Tsk Tsk Indeed!

Submitted by mam (United States), May 2, 2006 at 14:42

A. My information says that Lewy left Germany in 1939. I am not aware that he is a camp survivor. No doubt he left Germany due to the mounting persecutions that led up to the Holocaust, but this is not a qualification for writing a history of the Armenian Genocide. As for his scholarly credentials, they are 1) highly debatable and 2) not especially relevant here. Doris Kearns Goodwin is an esteemed American historian, but that doesn't mean she would be the right person to write a history of, say, the Russian Revolution. Especially if she doesn't know Russian.

B. Bingo: Dr. Kevork Bardakjian is Armenian. Spot on. Your point, I take it, is that his ethnicity precludes his being capable of analyzing this case. Very broadminded of you. Since Armenian scholars are automatically not credible, a non-Armenian, Dr. Gerhard L. Weinberg, one of the world's leading authorities on Hitler and the Third Reich, has written:

"The reference to the Armenians occurs in a document handed secretly to the British Government on Aug. 25, 1939; It was published by the British Government In the official series "Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-39," volume VII, 1954; the ribbon copy of the actual document as handed to the British Ambassador in Berlin in 1939 may be seen in Ambassador Neville Henderson's papers in the Public Record Office at Kew.

Since the record shows that the British Government received the document containing the reference to the Armenians on Aug. 29, 1939, your correspondent's suggestion that those who issued It did so with a deliberate intent to deceive the world In 1945 reflects on his rather than their motives.

Anyone seriously interested In the issues surrounding Hitler's speech of Aug. 22, 1939, In which he mentioned the "Vernichtung der Armenier," the destruction of the Armenians, can find the evidence summarized, with detailed references to the sources In my book "The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany: Starting World War II, 1937-39," pages 610-612."

C. Finally, the "review" you reproduce without attribution was written by David Saltzman, who is 1/2 of the law firm Saltzman and Evinch. Oh, and they are legal counsels to the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, of which Evinch is a Vice President. Saltzman has also represented the Turkish government.

Keep up the good work.

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