Turkey’s lost memory and Germany

 

A man stands in an abandoned Armenian church in the village of Madagiz, now Suqovusan after coming under the control of Azerbaijani troops, following a military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh against ethnic Armenian forces, on Sunday. [Reuters]

It is estimated that in the late 1930s, 45% of Germans were members of the Nazi Party or affiliated to Nazi organizations. Nevertheless, anyone who knew young Germans in the 1970s and 80s would have observed that none admitted to their families having had any involvement in this tragic chapter of German history and particularly in the Holocaust.

Their grandfathers, most said, had served in the German Army in a junior capacity and were not (of course) Nazis. The reason was a sense of collective guilt cultivated by the Allies (especially the Americans and British) in occupied post-war Germany. The historic memory of World War II remains alive today because certain powers demanded that a people be held accountable for its crimes.

Turkey’s direct involvement in the recent events in Nagorno-Karabakh is a reminder of the importance of historical memory to nations and peoples. As on so many other occasions since 1890 (when the first pogrom took place), the Armenians found themselves facing their archnemesis Turkey.

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