"AMERICA AND ARMENIAN GENOCIDE OF 1915" BOOK ISSUED IN UK

PanARMENIAN.Net - A book is issued in the UK, which presents all facets of the initial American response to the news about the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey in 1915. Book "America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915," published by the Cambridge University Press, is the product of a ground-breaking conference in September 2000 which was co-sponsored by the Library of Congress and the Armenian National Institute in cooperation with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. As reported by the Armenian Assembly of America, renowned historian and Yale University professor Dr. Jay Winter has played a pivotal role in the publication. The three-part book brings together the scholarly works of 12 experts. In the first part, the story of the Genocide is located in the history of the twentieth century, particularly World War I, which was a critical element in the unfolding of the crime. At the same time genocide is interpreted as a cluster of crimes of different kinds and different origins, many of which foreshadow the Nazi Holocaust of the Second World War. The second part of the book elucidates the way American politicians, intellectuals, and social activists responded to the Armenian Genocide, as well as tells how many Americans were deeply engaged in direct assistance to Armenians, who were in danger or who managed to survive the Genocide. Many Americans bore witness, and some shared the sufferings of the victims, the book says. It also shows there was an open and vivid discussion of the Armenian Genocide in the United States both during and after the war and it was publicized virtually everywhere at the time. Thus, J. Winter concludes, "the paralysis of the policy was not a function of ignorance, but of a willful turning away from a fully documented catastrophe."