umbrella body of French Jewish organizations.
Toranian says that in the past, some French Jewish public figures “saw the Holocaust as a genocide apart; they said it was unique. They are right. But then again, all genocides have specific and unique characteristics.”
Kévorkian also notes the work of the Shoah Memorial Holocaust museum in Paris, “which has also voiced support and done much more. It organizes training for teachers: this is key to educating children about violence, exacerbated nationalism and what it can generate. They learn in high school about the three major genocides of the 20th century [Rwanda being the third]. Sometimes, there are problems during these classes when some children of Turkish origin protest – a bit like some students criticize lessons about the Holocaust,” he says.
French Jewish historian Marc Knobel says we should look forward, not back, when it comes to French Jews’ attitudes toward the Armenian genocide.
“I think that digging 15, 20, 30 or 35 years back will not bring anything positive; we should not create frictions,” he says. “If there had been a different position regarding the genocide decades ago – and I’m not saying that was the case – then I think it would have been linked to the Israeli position, the Israeli alliance with Turkey. Perhaps some institutions that were connected to Israel did not want to push this issue forward and come in the way of Israeli interests.”
Knobel also believes Israel should now recognize the Armenian genocide (“Failing to recognize it is deeply wrong”), but says there is “no ambiguity” among Jewish historians. “Jewish and non-Jewish historians agree quasi-unanimously about the Armenian genocide. No Jewish figure protested when the French parliament recognized the Armenian genocide. Jews have always expressed solidarity with the Armenians and their fight against genocide denial,” he adds.