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Book Review: Operation Nemesis

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  • Book Review: Operation Nemesis

    Kirkus Reviews (Print)
    February 1, 2015, Sunday


    OPERATION NEMESIS
    The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

    NONFICTION


    Actor, playwright and novelist Bogosian (Perforated Heart, 2009, etc.)
    retells the horrors of the Turkish attempt to eradicate the Armenians:
    the century's first ethnic cleansing.The Ottoman Empire was primarily
    Muslim but mostly tolerated Jews and the Christian Armenians. However,
    they were treated as second-class citizens, required to pay extra
    taxes, never eligible for public office and banned from intermarriage.

    In an attempt to modernize, a group of "Young Turks" allied with the
    Armenian Revolutionary Federation in 1908 to overthrow the empire.
    Though it was a bloodless coup, it soon became apparent that the Young
    Turks had no need for the Armenians. The country was ruled by the
    Committee of Union and Progress, a government as ruthless and cruel as
    the old sultan. The CUP was led by a triumvirate of Djemal Pasha,
    Talaat Pasha and Enver Pasha; by 1913, any semblance of democracy was
    lost. Then, in late April 1915, prominent Armenian leaders were
    rounded up and disappeared. This was the beginning of the genocide
    about which Hitler said, "[W]ho remembers the Armenians?" The
    killings, massacres, torture and deportations of Armenians went on
    through World War I. War-crime trials by the occupying British were
    ineffectual. Bogosian explores the life of survivor Soghomon
    Tehlirian, a young man who was fixated on revenge for the deaths of
    his people. In 1919, the ARF approved a "special mission" called
    Nemesis to find and execute the guilty parties, and Tehlirian was the
    perfect man for their mission. He found Pasha in Berlin and killed
    him, then stood trial, thereby bringing the world's attention to the
    fate of the Armenians. The author gives a clear, concise view of
    Turkey's history in the 20th century, and it's not pretty. Difficult
    reading, but an extremely well-written political statement about
    Turkey-not just then, but as it is now.

    Publication Date: 2015-04-21
    Publisher: Little, Brown
    Stage: Adult
    ISBN: 978-0-316-29208-5
    Price: $28.00
    Author: Bogosian, Eric

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