Armenian Genocide, The 20 Martyrs, 1915

The 20 Hunchakian gallows (The 20 Martyrs) is the common name for the group of Hunchakian activists who were hanged during the Armenian Genocide. After spending two years in terrible conditions in Ottoman prisons, and undergoing lengthy mock trials, twenty prominent figures were sentenced to death by hanging. A few weeks after the beginning of the Armenian Genocide on June 15, 1915, all twenty men were hanged in the central square of Constantinople, known as Sultan Bayazid Square. The Armenian Genocide was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians, mostly citizens within the Ottoman Empire. The genocide was carried out during and after WWI and implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labor, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly, and the infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian Desert. The deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre. No photographer credited, 1915

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Anatolian Anti-armenian Armenian Asia-minor Christians Exalted Execute Executed Executing Gallows Genocide Holocaust Infamous Martyrs Notorious Persecute Persecuted Persecuting Persecution Plateau Pogroms

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