THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

“WHO REMEMBERS THE ARMENIAN HOLOCAUST today?” Hitler is said to haveasked. One cannot but be impressed by Hitler’s intuition and his ability to manipulatehis country’s policy and actions according to the human failings of his rivals. Heapparently had a canine-like nose that could sense fear and weakness. As much as hewas deaf and blind to his own weaknesses, he was alert to those of others.Indeed, in the 1930s, few people in Germany and in the rest of the worldremembered the Turkish massacre of the Armenians. In 1915 and 1916, hundreds ofthousands (some say the number is as high as a million and a half) Armenian peoplewere slaughtered by Turkish troops and agents. More than a decade later, the Jewishpoet Franz Werfel, native of Prague, set out on an excursion to the east. In the springof 1929 he arrived in Damascus and met for the first time Armenian refugees,invalids, orphans, and other victims who had found refuge in the city. For the nextfour years he wrote an epic novel, The Forty Days of Mussa Dagh. This was thestory of the Armenian Masada and the tragic end of the violent struggleagainst their Turkish oppressors.The book was published in Germany in 1933. Perhaps the book describing thecruelty of the massacre relates to what Hitler allegedly said. Werfel provided thememory; Hitler did everything he could to deny, forget and to make others forget.