Interior Ministry Documents and the Intent to Annihilate
Interior Ministry Documents and the Intent to Annihilate
This chapter talks about how, despite all attempts to sanitize the archival record, the surviving documents in the Interior Ministry section of the Prime Ministerial Ottoman Archive are sufficient to show the distinctive character of Ottoman wartime measures against the Armenians: having been uprooted and deported from Anatolia, they were to be denied even rudimentary living conditions. The orders to annihilate the Armenian population did not reach the regional and district officials through the usual governmental channels but instead were hand-delivered by selected Unionist operatives. Although, for this reason, the original orders are unlikely to be found in official correspondence, the mobilization of several branches and agencies of government to implement the policy against the Armenians inevitably left a paper trail within the Ottoman state archive.
Keywords: Prime Ministerian Ottoman Archive, Ottoman wartime measures, Armenians, Anatolia, Unionist operatives, archival record
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