Systematic Plunder of Armenian & Jewish Assets by Ottomans, Nazis

Most of us know of the appalling slaughter of perhaps 1.5 million Armenians during the 1915 Genocide, and over 6 million Jews during the WW II Holocaust. However, the systematic stealing of their properties and assets are another tragedy, with some dark complicity from other Nations. Knowing the details may alert us to future seizures and genocides.

The Three Pashas, who masterminded the 1915 Turkish Genocide. Assets of Dhimmi (non-Islamic) merchants were registered and held by the government, then seized/sold as “unclaimed property” when the owners never returned (they had conveniently been liquidated by forced labor camps, firing squads, or abandonment in the desert).

1915 Armenian Genocide Deportations and Property Seizures: Armenians, and to a lesser degree Greeks and Assyrians, had been living under the Dhimmi System, in which Christians paid a kind of “Non-Islamic” tax. They prospered under this system, being largely a merchant class and easily paying the tax. When the deportations came in 1915 (at the beginning of WW II, under the pretext of “protecting” the Dhimmi parties), assets were asked to be tallied and registered by the Ottoman government. Ostensibly, this was to ensure that the deported parties could recover their assets upon return.

Unfortunately, the registering of properties was simply a way for the government to legitimately take assets as “unclaimed property” after the owners didn’t return (many died in forced labor or starved in the Syrian Desert). There were no provisions for heirs to claim inherited property, and the processing/redistribution of Dhimmi land continued until the mid-70s, greatly boosting…