A review by rickmanreader
Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide by Eric Bogosian

5.0

I read this not long after finishing [b: The Forty Days of Musa Dagh|438323|The Forty Days of Musa Dagh|Franz Werfel|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1439273144s/438323.jpg|1079358]. That novel, based on an actual event, tells the story of a group of Armenians who successfully resisted deportation. It was good to follow up with this work of non-fiction which documents the plot of a group of survivors to hunt down and assassinate 6 of the main perpetrators of the genocide. Bogosian does a great job of explaining the complicated relationship between the Ottoman Empire and its Armenian citizens and introduces the main players in this forgotten, extremely dark, chapter of history. I was reminded of the book, [b: Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team|132779|Vengeance The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team|George Jonas|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1435349669s/132779.jpg|1678017] in that both are gripping reads and closely follow not only the motivations of the assassins, but also the lives of the targets.

Elie Wiesel said, "To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice." Books like this are invaluable in helping us to remember ... and to provide perspective in understanding the conflicts currently consuming our world.

Tehlirian and his cohorts were not simply avengers. They were a small group of men ... who through their actions, tried to offset in some way the anonymous deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians who died in the deserts and in their homes and in mountain wastelands. No headstones mark where those victims of Talat and his gang fell. Nothing is left of them but our memory of them. To the million and a half Armenians who perished at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during the First World War, and to their countless descendants, the actions of Operation Nemesis shouted, "You existed. You are memorable. We remember you." ~ Eric Bogosian