Impact in Armenia and Beyond

After 1916: Near East Relief

Near East Relief was the name of the American charity organized at the urging of Ambassador Morgenthau in response to the Armenian Genocide. The American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief was founded in 1915. They appealed to many Americans' sense of Christian duty through public rallies, church collections, and poster campaigns.  With the assistance of charitable organizations and foundations, the Committee raised millions in its  campaigns to save "the starving Armenians." The Committee was able to deliver funds through the American Embassy in Constantinople, which relied upon the missionaries and its consuls to distribute the aid.  Renamed the American Committee for Relief in the Near East in 1918, it was incorporated by an act of Congress in 1919 as Near East Relief (NER).  NER is credited with having cared for 132,000 Armenian orphans scattered across the region  from Tbilisi and Yerevan to Constantinople, Beirut, Damascus, and Jerusalem. Near East Relief was an act of philanthropy, which in the words of the American historian Howard M. Sachar, "quite literally kept an entire nation alive."

The events of 1915 still resonate one hundred years later not only in the cultural history of Armenians around the world, but also in international political relations. Today, Turkey recognizes that many Armenians were killed in 1915, but the term "genocide" is not used. Turkish-Armenian relations are strained at best over this issue. Some countries, including the United States, similarly refuse to use the term "genocide" out of a desire to maintain good relations with Turkey, a major power in the Middle East.

 The Armenian Genocide Today 

However, many international organizations, including the United Nations, and many other nations, including France, Germany, Russia, Canada, and several states within the United States, have recognized the Armenian Genocide. The 100th anniversary of the genocide has brought this controversy to light again, with high profile visits to Armenia; and world leaders, including Pope Francis, who described the World War I-era slaughter of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks as the first genocide of the 20th century.