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Works Cited - Night Final Project - Google Docs

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Night Final Project Reflection - Tsomo Naranbayar - Google Docs

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This cartoon elaborates the anti-semitic views many Americans had, such as that Jews were the cause of high taxes. The cartoon specifically details the view that the Holocaust was not an issue that was important to Americans.

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Joseph Sher describes why the jews were forced to wear stars: because otherwise you couldn't tell if a person was jewish. Jews are people too, and it says a lot that people needed a badge to identify who they needed to persecute.

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Our encyclopedia entries were specially created to give background information on the stories. Read the first paragraph of an entry and consult the bibliography for more information about a source.

MORE INFORMATION

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Our encyclopedia entries were specially created to give background information on the stories. Read the first paragraph of an entry and consult the bibliography for more information about a source. MORE INFORMATION

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Arek Hersh experienced anti-semitism like Weisel did in Night when he was 'selected' by Dr. Mengele. Both had to be smart to survive, and used their observations to avoid the creamatorium. Arek wrote a book of his accounts called A Detail of History.

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Arek Hersh | Survivor Stories | Holocaust Survivors Friendship Association

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Arek was born and brought up in Poland, the son of a boot-maker for the army. He had four siblings and was brought up in the Jewish faith in a tight-knit, loving family. He remembers going to the park in the summer, ice-skating on the river in winter and singing solos in the choir.

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The Armenian Genocide Still Lacks Acknowledgment From Perpetrators As Well As Countries Like the United States 

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The Armenian Genocide Still Lacks Acknowledgment From Perpetrators As Well As Countries Like the United States 

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The Turkish Government still refuses to call what happened to the 1.5 Armenian people a genocide and instead, a mass deportation. While history shows that the pain and torture the many Armenians experienced was similar to that of the Holocaust, multiple U.S. presidents such as George. W Bush opposes the use of the word "genocide".

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What do you call the 1915 "mass deportation" of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) that resulted in the death of 1.5 million people?

Most historians and Armenians around the world call it genocide. The Turkish government and the United States are not among those who will officially accept the word "genocide" when speaking of the decimation of the Armenian people in the early part of the 20th Century. (And that list also includes U.S. Presidents.)

The lack of respect given to the Armenian genocide is shocking when you consider the scope and brutality of the event that killed 75 percent of the Armenians - a predominantly Christian group.
The History:
Armenia was a trendsetter when it came to Christianity. The country adopted that faith in 301 A.D. This was even before the formation of the Holy Roman Empire. For centuries the Armenian people built a healthy and prosperous country. However, in the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire absorbed Armenia and the Armenians. The non-Muslim Armenians were classified as "infidels" and had to pay higher taxes and saddled with fewer rights than Muslims.

The Ottoman Empire stayed dominant in the region through the 19th century and into the early part of the 20th century. But in the late 1890s, Armenians were growing tired of their status as second class citizens and continued their push for more rights. In 1894, that push was met with a violent response from the Sultan who turned loose his private army on the Armenians. In the ensuing battles between 1894-96, it was reported that as many as 200,000 Armenians were killed by Sultan Abdul Hamid's troops in what has been called the Hamidian Massacre. However, the killing of the 200,000 Armenian Christians was nothing compared to the 1915 genocide.

What led to the near extermination of the Armenians? It appears a combination of a few factors were working together to create a rabid form of Turkish nationalism that saw the Armenians as the enemies of the state. After all, the non-Muslims were officially considered "infidels" in the eyes of the Turks.

In 1908, a group of young Turks forced the Sultan out and took control of the government. At first they talked of bringing new freedoms to the Armenian people. Unfortunately, those freedoms never were granted by the ruling "Young Turks." Instead the Armenians were seen as a threat to the shrinking Ottoman Empire.

1912-13 had the Turks losing huge chunks of their land to Christian regions that were breaking away. Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia were all successful in their efforts to leave the Ottoman Empire. This was a devastating loss of power to the Turks and was the spark for even greater nationalism to foment.

Muslim refugees from the now-Christian breakaway countries poured into Istanbul with tales of Christian violence against their families. Some of the more extreme members of the Young Turks formed the Committee of Union & Progress (CUP). The CUP was focused on pushing Turkish nationalism, their chant was "Turkey for the Turks."

The growing Turkish nationalism was also fuel for more hatred against the Armenian community, especially after Germany and Russia began warring in 1914. Turkey sided with Germany in this conflict. The Turks hoped a defeat of the Russians would help in the prospect of rebuilding their empire. In December of 1914, the Ottoman Turks tried to invade Russia, but suffered a horrible defeat. More than 100,000 Russian troops stormed across the border into Turkey and reports say that more than 5,000 Armenians helped the Russians, some even enlisting in the Russian Army.

This was likely a move that enraged the Turkish leaders who saw the Armenians as a liability. The Armenian members of the military were immediately disarmed and moved into labor camps and subsequently executed.

Not long after that, on April 24th, a group of 250 Armenian intellectual leaders of the community were rounded up and shipped off to a camp where they were killed.

Turkey had killed off the Armenian soldiers and the cultural elites. All that remained was to order the rest of the population to comply with a relocation order that was essentially a death sentence. Most of the Armenians were forced to march for sixty days and many did not survive the trip.

Like the Nazis, many Armenians were also transported via rail. And, also like the Nazis, the Turks forced their victims to purchase tickets for the ride to their own extermination.

The accounts of the atrocities committed against the Armenians is as brutal and disgusting as any you have heard about from Hitler's attempts to exterminate the Jews from Germany and the world. Small children and old people were marched over mountains and in circles, without food and water, literally until they died. Young Christian girls were defiled by the Turkish soldiers. There are reports that many killed themselves after being raped. The barbaric treatment of the Armenian women went even further.

In his post on the genocide, ( The Forgotten Genocide: Why It Matters Today) Raymond Ibrahim recounted the story of a woman who claimed to have witnessed the brutal crucifixion of 16 young girls.

In her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described being raped and thrown into a harem (which agrees with Islam's rules of war). Unlike thousands of other Armenian girls who were discarded after being defiled, she managed to escape. In the city of Malatia, she saw 16 Christian girls crucified: "Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands, only their hair blown by the wind, covered their bodies." Such scenes were portrayed in the 1919 documentary film Auction of Souls, some of which is based on Mardiganian's memoirs.

Why Won't America Call It Genocide?
It's a good bet that Turkey and its leaders do not want to use the term genocide because it would likely cost them considerable sums of money in reparations, as well as the public embarrassment they would have to endure. But what about America?

No American president has officially called the mass killings that started in 1915 "genocide." President Bush went as far as publicly urging Congress to reject a resolution on the subject.

In 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama promised that, as president, he would acknowledge it, saying; "Armenian genocide is a widely documented fact."

Despite that very clear language, President Obama was not been so quick to follow up on his campaign promise. After he was elected, on Armenian Remembrance Day, the president issued a statement. The word that was conspicuously absent from the release - genocide. That term was also absent from every single April 24th Armenian Remembrance Day since 2009.

Instead of using the word "genocide" the White House statements all use the term "Meds Yeghern." What does that mean? Meds Yeghern is an Armenian phrase that has the same meaning as genocide in their language. But Armenians want the world to recognize the atrocity they suffered at the hands of the Turks.

And while our presidents won't say the word or put it in statements, the Turks are actually forbidden from using it. The word "genocide" is off limits - as in illegal. You can be locked up for saying the word or using it in a story. (TheBlaze staff would likely be placed under arrest and receive death threats for this article alone.)

So, why won't a U.S. President call the very well-documented forced removal of 1.5 million people from their homes - many who were forced to march more than 50 miles into the desert where almost certain death awaited them - genocide?

CBS's "60 Minutes" filed a story that speculated our lack of ability to call this genocide and what it really is: That it might have something to do with America's military relationship with Turkey and that the country is vital to delivering supplies to our troops on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The "60 Minutes" segment also includes a chilling video shot on the banks of the Euphrates River where it is believed 450,000 of the victims perished. In fact, the remains of the Armenians are so prevalent in the area that all you need to do is scratch the sand along the river banks and you will find pieces of human bones that have been there for 98 years.

The Armenian people are persistent. Ninety-eight years after the genocide began in their country, they still hold out hope that Turkey will recognize what was done to the Armenians. They also hope that America will make good on the promises made by so many presidents.

In the meantime, Armenians are contributing in communities all over the U.S. As a matter of fact, one of the largest Armenian communities in the country is in Watertown, Massachusetts - a town that found itself in the center of the media spotlight this week. Watertown is also the home of the Armenian Library and Musuem of America.

You can watch the entire 60 Minutes piece here.

(H/T and additional support provided by: Raymond Ibrahim and 1915 AGHET - The Armenian Genocide)

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The 1915 Armenian Genocide - Why Is It Still Denied By Turkey (And The U.S.)?

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What do you call the 1915 "mass deportation" of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) that resulted in the death of 1.5 million people? Most historians and Armenians around the world call it genocide.

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While the number of Neo Nazi groups are decreasing, Neo Nazi propaganda and anti-semitic activity has reached it's highest in European countries like Sweden in 2015. This rise is credited partly to the Swedish general election which took place the previous year and the Swedish Neo Nazi organizations succeeded in making themselves a political party in the parliament, The Party of the Swedes,"

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Neo-Nazi activity and attitudes are becoming more prevalent in European mainstream society, according to the European Network Against Racism, highlighted by a report published this week which confirms a rise in neo-Nazi activity in Sweden.

The annual report by the Swedish anti-racism organisation Expo, revealed that while the country's neo-Nazi organisations are declining in numbers, their activity is growing in intensity, with last year being a record high for neo-Nazi propaganda.

"It's an enormous increase. Just in a couple of years, in three years' time, it has almost doubled. We have never seen this many activities before," Expo investigator Anna-Sofia Quensel says.

"It's not just worrying for Sweden, it should be worrying for anyone that neo-Nazi propaganda is being spread by neo-Nazi groups," Quensel continues.

Quensel attributes the rise to the fact that the Swedish general election took place last year. The election saw the far-right, anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats becoming the country's third largest party winning close to 13% of the vote. The Party of the Swedes, a neo-Nazi political party, were expected to do well, although in the end, "failed utterly" in the words of Quensel. Despite this, they are still having an impact on society.

"We expected some kind of increase, mainly because it was an election year last year, and the Party of the Swedes were expected to gain 10,000 votes and aimed to win 10 seats. They failed utterly, yet they are making people aware of their existence," says Quensel.

"We think the fact we have a far-right party now in parliament, the Sweden Democrats, has made it easier for more extreme organisations to spread their message."

On average, neo-Nazis spread propaganda, carried out rallies or were involved in other actions seven to eight times a day, the report found. In total, the number of activities has risen by 23%, from 2,334 incidents in 2013 to 2,864 last year. The majority of this activity is thought to take the form of group's trying to spread their message - usually by disseminating flyers, painting graffiti, or plastering stickers on buildings, usually at night.

However, there has also been growing concern over neo-Nazi attacks in Sweden. In April last year, Showan Shattak, a 25-year-old man of Iranian origin, was stabbed by four neo-Nazis in the city of Malmö. Last August, three police officers were injured in Stockholm when neo-Nazi protesters and anti-racist demonstrators clashed.

Claire Fernandez, deputy director for policy for the European Network Against Racism, described the situation in Europe in general as "very worrying", and says that while formal membership of neo-Nazi groups is declining, activity and violence overall is growing.

Fernandez cites Germany as an example. There were 22,000 far-right supporters in Germany in 2014, of which 5,400 were defined as neo-Nazis according to German intelligence. While this marks a 30% decrease from what it was in 2008, Fernandez says that this only reveals a decrease in formalised groups.

"In terms of neo-Nazi activity and violence we are definitely seeing an increase. Neo-Nazi groups have more visibility and support online and we are clearly seeing more far-right activity in mainstream society. We see that with the German anti-immigrant group Pegida, which has links to neo-Nazis. They are perceived to be more acceptable because they are more visible."

"There are clear articulations of messages of Islamophobia, and anti-immigrant rhetoric and high visibility of activity centered on protecting European and Christian values reaching mainstream society," she continues.

Neo-Nazi activity in Germany accounts for more attack on Jews than by Islamists. According to figures presented to the German parliament last week, 31 anti-Semitic attacks in 2013 were committed by people of a foreign background while the rest, 26, were attributed to other offenders. Out of 1,275 anti-Semitic incidents which occurred in 2013, neo-Nazis were considered responsible for 1,218 of them.

Last September, a neo-Nazi group firebombed the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin. No one was injured, yet the unidentified person left a number of flyers promoting extreme-right ideology at the scene.

Last week, a survey showed that Greeks have a distinct lack of awareness about the Holocaust, and that the majority of the Greeks surveyed held anti-Semitic views. Among the report's most shocking findings was that 65% of all recipients agreed with the statement: "The Jews treat Palestinians in the same way they were treated by the Germans in WWII," a result that one of the report's authors, Dr Giorgos Antoniou, described as "devastating". Over 90% of the Greeks questioned believed that Jewish people hold too much power in international business and media.

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Neo-Nazi activity and attitudes are becoming more prevalent in European mainstream society, according to the European Network Against Racism, highlighted by a report published this week which confirms a rise in neo-Nazi activity in Sweden.

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Anti-Semitism Adopted and Spread by the Klu Klux Klan

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Anti-Semitism Adopted and Spread by the Klu Klux Klan

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The extremist group, known for their history of white supremacy, white nationalism, anti-black and anti-immigration, included anti-semitism into their agenda.

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This story was originally published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on March 17, 1985.

The satin robes and pointed hoods that for more than a century have marked the Ku Klux Klan as an aberration of Southern culture are being replaced by camouflage fatigues and combat boots.

The cross, once claimed by KKK members as a symbol of their Christian purity, is giving way to the swastika. And shouts of "white power" at Klan rallies are being drowned out by cries of "Sieg Heil."

In the past two years, the Ku Klux Klan has moved even farther to the right. Younger, more militant Klan members are now embracing a virulent anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi philosophy in addition to the Klan's accustomed anti-black rhetoric.

Some of these Klansmen have formed or joined several small but heavily armed splinter groups that advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government and the extermination of all blacks and Jews, according to law enforcement officials and private investigators who monitor the Klan.

"What is happening is that some of the Klansmen realize that they have had absolutely no impact on the American public, " said Charles Wittenstein, Southern counsel for the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. "Their previous propaganda efforts have been failures, and they have gotten frustrated. Instead of talking, they are now prepared to use violence to overthrow the government."

Although Klan membership continues to decline nationwide, those who stay in are becoming more hard-line in their views on blacks and Jews, according to Randall Williams, a spokesman for Klanwatch, a project of the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center. "This is a logical extension of what the Klan has been saying for a long time, " said Williams. "Instead of segregation, they now want final solutions."

What particularly troubles law enforcement officials about these splinter groups, commonly called the Underground, is their penchant for violence.

All are believed linked with a pseudo-religious cult, the Aryan Nations, based in Hayden Lake, Idaho. In the past year individuals linked to the Aryan Nations have stopped talking, and started shooting and bombing, in an effort to overthrow what they call the "Zionist Occupied Government, " or ZOG, in Washington.

Warfare the only solution

These groups are the right-wing equivalent of the Weather Underground - frustrated, fanatical white supremacists who believe they have been disenfranchised by a conspiracy of Jews, blacks, homosexuals, communists and whites who don't believe as they do. They believe open warfare is the only solution.

The blueprint for this racial revolution is a book called "The Turner Diaries, " written by white supremacist and Atlanta native William Pierce under the pen name Andrew Macdonald. Pierce, a former physics professor and American Nazi Party member, now heads a white supremacist group called the National Alliance, which is based in Arlington, Va.

In the book, "patriotic" whites frustrated with Jewish and black influences in government form a group called "the Organization" and go to war against the United States. Members of the Organization rob armored cars, counterfeit huge amounts of money, bomb public buildings, destroy public utilities, and assassinate key political figures before overthrowing the government.

Since last April, Aryan Nations members have been linked to a number of racially and politically motivated violent crimes similar to those in "The Turner Diaries."

Among those crimes are the machine-gun murder of Denver talk show host Alan Berg, a $3.6 million armored car robbery in California, a $500,000 armored car robbery in Washington, a multimillion-dollar counterfeiting scheme, and several shoot-outs with law enforcement officials.

The FBI has arrested 20 people since November in connection with these crimes and is seeking at least six more.

Among those arrested and linked to the Underground are three Alabama men, all with strong Ku Klux Klan ties. Two have been charged as accessories after the fact in the California armored car robbery. The third, William David Riccio, is facing federal weapons charges and state drug charges.

Riccio has been a Klan member and organizer in Alabama for the last 10 years. He is also a member of the Aryan Nations. Riccio apparently became connected with the Aryan Nations while serving two years in a federal prison for parole violations stemming from a 1979 arrest on a weapons charge. Riccio has also been indicted on civil rights charges in connection with a 1979 incident in Decatur, Ala., in which Klansmen attacked a group of blacks.

"We are still concerned about the presence of a small core of people with similar beliefs in this area, " said Tom Moore, an FBI agent in Birmingham. "Our investigation is continuing."

'A terrorist underground'

Estimates of the groups' strength nationwide ranges from fewer than a hundred to more than 500.

"It's an army, " said Lyn Wells, coordinator of the National Anti- Klan Network in Atlanta, who estimates the number of actual armed combatants at fewer than 300. "This is a dangerous phenomenon. This is a white supremacist terrorist underground."

According to Williams of Klanwatch, "the Aryan Nations is not pervasive in the South, as far as we can tell. It's mostly in the West and Northwest."

But one of the more militant factions of the Klan, the North Carolina-based Confederate Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, has close links with the Aryan Nations and recently established a klavern in Canton, Ga.

Efforts have also been made to recruit Georgia Klansmen for duty in the Underground, Williams said. "There were definite efforts at recruitment in Georgia in the fall of 1984, " he said.

Williams would not say where the recruiting took place, but he identified the recruiter as Robert J. Matthews, an avowed white supremacist who was among a group of 13 people who last fall signed a document declaring war on the U.S. government. Matthews died Dec. 8, 1984, in his home on Whidbey Island, Wash., following a 36-hour shoot-out with FBI agents.

Since his death, Matthews has been praised as a hero and a martyr in right-wing literature. Among those praising Matthews is Edward Fields, leader of the Marietta-based National States Rights Party and publisher of the right-wing "Thunderbolt."

"Fields is clearly promoting what he calls the White American Bastion organization, which is also known as the White Underground. We know these groups have some ties to the Klan in this area, " said the ADL's Wittenstein.

Matthews is believed to have attended a KKK rally at Stone Mountain in 1983. Last May he met with Riccio in Birmingham in an effort to gather information on Montgomery activist attorney Morris Dees, one of the founders of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Dees reportedly is on a "hit list" issued by the Aryan Nations through one of at least five nationwide computer networks operated by group members. Also on the list is Alabama Lt. Gov. Bill Baxley.

Dees reportedly made the hit list because of his work on behalf of poor blacks and against the Klan, while Baxley's name was added because of his efforts while attorney general to extradite white supremacist J.B. Stoner of Marietta, Ga., for his role in a 1965 Birmingham church bombing. Security for Dees and Baxley has been increased.

Assassination point system

Louis Beam, a former Texas KKK leader now closely aligned with the Aryan Nations, operates one of these computer networks and allegedly has proposed an assassination point system by which whites can earn the designation "Aryan warrior."

It would take one full point to become an "Aryan warrior." The murder of a member of Congress would be worth one-fifth of a point, judges one-sixth, FBI agents and federal marshals one-tenth, journalists and local politicians one-twelfth. One full point would be given for assassinating the president, under Beam's system.

"You have to take seriously the threats coming from these people because of th eir penchant for violence, " said Williams.

Other law enforcement officials are also taking seriously the threat posed by these groups. U.S. attorneys from Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Colorado, California and Alabama gathered in Seattle in January to discuss the problem.

The FBI has initiated a domestic security investigation and formed a task force with members of the Secret Service, U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Internal Revenue Service and the Bureau of Prisons to investigate crimes committed in the name of white supremacy.

"We have several ongoing investigations, but we're not interested in any particular group because of their views, " said FBI Special Agent Manuel Marquez Jr. in Washington. "We only investigate once these views or beliefs go beyond the rhetoric stages and go into acts of violence or other violations of the law."

The groups being closely watched by law enforcement officials go by a variety of names, including the Order, the Aryan Resistance Movement, the White American Bastion, and the Silent Brotherhood (or its German translation, Bruder Schweigen). Other groups closely allied with the Underground and the Aryan Nations are the Covenant, the Sword, andthe Arm of the Lord, the Christian Defense League, the Christian Patriots Defense League, and the tax protest group Posse Comitatus.

In addition to recruiting members from these groups, the Underground has filled its ranks with people from more militant Klan factions, from a prison-based white protection group called the Aryan Brotherhood, and from more radical elements of the farm protest movement.

Most of these groups have their roots in the KKK and draw many of their beliefs from theology espoused by Aryan Nations leader the Rev. Richard Girnt Butler. Butler, 65, is a former member of the KKK and Posse Comitatus in California. Butler moved to Idaho in the late 1970s and founded what he calls the Church of Jesus Christ Christian, which teaches "Christian Identity, " a theology that first appeared in England about 80 years ago.

Among the precepts of Christian Identity are that Jesus was not a Jew, that the lost tribe of Israel actually consists of Aryans who settled in northern Europe and later migrated to the United States and Canada, and that whites have the God-given right to reclaim Canada and the United States for white people. Some members of the cult advocate the extermination of Jews and blacks.

"Their bigotry is almost beyond belief, " said Wittenstein.

Added Klanwatch's Williams: "These people are totally detached from reality, and that's what makes them so dangerous. They believe they are on a mission from God, just like the Ayatollah Khomeini thinks he's on a mission from God."

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This story was originally published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on March 17, 1985. The satin robes and pointed hoods that for more than a century have marked the Ku Klux Klan as an aberration of Southern culture are being replaced by camouflage fatigues and combat boots.

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"Night" Quote - Anti-Semitism and Negligence 

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"Night" Quote - Anti-Semitism and Negligence 

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"They are committing the greatest indignity human beings can inflict one another: telling people who have suffered excruciating pain and loss that their pain and loss were illusions," - Elie Wiesel