Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus, by Vahakn N. Dadrian. 2003

Armenians Were Targeted For Total Genocidal Destruction, But This Fact Has Not Lessened Holocaust Supremacism

Aghet is the term for the Armenian genocide. Vahakn N. Dadrian has written a very detailed work on it. The most distinctive part of this book deals with the Kemalist thrust against Russian Armenia and the planned extermination of Armenians beyond Turkey’s borders. (pp. 356-on). This systematic extermination has also been described by various non-Armenian authors. (e. g, pp. 371-373).

As a matter of fact, author and scholar Vahakn N. Dadrian has stated that the Armenians were slated for total annihilation. See: Is the Holocaust Unique?: Perspectives on Comparative Genocide:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/holocaust-supremacism-debate-rosenbaum/

IMPLICATIONS OF THE “TOTAL ANNIHILATION” OFT-REPEATED HOLOCAUST SUPREMACY CLAIM FOR HOLOCAUST UNIQUENESS

Author Dadrian has called attention to “the persistent clamors for justice by the Armenians [and] the equally persistent disinterest in their cause by the rest of the world.” (p. 387).

Now consider the endlessly-repeated claim that the Nazis sought the death of all Jews. This is the heart of the standard argument that the Jews and their Holocaust deserves more recognition than any other genocide. After all, other genocides were “only” partial in extent, which (imaginatively) makes them inferior in significance to the Holocaust. In reality, a “partial” genocide is not worth one iota of less recognition than a “total” one. So, even if the Turks had never actually sought the death of every single Armenian man, woman, and child, the Armenian genocide is still entitled to every bit of the same recognition as that of the Jews. The same, of course, holds for the Polokaust, even though “only” 10% of ethnic Poles were, given the limitations imposed by the war, murdered by the Germans.

THE POLITICS OF “TOTAL ANNIHILATION”

If the oft-quoted genocide meritocracy was valid and even-handed (and not simply a smokescreen to justify the pre-eminence of the Holocaust over all other genocides), the Armenians, who were in fact targeted for total annihilation no less than the Jews under Hitler, would long ago have gotten the same recognition as the Holocaust. They most certainly have not.

What does this tell us?

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For more on how Holocaust chauvinism slights the Armenian genocide, see my reviews:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/holocaust-supremacism-slights-armenians-auron/

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2020/03/24/jewish-nazi-collaboration-an-enduring-issue-holocaust-mis-education-dominated-by-holocaust-supremacism-auron/