Armenian-American Soldiers as Liberators against Nazism

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.