The Forgotten Fire: The Holocaust And The Armenian Genocide

“It is generally not known in the world that, in the years preceding 1916, there was a concerted effort to eliminate all the Armenian people, probably one of the greatest tragedies that ever befell any group. And there weren’t any Nuremberg trials”(Carter, 1987). Jimmy Carter, the thirty-ninth president of the United States, said this quote at the White House reception honoring Armenian Americans in May of 1978. It shows how little is known about the Armenian Genocide and that the survivors never received closure like the Holocaust survivors did with the Nuremberg Trials. During the Armenian Genocide, which lasted from 1915 until 1916, 1.2 million Armenians were brutally murdered. They were murdered in either massacre and individual killings, or from systematic ill-treatment, exposure, and starvation. In the novel Forgotten Fire, the main social issue, the Armenian Genocide, compares to the Holocaust as they both were caused by a hatred of a specific race, they both resulted in extreme violence and immense casualties, and they both had many heroes who made considerable sacrifices on behalf of those being persecuted.

The Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide were sparked by the hatred of a specific minority race, the Jews, and the Armenians. The leaders of the countries involved in genocides often promoted them and contribute to the heinous crimes. Adam Bagdasarian, the author of Forgotten Fire, wrote, “..the name Selim Bey had been on the lips of every Armenian who had