Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide

I never learned about the Armenian Genocide in school. I'd never heard about it until I read a book which mentioned it, sparking my curiosity enough to read this book. It's another tragic story of man's inhumanity to man. Very much like the Holocaust of WW II. The Armenians believed they were being relocated, but instead found themselves being forced to travel without food, water and sanitation. Along the way they were robbed of what few possessions they were allowed to take with them. They were tortured, raped, shot, tossed over cliffs and hurled down mountainsides. They were stripped of their clothing and forced to walk for days on end until they died from exposure to the elements. Men, women, children and the elderly were all subjected to the same obscene cruelties. The few bright spots in the book included Turks and Kurds who protected Armenians at their own expense, and Armenians who managed to survive terrible tragedies and come through it all still believing in a just God and in the essential goodness of their fellow man.

I just finished reading this book...it is riveting, well written, accessible, of manageable length (192) pages, and in general a supurb introduction to the subject for readers such as myself who didn't even know where or what Armenia was until I picked up this book. I really hope that the general public becomes more aware of the Armenian genicide and starts demanding that Turkey, and their Kurdish henchmen, own up to this awful crime and stop denying that the genicide of the Armenian nation ever happened. It is shocking that in my entire life I have never heard one word spoken in my church or in any school I have attendedabout the Armenian genicide. All I have ever heard about is the Jewish Holocaust (sp?), as if that were the first genicide of this century. A case can be made that if the world had become sufficiently enraged by the Armenian genicide, the Jewish Holocaust would never have happened. (Page 5 of the book states, "There is a universal tendency to avoid seeing, as well as remembering, the human capacity for evil. Adolf Hitler understood this well when, on August 22. 1939 he said to his military commanders regarding his plans for Poland: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"".) The book points out, in passing, that some Armenians believe that the reason the United States does not acknowledge that the Turks committed genicide against the Armenians, is because Turkey is a strong ally of the United States in the Middle East. I don't think it is possible to read this book without being profoundly affected by it. I don't personally have time to read a huge, thick book on the subject, so this 192 page, well written, emotionally powerful is probably all I'll ever have the time to read on the subject. I wish all Americans would read this book. Do read this book. Please.

If you could give six stars, this book would get it. It should be required reading for high school or college students. It should be required reading for revisionist historians like Stanford Shaw, Bernard Lewis, Justin McCarthy, and Heath Lowry--or any other Turkish "historian". Putting aside all the politics and theories, this book simply focuses on the suffering of the Armenians who went through the Genocide of 1915. It is as much a sociology book as a historical one. The parallels between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust become obvious as one reads the accounts. It is an invaluable primary source for further study of the Armenian Genocide, as most of the survivors are dying off. It is an easy read, but you will probably find yourself disgusted or teary-eyed during much of it. It is objective, simply telling the facts, including descriptions of good, helpful Turks. If you know little about the subject, this is a great place to start. For those who get to caught up in the politics of events, this is a great book to remember the horrific suffering of these human beings. And for those revisionists and neo-Young Turks who still deny the wholesale extermination of the Armenians, I can't think of a better book to force someone to start accepting the truth.

This book seriously makes one look at what happened to us, the Armenians during the massacres. I truly felt as though I was one of the survivors remembering the past when I was reading the words in this book . The awful pain, suffering, and the enormous loss of such innocent lives is portrayed as you read this book. I felt the anger and suffering BUT I was only reading it. Imagine how they felt!

This book by the Miller's is truly a masterpiece that captures what many Armenians feel deep within their hearts. The accounts from the survivors are truly disturbing and make any Armenian truly proud to have surivived such atrocities. This book serves as a testament to the 1.5 million Armenians killed between 1915 and 1923. I can say this much... I and my family will never forget!