On the eve of launching a genocidal conflict in 1939, Adolf Hitler is reported to have asked,

who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?

The event he was referring to was the near decade-long systematic destruction of the ethnic Armenian community

living in the Ottoman Empire or today's Turkey. Hitler was alluding to the old adage that

history is written by the victors. In essence, you can do the most terrible things, but if you come out on top and control the narrative,

then no one knows or seemingly cares.

A century later, the Armenian genocide hasn't been forgotten, least of all in the now

independent nation of Armenia.

But Hitler was partially right.

History and narratives pertaining to the past aren't always accurate.

And today, a rival version of history exists within Turkish society

in which there was no genocide.

In this episode, I speak with Professor Joachim Sablesberg, author of knowing about genocide,

Armenian suffering and epistemic struggles.

We discuss how trauma and terrible events of the past come to be viewed differently through the prism of society.

Yo, Kim, I've read estimates saying that up to 1.5 million Armenian people died during this genocide,

either through being directly murdered or put in situations

where inevitably they would die because they were starved and left without resources in the

middle of the desert and so forth. And yet we have what in today's political climate, I guess we could call alternative facts

with regard to the Armenian genocide.

And the Turkish government and sections of Turkish society have this different story.

In a practical way, how did this arise? How did they go about creating this alternative

...