Armenian-American Soldiers as Liberators against Nazism

Authors

  • Gregory Aftandilian School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51442/ijags.0062

Keywords:

Armenian Genocide, World War II, survivors, identity, ideology, prisoners, concentration camps

Abstract

Armenian-American soldiers during World War II joined the military largely for the same reasons, as other ethnic Americans at the time, to prove they were just as patriotic as any other American and to erase the derogatory “foreigner” label that had been applied to them by the larger society even though most were born in the United States. However, they were different than most other ethnic American soldiers in that they were the offspring of genocide survivors. Although they did not initially make the connection between the extreme nationalism of the Committee of Union and Progress of the Ottoman Empire that perpetrated the Armenian Genocide and the ideology of Nazism, their wartime experiences, both at home and in Europe, made this connection for them. The highly stressful and emotionally-charged experience of leaving home, with their survivor parents in a very distraught state, made them much more conscious of the genocidal experience. And once these soldiers reached Europe and engaged in the fighting, they saw first-hand what such an evil ideology did to the peoples of that continent. Seeing the effects of the Nazi ideology not only against Jews who were murdered in great numbers in the concentration camps but against fellow Armenians who were brought to Germany as slave laborers and prisoners made them understand that the fight against Nazism was indeed a noble cause and worth all of their sacrifices. From these experiences, some of them indeed saw similarities between what the Armenians had been subjected to in World War I and what the peoples of occupied Europe had just experienced in World War II. The wartime experiences also enhanced their sense of responsibility toward fellow Armenians in need, something they knew their parents would be proud of.

Author Biography

Gregory Aftandilian, School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C.

Senior Professorial Lecturer at American University in Washington, D.C. and is also an adjunct faculty member at Boston University as well as a Non-Resident Fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, D.C. Prior to these positions, he spent over twenty years in U.S. Government service, most recently in Congress where he was a foreign policy advisor to Representative Chris Van Hollen (2007-08), professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy adviser to Senator Paul Sarbanes (2000-04), and foreign policy fellow to Senator Edward Kennedy (1999). Mr. Aftandilian worked for 13 years as a Middle East analyst at the U.S. Department of State. His other government experiences include analytical work for the U.S. Department of Defense and the Library of Congress. He was also a research fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (2006-07) and an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York (1991-92), Mr. Aftandilian is also a specialist in Armenian-American history and is author of the book, Armenia: Vision of a Republic. The Independence Lobby in America, 1918-1927, the articles, “World War II as an Enhancer of Armenian-American Second Generation Identity,” “The Cold War Writings of Reuben Darbinian in the Armenian Review,” and other scholarly monographs dealing with the Armenian-American experience. Mr. Aftandilian holds a B.A. in History from Dartmouth College, an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago, and an M.Sc. in International Relations from the London School of Economics.

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Published

2025-06-18

How to Cite

Aftandilian, G. (2025). Armenian-American Soldiers as Liberators against Nazism. International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies, 10(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.51442/ijags.0062