ARMENIAN - Erevangala500

Talaat Pasha, the former grand vizier and Ottoman-Turkish
minister o f the interior was shot by the Armenian student
Salomon Teilirian on March 15, 1921, in Berlin. To the amaze­
ment o f all those following the trial, the assassin was acquitted
at the Berlin court o f law. The jury came up with the paradoxi­
cal statement that it was not the murderer but the victim him­
self who was guilty o f the deed: Talaat Pascha, they claimed,
had been responsible for the deportation o f the Armenians.
Perhaps the fact that the assassin's name was Salomon also had
something to do with the acquittal.
These dramatic words fit perfectly with Andonian's fake
papers where, already in "document No 1 the word
appears: "O f course the Government will give the neces­
sary instructions about their necessary massacres to the
Governors " and the next document states, by November
18, 1 9 1 5 , "It is the duty of all of us to effect on the
broadest lines the realisation of the noble project of
wiping out of existance the A rm enians..."
For sure one has to read this nonsens twice before believ­
ing that a forger could have expressed such humbug after
Turks, Muslims and others had lived together for nearly a
millennium.
But Werfel took it - did he take it really? - for truth. I
think that he finally considered his real aim, the fight
against the rising Nazis for more important than these old
stories about the Ottoman Empire which did not exist
anymore. For sure he did not expect that the Armenians
would take his fictions for the base o f her terror against
Turkish diplomats and so many others who had in no way
to do with these allegations.
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For sure he did not xpect that his novel will became the
basement o f thatwhat is called in Germen "RU FM O RD "
- character assassination. "Rufmord" means perhaps even
more, because " R u f means one's reputation, credibility,
honour... and "Mord" is "murder".
The old DAM NITIO M EM O RIAE might have been
more tolerant.
Meanwhile W erfel's novel became a kind o f public gen­
eral opinion, is considered as a "historical fact" and not as
a great "story" which has hardly to do with "history".
It seems that zombies, those "revived corpses" like
Morgenthau, Aram and Hagop Andonian or Pastor
Johannes Lepsius will reign some time more... but, final­
ly, in the light o f bright sunshine, they will vanish.
Part o f the Armenian cemctery at Musa Dagh: The sarcophagi
stem from 1923. Until today there is a rather prosperous
Armenian community at Musa Dagh. Who was responsible for
the tragic events o f 1915? Not the Ottomans but the Armenian
warlords, useful idiots o f their French, English an Russian pup­
peteers.