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1. Professor Ungor’s article and his thoughts for the continuation of research on the collective memory of the genocide in the third generation living in Eastern Anatolia is certainly very worthwhile. I hope various Armenian, Assyrian and Kurdish organizations will fund the research. True to his name, may:
   (Ugur) Luck follow him, (Umit) Hope lead him and (Ungor) Fame be his reward.

2. How could should not called A Genocide, this is one thousans proof ,have the World know that..we people looking for Justice for to Recognize the Genociide by Turkey!!

3. as I have said countless times, pursuing the recognition is a total waste of precious Armenian money and a waste of time, Genocide recognition will not accomplish anything whatsoever, what is important and should be pursued vigorously is the UN resolution to recover the $60 billion as compensation as well as the Armenian properties.
   Letting Turkey know that we are less interested in recognition and more interested in recovering and restitution, Turkey maybe more receptive to our demands.
   Best

   • Paul,

     Totally agree with you. If Turks apologize good if not so be it. But, they must return what they stole from Armenians i.e. some land, properties, money and churches. And they have to launch programs to help those hidden Armenians to go back to their roots. If they want to adopt Christianity and learn the Armenian language the Turkish government has to launch programs for that too and stop harassing those poor souls.

     Without doing all the above mentioned Turkish apology means very little to nothing to me.

4. Just wanted to say that not every Turk denies the Armenian Genocide. I am amongst the ones who recognizes the genocide, shares Armenians’ pain and are sorry about what happened. As a Turkish citizen, I will try my best to make Turkey recognize Armenian Genocide and apologize officially. I protested Turkish Embassy in New York City by myself on 04.24.2012 and many others did the same thing in Turkey. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.212967712139529.31092.142172542552380&type=3

   • That was very brave of you Umut, particularly you being a Turkish citizen.
     Hopefully Turkish officialdom will not harass you when you return to Turkey.

     I don’t know any Armenians who believe all Turkish citizens or all Turks are Denialists. A very brave Turk woman, Ms. Ayse Gunaysu, lives in Turkey and is a columnist here at AW. So, if there is one, there must be many more like her in Turkey.

     And certainly Turks like Mr. Ugur Ungor and Prof. Taner Akcam have published important research to demolish the vacuous arguments of the Denialists.

     Unfortunately you and those like you are in the minority in the population of Turkey.
     Nevertheless, individuals like you are a force-multiplier, being non-Armenian Turkish citizens.

     Thanks.

   • Here it is Umut the Hidden Armenians in Turkey
     Yusuf Halaçoğlu, the ex-chairman of the Turkish Historical Society, is fiercely indignant over the awakening of national identity among “hidden” Armenians.

     One of the Turkish nationalistic websites has put on his statement saying: “Several years ago I warned many Armenians were concealing their national identity, claiming they were Kurds. I stated all that on the basis of data from U.S. archives which gave them an alias ‘Armenian Kurds’. According to the information at my disposal, about 500,000 Armenians concealing their national identity and claiming to be Kurds are residing in Turkey now,” Halaçoğlu said. According to him, Armenians’ national identification in Turkey creates favorable conditions for growing demands for restitution on the Turkish Government. He stressed that this process will also cause similar processes among the other Turkey-based minorities, namely, Turkmens and Alevis.

5. To Umut Ermec,

   Thank you for your heartfelt words of recognition of the Armenian Genocide. It’s people like you that give me hope for humanity. You also give me reason to remember how my family was saved by a Turkish family during the 1895 massacres that preceded the full blown Armenian Genocide. Lately I’m finding lots of similar stories where honorable and courageous Turks risked much to protect and save Armenians. So I think it’s fair to say that you are the latest in a long legacy of courageous Turks that will do what is right despite the circumstances.

   You are in my hopes and prayers Umut. God Bless you my friend.

6. Thank you for your research, as i said before and i will say it again there are many Turks that recognise the Armenian Genocide and i know sooner or later which will be sooner the Turkish Government has to recognise the Armenian Genocide and we all will be living next to each other as good neihgbours , of course there has to be the reperations and our land also there i sno question about that, it is time i mean is it time for the Turkish people to stand up agains their own Government and ask for justice, we are living in a new age with a new generation why should i remind the Turkish people about it every time i see one in the street and yes we live in Los Angeles ( Los Armenios) it is time to see each other in the eye and say Salam malekom arxadash.

7. Thank you for all of your support and compliments. I believe Armenians and Turks will make peace sooner than we expect; we have a solid cultural foundation for it. The poison from the CUP racists cannot be that powerful to last more than a century; more and more people realize that the racist’s denial arguments are actually not true day by day. We are healing. People of Turkey will understand that advocating the ideas and sins of some murderers, rapists and plunderers who lived a century ago is wrong and dishonorable. As I said in front of the embassy: “confession fits better to us, not denial”

   • “The poison from the CUP, Ataturk, and the kemalist racists…”

     THAT IS WHY it lasted this .long, and seems like it will last longer

     actually, that poison was introduced in the 19th century (if not even earlier), much before CUP grabbed power

8. Here are some pictures of some Turkish citizens who recognize Armenian Genocide from Istanbul,Turkey

   https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150846417200775.471488.42113030774&type=1

   • Hello Umut my friends call me Uncle Artin or Uncle HArut i understand what you are saying and that is a very good idea of what by standing in front of the turkish embassy telling them how you feel, Umut lets go back lets say about 700 years when your people came to the Armenian lands what did we did then we opened our arms as people and excepted your people as people and ypour people the Turks lived on our land for so many centurys and as time went by, yes you grew in numbers and things started to change slowly but surely some of the people in the Turkish government started to have different feelings toward us the Armenians on our own land, as you can see were i’m going with this Umut , we opened our doors for you and in return well i should not say any further, hope one day things will change for better.

9. I, like thousands more, went to Dsidsernakabert (the Armenian Genocide Monument in Yerevan) not to hate Turks but rather to honor the memory of the
   victims of “man’s inhumanity to man”. I know first hand that there are many Turks
   like Mr. Ugur Ungor who acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. The difficult task ahead is to educate more Turks and not hate them, keeping in mind that those brave souls who acknowledge the Armenian Genocide in and out of Turkey do take a risk.

10. oral history certainly is a very important source for discovering what happened in Eastern Anatolia and Syria in 1915-16. If Turkey proceeds to a situation in which people are exhorted to tell what their parent and grand parent generation witnessed many questions may be answered better than today. But in order to get there , Turkish politics must be based on a genuine will to look for the truth. I am afraid that day is still far away

    • Hi Ragnar,hope you are well.Absolutely there’s no need to discover what happened.Discover?I should consider it as an insult …It’s a fact for us the Armenians & for the rest of the world.Turkish government keeps on chewing the old gum hoping that this subject will disappear.
      Turkish/Kurdish oral history is a necessity so that it does not get lost & to tighten the noose on to what happened.Turks & Kurds know super very well what happened.Over the years & each time I met a Turk or a Kurd ,whether in Turkey or outside they used to whisper question me…”is it true what our grandparents told us?”
      Anyway,Zorian institute has thousands of Genocide survivors’ witnessing videos.

    • Furthermore please read what president Gul when he spoke on the 97th anniversary of the battle of Canakalle:
      “After the Republic was established, we avoided reopening old wounds so future generations would not inherit these pains. Unfortunately, the Armenian Diaspora has started to use this tragic event as a tool for preserving their identity and enhancing the feeling of solidarity between themselves since the 1960s.”
      Can you see the contrast between the memories of the common folk in Turkey & their president who should be reflecting image of its people?

      http://www.todayszaman.com/news-278827-president-gul-blames-french-politicians-for-escalating-turkophobia-in-france.html

11. Regarding mass graves:
    Iin “Rebel Land: Among Turkey’s Forgotten Peoples
    by Christopher de Bellaigue” & in Varto region the subject of mass graves is discussed…

    • Also in Kemal Yalcin’s ‘You Rejoice My Heart’ book there are the testimonies/memories of ‘hidden or islamised’ Armenians’ whether in Turkey or Germany.
      The hidden Armenians’ memories should be a very beneficial point of Mr. Ungor’s study/research.The problem is always finding or convincing them to talk.

12. Today May 9th 8.30 am Eastern Time, the AL JAZEERA, is showing a documentary on the ARMENIAN GENOCIDE .Turks are verifying what happened in ottoman Turkey then in 1915-23. A rather lengthy Documentary.
    Al Jazeera must be commended.
    All the Moslem world is watching …millions get to know better WHAT TURKS DID TO ARMENIANS!!!!!
    sO FAR NO ANY FOREIGN SOURCE HAS SO WELL SHOWN THE genocide perpetrated on our people.
    Kudos to Al Jazeera!!!!

13. Ugur Ungor you are a brave, brave man! I don’t know how you mustered up the courage to ask around without getting put into jail, but so far you did it!

    I know that many Turks don’t want to go into battle with Syria and they don’t like Erdogan in particular either.

    The Armenian Genocide is one of those issues which I am afraid will take many years to heal from. I hope to hear more Turks speak out against it, I would not be surprised if more start coming forward in the next few years and century!

    The only villain left would be the Turkish Government and then eventually they will have to confess sometime to get this hard guilt and denial off their backs!

14. thank you VTiger, I hope you are well, too! I understand that you refer to the knowledge that “yes, it was genocide” . As I have written before I believe we dont need to “diascover” or find out more in order to ask Turkey to apologize and ask for reparations. But there are still many facts that are not sufficiently researched. To insist that “everything” is known is not true to my mind. the research must go on. And as you know I believe the question of ittihadist intent is not well enough researched.
    Regarding the Gül citation, I agree with you. It is a strange idea that those who feel wronged are asked by the ones whose ancestors committed the wrongdoing to “reopen the wrong wounds”.
    you ask:

    Furthermore please read what president Gul when he spoke on the 97th anniversary of the battle of Canakalle:

    Can you see the contrast between the memories of the common folk in Turkey & their president who should be reflecting image of its people?

    yes, there is a contrast, but I dont agree that the common people today remember the “genocide”. I need to qualify it. They remember instances of massacres of Armenians and also the participation of gendarmes, information handed down from the older generation.

    To me what mr. Ûngör is doing is very valuable. It reminds Turks and Kurds to go into their own history and admit mistakes, even apologize when this is needed.

    • That the Ittihadist intent was not made public in CUP newspapers or dispersed from airplanes as leaflets cannot change the horrific experiences of the victims or the testimonies in the witness accounts or the reports in diplomatic and consular dispatches or condemnations in the Allied Powers’ declarations or the verdicts of Turkish Courts Martial or the legislations of some twenty-five foreign governments or the resolutions of international organizations and professional associations. All facts have been researched to the extent when it was sufficient for the majority of genocide scholars, historians, demographers, international lawyers, and Nobel Prize laureates to unambiguously say that even without a post-it note that the naïve Ittihadist murderers forgot to stick on the door of their headquarters in Constantinople, the mass physical extermination of the Armenians was carried out on governmental orders, because it bore a centralized character involving regional governors, village heads, army commanders, soldiers, gendarmes, and special regiments, in the form of a deliberate measure directed against a particular ethnic, national, religious, and racial group. Those who insist that not everything is known and that the research must go on play to the hands of the Turkish government whose policy of avoiding responsibility for the crime of their predecessor-state includes indefinite “research” in the anticipation that things may change in their favor in the future. They will not. Turkey must recognize its crime, repent, offer an apology, and pay retributions for annihilation of a nation and the theft of their ancestral homeland.

15. sorry, I made a mistake: I wrote:
    It is a strange idea that those who feel wronged are asked by the ones whose ancestors committed the wrongdoing to “reopen the wrong wounds”.
    I wanted to say:
    It is a strange idea that those who feel wronged are asked by the ones whose ancestors committed the wrongdoing not to “reopen the OLD wounds”.

16. The common Turkish sentiment that Armenians “not open the OLD wounds”, is a big problem. It reflects an overly simplistic approach to problem-solving and peace-making within Turkish society.

    “Let’s just not look at this painful history, and then we don’t have to think about it or come to terms with it.”

    Of course, when someone invests a lot of energy into warding off awareness of something, they will resent others who remind them of that painful subject, event, memory…. Thus, Turks resent Armenians who won’t ‘shut-up’ and Armenians resent Turks for treating us and our truth as unimportant and forgettable or ‘disposable.’

    In my opinion, Turkish society will be forever stunted until it evolves enough to face the reality and repercussions of the crime committed by their ancestors. Ungor’s work is a necessary step in the right direction. I would love to hear more from Turks who are able to approach this history with more sophistication, sensitivity, and willingness to engage the lessons that the truth has to offer.

    Meanwhile, Armenians are heavily burdened by this history which drains energy from our society in the form of preoccupation with the past, anxiety about the future and basic safety and trust among ‘neighbors.’ It would serve both our societies to be able to move forward. Turkey should take the lead by offering a simple statement of acceptance of responsibility for the destruction of the ancient Christian nations of Asia Minor. Whether or not the Ittihadists ‘intended’ it, shouldn’t stop Turks from apologizing for the obvious reality of the devastation that occurred. Further research may provide more depth to understanding the facts—much like a sportscaster augments the score when commenting on a game—but it shouldn’t stand in the way of a long overdue apology and restitution.

17. Ragnar naess

    You definitely misunderstood what the President said. I understand that most Armenians do not get what is said or done about Turkey. There is no contrast between the president and the people of Turkey. When he talked about “old wounds” he didn’t refer to Armenian deportation or anything like that. He simply talked about the sufferings that were inflicted on Turks in the past.But Turks didn’t pass down these sufferings from generation after generation like Armenians.

    • “But Turks didn’t pass down these sufferings from generation after generation like Armenians.”
      Finally you accept what Turks did to Armenians!

18. Please read Mr. Ugur Ungor & Mehmet Polatetel’s “Confiscation and Destruction – The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property”.
    It is a very well researched & detailed work.An example:
    “Most important,the highly politicized archive of the land registers (tapu kayitlari) remains closed due to Turkish fears of potential Armenian material claims.These records,stored at the Land Register General Directorate (Tapu Kadastro Genel Mudurlugu),contain the (presumably) highly detailed account books of confiscated Armenianproperty.In August 2005 Turkey’s powerful Council for National Security (Milli Guvenlik Kurulu) strongly & confidentially admonished the archive staff not to disclose their material because ‘the data could be abused for the purpose of unfounded Genocide & property claims’.2 ‘Tapu Arsivlerini “Sinirli” Kullanin’ Hurriyet,19 September 2006.

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