Long Hidden Talat Pasha Document Reveals “Disappearance” of Nearly 1 Million Armenians
[ 2009/03/09 | 15:41 ]The March 9, 2009 issue of the N.Y. Times has an article penned by Sabrina Tavernise entitled, “Nearly a Million Genocide Victims, Covered in a Cloak of Amnesia” which reports on the publication of a book by Turkish author and columnist Murat Bardakci. The book contains a long hidden document that belonged to Ottoman Empire Interior Minister Talat Pasha according to which 972,000 Ottoman Armenians disappeared from the official population records from 1915 through 1916.
With his book, “The Remaining Documents of Talat Pasha,” Mr. Bardakci has become, rather unwillingly, part of the recent ferment in Turkey regarding the Armenian Genocide issue. The book is a collection of documents and records that once belonged to Mehmed Talat, known as Talat Pasha, the primary architect of the Armenian deportations.
Published
in January, the book has virtually gone unmentioned in the Turkish media according to its author.
The silence can mean only one thing, he said, “My numbers are too high for ordinary people. Maybe people aren’t ready to talk about it yet.”
