From Der Zor to Majdanek: Genocide Trivialized in Scandinavia

Suzanne Khardalian

 

Two appalling events took place in Scandinavia last week. It all started when the Armenian Genocide Museum and Institute in Yerevan started putting together a small exhibition on Scandinavia and the Armenian Genocide about two years ago. The exhibit began touring the Scandinavian capitals this year, and came to the Danish capital, Copenhagen, about a month ago, where it was set up in a room belonging to the Royal Library (yet located at the University of Copenhagen). The surprise came when the director of the Royal Library, Erland Kolding Nielsen, in his opening speech announced there would be an “alternative” exhibition arranged by the Turkish Embassy, with the announced title, “The so-called Armenian genocide.” What to do? Protest, of course. Indeed, the Royal Library has since garnered heavy criticism from the media and from historians over its decision. Nielsen, however, has denied that the institution buckled under pressure from Turkey.

“We have simply given them the opportunity to show their alternative exhibition,” he said. So, for now, it is business as usual. The exhibition is still scheduled.

A Controversial Genocide

Robert Ellis

 

The Danish Royal Library has, together with the Armenian embassy, held an exhibition on “The Armenian genocide and the Scandinavian reaction” though due to protests from the Turkish embassy, the library’s director, Erland Kolding Nielsen, has agreed to hold an alternative exhibition titled, “The so-called Armenian genocide.”
This decision has caused widespread debate and 37 Turkish intellectuals, including Taner Akçam, Cengiz Aktar, Murat Belge, Baskın Oran and İpek and Oral Çalışlar, have in an open letter in Denmark’s leading daily Berlingske called on the library’s director to reconsider his decision. In their view, the Turkish government has followed a policy of denial for more than 90 years, culminating in the murder of Hrant Dink in 2007. To allow the Turkish government to arrange an alternative exhibition will only support this policy.

Turkey Pushes Genocide Denial

Ben Cohen

 

In 1915, when stories of the systematic extermination of the Armenian minority in Anatolia by the Ottoman authorities started to surface in the Western press, Turkish diplomats were rapidly mobilized to deny the reports. “All those who have been killed were of that rebellious element,” the Turkish consul in New York, Djelal Munif Bey, told the New York Times, “who were caught red-handed or while otherwise committing traitorous acts against the Turkish Government, and not women and children, as some of these fabricated reports would have the Americans believe.”