Justice and Accountability After the Armenian Genocide

About This Lesson

In the previous three lessons, students learned about the genocide committed against Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I and explored the range of choices that perpetrators, eyewitnesses, diplomats, and foreign governments made in response to the genocide. 

In this lesson, students will turn their attention to the challenge of holding the perpetrators of the genocide, the Young Turk leadership in particular, accountable for their crimes. Through the story of the assassination of the former Ottoman Interior Minister Talaat by an Armenian survivor, as well as the ensuing murder trial, students will explore some of the dilemmas of justice and accountability after genocide.

Essential Questions

• What choices and conditions led to the genocide of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire during World War I?
• How can learning about these choices and conditions help us protect the most vulnerable groups in our society today?

Guiding Questions

• What does it take to hold the perpetrators of genocide responsible for their actions?
• To what extent were the Young Turk leaders who orchestrated the plan to annihilate the Armenians held accountable?

Learning Objectives

• Students will explore some of the challenges that Armenians, Allied Powers, and postwar Ottoman leaders faced in holding Young Turk leaders accountable for the Armenian genocide.
• Students will understand how the dilemmas of justice and accountability after the Armenian Genocide highlighted the need for laws and institutions to prevent and punish such crimes in the future.

See the Additional Context & Background section in the Google Doc version of this lesson plan for the essential historical knowledge needed to teach this lesson.

Lesson Plan

Activity 1: Reflect On and Discuss the Issue of Accountability

Share with students the handout The Allies Promise Accountability, which includes the following quotation, from a telegram sent from Allied leaders in Britain, France, and Russia to the Young Turks to condemn their mass murder of Armenians: 

In view of those new crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilization, the Allied governments announce publicly to the Sublime-Porte [Ottoman Government] that they will hold personally responsible [for] these crimes all members of the Ottoman government and those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres. ¹

Remind students that at the time, various international institutions they may know about, such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, did not yet exist. 

With that in mind, ask them to discuss with a partner the following questions (included on the handout):

• What do you think it means to say that someone has committed a “crime against humanity and civilization”?
• What does it take to hold the perpetrators of genocide “personally responsible”? What needs to happen, and who should lead the process?

As a whole group, ask partner-groups to volunteer to share out the ideas they discussed.  Record their ideas, especially about the second question, on the board or chart paper to refer to later.

Activity 2: Brief Overview of What Happened After the War

Explain to the class that the history of the aftermath of World War I in the Ottoman Empire is complex, but there are a few events that they need to know about for this lesson. You might show a brief clip from the film The Armenian Genocide (34:45–36:00), or give a brief mini-lecture that discusses the following events:

• In October 1918, the Ottoman Empire surrendered to the Allies, and the Young Turk government headed by Talaat, Djemal, and Enver resigned.
• After the empire’s surrender in World War I, Allied troops from Britain, France, and Italy occupied Istanbul and would remain there until 1923.
• Upon surrendering, several Young Turk leaders—including Talaat, Enver, and Djemal—fled the country for Berlin, Germany, where the German government protected their wartime allies from prosecution.
• Under pressure from Allied Powers, especially Great Britain, the new postwar Ottoman government held military trials for the major perpetrators of the genocide.  Evidence collected for the trial documented the program of attempted annihilation of the Armenians and the court concluded that the Young Turk party was responsible.
• Charged with a variety of crimes, dozens were convicted and a small number of Young Turk government officials were executed or imprisoned for their participation in the attempt to annihilate the Armenians.
• Taalat, Djemal, and Enver were found guilty of “first degree mass murder” and sentenced to death. Since they had already fled from the empire their trials occurred in absentia and they were not executed by the Ottoman government.

Activity 3: Read About the Assassination of Talaat

Distribute the reading The Assassination of Mehmed Talaat. Remind students that Mehmed Talaat was one of the three most powerful CUP leaders, and as the Ottoman secretary of the interior he played a primary role in planning and implementing the policy of deporting Armenians to their death. Explain to students that, as the title of the handout suggests, he was assassinated in Berlin in 1921. 

Using the Read Aloud teaching strategy, read The Assassination of Mehmed Talaat as a whole group. Prompt students to annotate the reading by highlighting parts of the text that describe evidence they think would be most persuasive to the jury in the assassin’s murder trial. After reading, you might ask for volunteers to share some of their annotations with the group. Optionally, you might also discuss the questions at the end of the reading to help consolidate students’ understanding of the text.

Activity 4: Hold a Four Corners Discussion About Accountability and Justice

Tell students that they will have a Four Corners discussion about the dilemmas of justice and accountability that come up in the story of Tehlirian’s assassination of Talaat. 

Distribute the handout Justice & Accountability 4 Corners Activity Prep and give students about five minutes to choose and explain their responses to the two statements on the handout. While students work, make sure that the room is set up for the discussion, with signs posted in different corners of the room labeled “Strongly Disagree,” “Disagree,” “Agree,” and “Strongly Agree.”

Now, read one of the statements from Justice & Accountability 4 Corners Activity Prep and invite students to move to the corner of the room that indicates their level of agreement with the statement. Once students are in their places, ask for volunteers to justify their position. When doing so, they should refer to evidence from history, especially from material they learned in this unit, as well as other relevant information from their own experiences. Encourage students to switch corners if someone presents an idea that causes a change of mind.

After a representative from each corner has defended his or her position, you can allow students to question each other’s evidence and ideas. Before beginning the discussion, remind students about norms for having a respectful, open discussion of ideas.

After discussing each statement, debrief by asking students to indicate if they are more certain or less certain about their initial position after hearing what everyone else thinks.  You might also ask students to name any line of reasoning or evidence that they heard in the discussion that they found particularly persuasive.

Time permitting, repeat the Four Corners process for the other question on the handout Justice & Accountability 4 Corners Activity Prep.

Activity 5: Reflecting on Raphael Lemkin’s Question

Explain to students that while Tehlirian’s trial was being held in Berlin in 1922, Raphael Lemkin, a linguistics student who would coin the term genocide two decades later, was following the news from Lvov, Poland. When most people were expecting Tehlirian to be convicted, Lemkin asked one of his professors: Why is the killing of a million a lesser crime than the killing of an individual?

Close the lesson by asking students to reflect in their journals about Lemkin’s question:  

What did Lemkin’s question mean? What was he suggesting about the challenge of holding the perpetrators of what would later be called genocide accountable for their actions?

• 1Telegram sent to American embassy in Constantinople, May 29, 1915, Armenian National Institute, accessed May 6, 2016.