#about the armenian genocide

[crazysodomite]

its insane how you literally can't talk about the oppression caucasians face (what was the last time you read about the genocide or imperialist aggression caucasian people went through? actually?) without an american/westerner piping up with "umm... lol... you think White people are oppressed? lol"

Isn't it crazy how people use caucasian to make fun of white people while literally Completely erasing the struggles of a racialized group? Isn't it crazy how no one cares and people keep doing it without batting an eye? And isn't it crazy when you try to look up something about caucasians you get stupid ass articles about "are white people opressed or not? are white people entitled? are white people this or that?"

[chaoticamelay]

elon "world's most dangerous antisemite" musk spoke at a far-right extremist political rally in germany and said he thinks people need to 'move beyond' the holocaust, so i've shelved my original post planned for international Holocaust Remembrance Day and instead i am going to talk about how european cities are built with jewish gravestones.

during ww2 the Nazis and their allies were in search of places to get good quality stone for building. then they realized they had countless: the cemeteries of once thriving jewish communities they were targeting. An unknown number (we will never know exactly how many, but it is high) of matzevot (jewish gravestones) were removed from our ancestor's graves and used as construction materials. even after 1945 our cemeteries kept being used as quarries. because our communities were never the same afterwards.

all over Europe, you can find roads, sidewalks, buildings, tools, christian gravestones... even a children's sandbox, made of gravestones stolen from our old jewish cemeteries. sometimes the cemetery land was 'repurposed' into something else as well, with no regard for the human remains there.

Poland

There were 1200 jewish cemeteries in Poland alone, and more than four hundred of them did not survive the war times. They were rearranged to provide sites for housing estates, sports fields, garbage dumps, or sand quarries. The sand mined from them to build houses was mixed with human remains. Only a hundred and fifty graveyards still have more than a hundred gravestones, but before the holocaust there were at between a few hundred thousand or a few million.

Between 2008-2011, photographer Łukasz Baksik documented some places in poland where Jewish gravestones were ''repurposed" during and after the war. Here are his photos: Matzevot for Everyday Use

Top left: A cowshed in Starowola by Parysów, a village in east-central Poland, made of cobbled together jewish gravestones. Top right: A children's sandbox in Szczecin, a city in the West Pomerania Province built in the 1960s/70s. Bottom left: School playing courts in Kazimierz Dolny, a town in eastern Poland. The schoolyard was built, in the 1950s, on the grounds of a Jewish cemetery, and there are fragments of matzevot in the walls. Bottom right: In the town of Brok, in eastern Poland, the interior of a workshop contains a mounted grindstone carved from a jewish gravestone.

Czech Republic and Ukraine

In the 1980s, cobblestones made from Jewish gravestones were used to pave a busy part of Prague's Old Town, a main city square called Wenceslas Square on Na Prikope, a popular shopping street. (As of 2019 they are apparently going to be returned to the Old Jewish Cemetery).

In 2018, a road in L’viv, Ukraine was being repaired when city workers found over 100 Jewish gravestones used in paving it. Matzevot have been found here in the past and brought back to the Jewish cemetery by volunteer teams.

Left: Cobblestones used to pave a busy street in Prague, taken from Jewish headstones. The Hebrew letter hey and the numbers 895 are visible. Right: Matzevot used as paving in Lviv, being rescued by volunteers.

Belarus and Lithuania

in Vilnius, Lithuania, jewish tombstones were used all over the city in construction, including for an electric transformer substation, church steps, and the grand stairway in the trade union headquarters. They are being rescued and returned to the cemetery as they are found.

In Belarus, matzevot were used for house foundations, porches, fences, backyard paving, roads, or they were turned into millstones.

Left: A man examines the memorial made from gravestones that had been used to build stairs in Vilnius. Right: 2016 photo of Jewish gravestone used as stairway of church in Vilnius.

Greece

People often forget about Sephardic Jews and the Holocaust, but Greece and especially Salonika (Thessaloniki), the "Jerusalem of the Balkans," were devastated by the Shoah. Salonika's major jewish cemetery contained hundreds of thousands of graves- when it was completely destroyed by the Nazis (with the help of Greeks who wanted the land), the gravestones were used in construction projects around the city. Aristotle University sits on the site today. Fragments of matzevot can still be found around the city in churches, buildings, even sidewalks, although now when they're found they're brought to the new Jewish cemetery.

Broken up Jewish gravestone used for construction In Thessaloniki.

Eighty years is not a long time. We are not moving on. We are seeing rising fascism, scapegoating of minorities, violent nationalism. We said never again, not for anyone, not ever - the history books are right there telling us this is wrong, and we are NOT going to ignore words written with blood.

now that i have written all this out i don't actually know how to end the post so. i guess let's go with this: i'm not naive. ordinary people do terrible, awful things and I see how it is hard to trust anyone to not do terrible things to you when it matters most. but ordinary people also do wonderful, life-affirming things! i am a sephardic jew who is here because ordinary people resisted. stood up and threw themselves into the gears of the genocidal system that tried to kill my ancestors in greece and italy during the Shoah. people hid their neighbours, became resistance fighters. in athens a police chief gave jews false id cards and an archbishop gave jews false baptismal certificates. my family always taught me and my siblings that solidarity saves lives. you can start that right now!

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all! –Mario Savio

[metamorphesque]

Self-portrait of Ruben Sevak (before 1915)

[mueritos]

Matteo what the fuck is up with white supremacists/fascists really liking bands like system of a down and rage against the machine...

pheww the age old question. i think to begin, youd be surprised how many older fans of soad and ratm were probably leftist, but as they grow older they just…become less so. which is kinda the narrative a lot of older people give to young radicals, like “once u reach my age you become more conservative!” type of bs. the other possibility lies in media literacy. fascists who love leftist music think its made…for them. and their fucked up conspiracy theories. yes, maybe they’re antiwar to a point (in terms of class and protecting poor whites), but a lot of em see these songs as attacking systems that are full of pedophile jewish democrats who are in control of the economy and media and wealth…its kind of the like the usual “you see what youre looking for” kind of blindness. it takes them away from the reality that soad and ratm have roots in being anti policing, anti war, anti drug war, anti fascism, anti violence against women, etc. its hilarious and wickedly frustrating to watch people listen to music literally saying “some of those who work forces are the same who burn crosses” and be like ah yes. those are the crazy anti christian leftists.

at least that’s what i think lol

[aqlstar]

Doing some research

I came across CAIR's official statement on the Armenian Genocide-

"On the 100th anniversary of these tragic events, in which some 1.5 million people died as a result of intentional killings, systematic abuse, forced migration, or starvation, we express our solidarity with the Armenian people whose family members and loved ones suffered such horrific atrocities and injustices at the hands of the military coup government of the collapsing Ottoman Empire.

"We also call for a process of reconciliation between the Turkish and Armenian people -- two honorable nations -- that would truthfully address historic injustices against the Armenian population in the Ottoman state and serve as a model for all those who struggle today for freedom, justice and human rights."

Is it me, or did CAIR just "both sides" the Armenian genocide while attributing blame to a nameless "military coup government?"

(For clarity- the Young Turks, along with many Muslim Turkish and Kurdish civilians, committed the Armenian Genocide following a declaration of Jihad against non-muslims in the Ottoman Empire. )

[cinemaocd]

Noam Chomsky "genocide denier"

I cut my teeth reading Chomsky in the 80s and 90s. He has faced criticism over the decades for his opinions that are extremely critical of U.S. and Israel's militarism. After 9-11 this made him a pariah in the U.S. and his critics have taken to socials today with out of context quotes, or just outright smearing him with the label of "genocide denier."

Reddit thread on Bosnia Genocide comments Reddit thread on Cambodian genocide comments

I'm not saying take the redditor's words for it, I'm saying these articles are a decent place to start and reddit's search works better than tumblrs...Oh and you might accidentally read some Chomsky and that would be no bad thing.

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

this is how Stepanakert, capital of Artsakh, looks right now. Bombing civilians is what the "restoration of the constitutional order" looks like for Aliyev? And the Armenian government chooses to do nothing and leave its people in danger

[storm-of-feathers]

There aren't only three genocides happening. By the way. There's been at least ten ongoing. None of you cared about them until you could hate jews about it, though.

[wonderviolet17]

is there anything so inhumane and horrible as to strip a people of their history and culture?

[shrimpmandan]

Cannot emphasize the tonal whiplash of seeing a post on my dash about how it's cringe to demand people care about a conflict in another country and then immediately after that see a post about Armenian genocide awareness

[callsigncrash]

I know that not many people will see this but please spread the word of the genocide and forced relocation in Armenia happening right now. The more people hear about it, the more likely something is to be done.

There’s so many “mini genocides” that happen in Eastern Europe that no one talks about when we need to.

I pray that this whole thing is sorted out.

[fakenerdboy]

Boy I wonder if Turkey, notably run by Islamist authoritarian Erdogan, might have an ulterior motive for signing up for public condemnations of a country that’s currently in the spotlight

[newreputations]

Israel’s PR team working 24/7 to do the impossible. Give it up boys, you can just go ahead and say you’re going to commit genocide and every war crime in the book, it’s not like the west will lift a finger to stop it, matter of fact it’ll lift many fingers to fund it.

[magnoliamyrrh]

one of the sadest things ive heard lately tbh

i reached out to an old friend of mine whose mexican-american to catch up but also to tell him man i dont remember if you have any family left in armenia i just wanted to say hope theyre safe and im sorry for everything thats happening

.... it has been weeks since it escalated. he thanked me and said it meant a lot bc im the first and only person to say anything to him abt it :((((

[chicago-geniza]

Not JC doing fine-print sophistry genocide denial, as I live and breathe

[wizardyke]

if you're armenian and youre reading this i love you ♥︎