Historic Atrocities | 60 Minutes Full Episodes

Battle Over History (11s)

• The mass deportation and subsequent massacre of over a million Christian Armenians from Ottoman Turkey during World War I is still a point of contention between Turkey and Armenia, with Armenians and most historians labeling it as genocide, while the Turks deny any wrongdoing and claim they were also victims of the war (30s).
• The largest Armenian cemetery in the world is located in the Syrian desert, where as many as 450,000 Armenians died, and it is considered the greatest graveyard of the Armenian Genocide (1m26s).
• The site, known as Der Zor, is comparable to Auschwitz for Jews, and 95 years after the massacres, evidence of the atrocities is still present, with mass graves and human remains easily accessible (1m50s).
• The evidence of the massacres comes in various forms, including photographs, texts, telegrams, and human remains, which were found by simply scratching the surface of the sand (2m12s).
• In 1915, the Ottoman Empire, crumbling during World War I, viewed the Christian Armenian minority as infidels and a threat, leading to their persecution and eventual deportation (3m24s).
• The Armenians were a prosperous and educated minority, which contributed to their resentment by the ruling Muslims, and their dominant role in commerce and trade was seen as a threat (3m46s).
• The deportations were a well-orchestrated project of government-planned arrests and forced relocations, with many Armenians being forced to buy roundtrip tickets for train journeys from which they never returned (4m0s).
• The survivors of the death marches and concentration camps were mostly women and children, who were forced to travel hundreds of miles, resulting in many deaths from starvation, disease, and brutal killings (4m19s).
• American diplomats in the region sent dispatches to Washington detailing the atrocities they witnessed, including a report from US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, who described the events as a "campaign of race extermination" (4m45s).
• The Turkish government denies any campaign against the Armenians, with the former Turkish ambassador to Washington, Nabbi Senoy, claiming that the bones found in Deror, a site Armenians consider their equivalent of Auschwitz, could have been from anywhere in Turkey (5m8s).
• Senoy argues that the events of 1915 were only deportations and tragic things that happened on the road, but not massacres or genocide, despite evidence of mass executions and death marches (5m41s).
• The UN defines genocide as the intent to destroy a racial, ethnic, or religious group, and Senoy claims that the Turkish government had no intention of annihilating the Armenian population (6m5s).
• Bishop Sarin Sisian, however, believes that the massacres were intended and meticulously executed, showing evidence of caves where Armenians were thrown and killed (6m37s).
• The Ottoman Turks developed a template for genocide that was later adopted by the Nazis, with Adolf Hitler allegedly saying that no one speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians, inspiring him to get rid of a hated minority group (7m18s).
• The Turks dispute the evidence that Hitler ever uttered those words or was inspired by the events of 1915, but the modern Turkish state has erased all memory of what happened to the Armenians, destroying records and not teaching the massacres in schools (7m52s).
• The use of the word genocide is regarded as an insult to the Turkish Nation, and those who use it, like Hrant Dink, who edited an Armenian newspaper in Turkey, have been prosecuted and received death threats (8m10s).
• Dink was eventually shot and killed, and is now viewed as a martyr in Armenia, where he is seen as the latest victim of the genocide (9m7s).
• Every April, hundreds of thousands of people attend a memorial in Yerevan to remind the Turks and the world of what they went through, paying homage to those who died nearly a century ago (9m30s).
• Thousands of Armenian Americans gathered in Time Square to demand that Congress pass a resolution recognizing the genocide, on the same day as a feral burial of victims who never had a proper burial (9m44s).
• Two years ago, when a resolution was to be put to a vote in the house, Turkey recalled Ambassador Sensoy in protest, its president warned of serious troubles, and its top General said military ties with the US would never be the same (10m4s).
• The Bush Administration and eight former secretaries of State weighed in to kill the bill, which ultimately worked as eight former secretaries of State rallied behind Turkey to defeat that resolution (10m19s).
• The importance of Turkey for the United States is cited as the reason for the US not recognizing the Armenian genocide, with a long list of positive agenda items between the two countries, including Turkey being a regional superpower and an essential broker between the US and the Muslim World (10m32s).
• Turkey has the second largest army in NATO, and the US relies on the country's air bases for its Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with 70% of American supplies to those Wars going through Turkey (10m57s).
• Turkey is also a crucial conduit for oil, which is likely why no US president has uttered the word genocide during his presidential campaign (11m13s).
• Candidate Obama promised to use the word "genocide" to describe the Armenian Genocide, citing it as a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence, but as President, he never mentioned the word during his first overseas trip to Turkey (11m24s).
• The US broke an agreement between Turkey and Armenia to establish diplomatic relations, with a key condition being the formation of a historical commission to rule on whether a genocide took place, but the deal appears to be unraveling nearly 6 months later (11m46s).

Canada's Unmarked Graves (12m16s)

• In Canada, archaeologists detected around 200 unmarked graves at an old school, bringing attention to the country's history of residential schools, where over 150,000 indigenous children were forcibly taken from their parents and sent to schools funded by the state and run by churches from the 1880s to the 20th century (12m16s).
• The children were often referred to as "Savages" and were forbidden from speaking their languages or practicing their traditions, with many being physically and sexually abused, and thousands never making it home (12m55s).
• The last of Canada's 139 residential schools for indigenous children closed in 1998, with most being torn down, but the Mcowan residential school in Saskatchewan still stands as a reminder of the nation's past (13m9s).
• Leona Wolf, who was taken from her home at the age of 5 in 1960, shares her experience of being punished for speaking her language and being physically and emotionally abused at the Mcowan school (13m47s).
• School officials and police would often show up unannounced in indigenous communities and round up children, with parents being jailed if they refused to hand their children over (13m55s).
• When kids arrived at the schools, their traditional long hair was shaved off, and they were given new names, with Chief Wilton Littlechild being given the number 65 instead of a name (16m10s).
• The abuse suffered by the children at the Mcowan school, including physical, psychological, spiritual, and sexual abuse, has had long-lasting effects on the survivors, including Leona Wolf and Chief Wilton Littlechild (16m28s).
• The idea for the residential schools came in part from the United States, with the Carlisle Indian Industrial School opening in Pennsylvania in 1879, which had the motto "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" (15m40s).
• Canada's first prime minister supported the mission of the residential schools, which was to "sever children from the tribe and civilize them" (15m14s).
• Chief Littlechild, a survivor of the Canadian residential school system, shares his story of overcoming the trauma he experienced as a child, which included physical abuse and being forced to play hockey to channel his anger (16m49s).
• In 2008, the Canadian government formally apologized for its policies and established a $1.9 billion compensation fund and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which Chief Littlechild helped lead for six years (17m21s).
• The commission heard testimony from survivors across the country and concluded that what happened was cultural genocide, identifying over 3,000 children who died from disease, abuse, or trying to run away (18m18s).
• A government study in 1909 found that the death rate in some schools was as high as 20 times the national average, and most schools had their own cemeteries, with some children's deaths not being reported to their parents (18m33s).
• Archaeologists have recently detected unmarked graves at former residential schools, including 200 in British Columbia and 751 in Saskatchewan, which has led to calls for the government and churches to open their archives to help identify the missing children (19m3s).
• Chief Cadmus Delorme is working to discover the names of the children buried in unmarked graves and hopes to give them dignity in death, stating that Canada must accept the truth before reconciliation can occur (19m44s).
• The discoveries of the graves have opened deep wounds, leading to vandalism and destruction of churches, marches demanding the pope's apology, and indigenous communities conducting their own searches for missing children (20m20s).
• Archaeologists have used ground-penetrating radar to discover unmarked graves, including 35 at the Mcowan school, and have found evidence of children being forced to dig their classmates' graves (20m40s).
• Survivor accounts describe the traumatic experience of being forced to dig graves for their classmates, with some children as young as 10 or 11 being made to perform this task (21m3s).
• The search for unmarked graves at former residential schools will continue for years, a process described as emotional, devastating, and heartbreaking for those involved (21m23s).
• Indigenous communities still feel the impacts of these institutions in their everyday lives, with overrepresentation in child welfare, adoptions, foster care, and prisons, which can be directly linked to the pain passed on from generation to generation (21m35s).
• Ed Bittos, a former student of the McOwan school, was taken from his parents at the age of 8 and experienced physical and emotional abuse, including being forced to kneel on a broom handle for 3 days (22m0s).
• Ed Bittos also reported being abused by other students and later sexually molested by a nun, which led to a life of violence and alcoholism before he found healing through rediscovering his Creek culture (22m39s).
• Ed Bittos's life changed when he began raising buffalo and sharing traditional knowledge with children, allowing him to understand the concept of love and eventually express it to his wife (23m25s).
• Leona Wolf's life and the lives of her children and grandchildren have been affected by intergenerational trauma, violence, and substance abuse, which she believes began when her mother was sent to the McOwan school (23m55s).
• Leona Wolf is working to break the cycle of trauma by reconnecting with her traditions and is hopeful that she can create a better future for her great-grandchildren (24m49s).
• Mary Leona Wolf has found peace by reconnecting with her traditions and has even made peace with the Virgin Mary by singing a prayer she was forced to learn in school, but now sings in her own way (25m1s).
• Pope Francis apologized to Canada's indigenous peoples for the abuses they suffered in Catholic-run residential schools and will travel to Canada to make the apology in person (25m34s).

Exhume the Truth (25m54s)

• The death of George Floyd in the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020 drew comparisons to the 1921 massacre of black Americans in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which occurred 99 years earlier during the same week (26m1s).
• In 1921, a white mob burned down the wealthy black community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, fueled by jealousy and incendiary rage, leaving unmarked graves and erased memories (26m28s).
• Before the pandemic in 2019, the city of Tulsa was preparing to confront its past with a plan to exhume the truth and raise the dead, including the remains of those killed in the 1921 massacre (26m38s).
• Greenwood was a thriving black community with businesses, professional offices, doctors, lawyers, and dentists, earning it the nickname "Negro Wall Street" from Booker T. Washington (27m39s).
• Historian John W. Franklin's grandfather, Buck Colbert Franklin, was a lawyer who moved to Greenwood in 1921 and witnessed the massacre, which began with a false accusation of a black teenager attacking a white female elevator operator (27m28s).
• The incident escalated into a riot, with a white mob demanding the prisoner and black veterans of World War I arriving to shield the defendant, leading to a running gun battle and the mob chasing the black vets to Greenwood (28m32s).
• The riot resulted in the destruction of Greenwood, with planes dropping turpentine balls to set buildings on fire, marking the first time in American history that airplanes were used to terrorize a community (30m40s).
• At least five churches, including Reverend Robert Turner's Vernon AME Church, and 12,200 homes were burned during the massacre, leaving a lasting impact on the community (30m54s).
• The 1921 Tulsa massacre destroyed 36 square blocks of the city, with looting occurring before the destruction, and the Black Hospital was burned down, leaving its wounded to be turned away by white hospitals, resulting in many deaths, including Greenwood's most prominent surgeon (31m8s).
• The estimated number of dead ranges from 150 to 300, with 10,000 African-Americans left homeless, and 6,000 of them were herded into internment camps before being released weeks later (31m34s).
• The massacre was not taught in Tulsa public schools, and many people, including those who grew up in Tulsa, were unaware of the event, with some only learning about it in college (32m20s).
• The Vernon AME Church congregation was also victimized, and the event was not discussed in public schools or in the community (32m29s).
• No one was arrested or tried for the massacre, and no insurance claims were paid to African-Americans, including the church, despite thousands of claims being filed (33m15s).
• The Salvation Army recorded feeding 37 gravediggers, and the nameless were buried in unmarked graves while their families were locked down in internment camps (33m49s).
• There are doubts about the existence of mass graves in Tulsa, but oral history passed down through generations points to at least four possible sites (34m3s).
• In 2018, Tulsa's Republican mayor, GT Bynum, ordered an investigation of all remaining evidence, viewing it as a homicide investigation (34m27s).
• Ground-penetrating radar has been used to search for anomalies in the earth, which could indicate the presence of mass graves, with one anomaly found in the study of Scott Hammerstad (34m52s).
• The anomalies found are consistent with a common grave, but it is not possible to confirm without further investigation (35m32s).
• An excavation in October, led by University of Florida forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield, revealed a mass grave with at least 12 individuals, which may be linked to a historic massacre, but determining the cause of death will be complicated due to the Spanish Flu pandemic at the time (35m47s).
• The excavation team is looking for markers such as signs of violence, ballistic injuries, or chop injuries to confirm the cause of death, and DNA retrieval is possible if the preservation state is good, with a high probability of success (36m23s).
• It may be possible to identify some of the individuals through genealogical matches, by comparing DNA samples from relatives who went missing during that time period (36m31s).
• The 1921 Tulsa massacre has left a long legacy of segregation, with Tulsa still being one of the most segregated cities in the country, and significant racial disparities in health and life expectancy (36m52s).
• A full excavation is set to begin on June 1st, and the next steps will include recommendations for permanent burial and how to honor those who have waited 100 years for justice (37m28s).
• Commemorating the event will be challenging due to the lack of names of the victims, and a representative memorial, such as a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, may be necessary to honor the lost souls (38m16s).

Grave Injustice (38m39s)

• Human remains began surfacing in Clearwater, Florida, at various locations, including a pipeline crew that churned up bones in a trench, an elementary school, a swimming pool, and an office building, revealing a dark history of the old segregated South (38m40s).
• In the first half of the 20th century, Clearwater Heights was a thriving black neighborhood with a strong sense of community and faith, anchored by several churches, including Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, Bethany CME, and New Zion Missionary Baptist Church (39m24s).
• Residents of Clearwater Heights, such as Diane Stevens and Elanar Breeland, shared stories of their childhood, including the presence of businesses, such as barber shops, hairdressers, and a cab company, as well as performances by famous artists like Ray Charles and James Brown (39m45s).
• Despite the community's vibrancy, segregation bound their lives, and even famous performers could not stay in white hotels, walk on the beach, or swim in the bay, leading to the exile of their memory to segregated graveyards (40m20s).
• The segregated cemeteries of Clearwater were considered sacred ground until the 1950s, when the city made a deal to move hundreds of African American bodies to make way for a swimming pool and a department store (40m46s).
• O'Neal Lin, 83 years old, remembered witnessing a construction crew dig a trench through the site of a relocated black cemetery in 1984, revealing that many bodies were not moved as promised (41m23s).
• In 2019, the Tampa Bay Times reported that many segregated cemeteries in Florida had been paved over, leading the city of Clearwater to exhume the truth and treat the individuals with respect (41m50s).
• Archaeologists Rebecca O'Sullivan and Aaron McKendry were hired by the city to map the desecration of the cemeteries, using ground-penetrating radar to locate likely graves, including 328 graves under a parking lot and office building (42m20s).
• The archaeologists found evidence of 11 graves having been moved in the 1950s, but it is possible that hundreds of bodies still remain at the site (43m4s).
• Another former cemetery was probed, revealing what appears to be an intact grave site, contradicting the city's claim that hundreds of bodies were moved to build a black swimming pool and school (43m21s).
• Archaeologists have confirmed the existence of a long-lost African American cemetery in Clearwater, Florida, after excavating the site and finding human remains, including teeth and bones, as well as relics such as a Mercury Dime and a brass wedding ring (43m44s).
• The cemetery is believed to be located beneath the footprint of a school building that was constructed in 1961, and it is likely that the construction process disturbed the graves, with some families possibly unable to afford tombstones (44m31s).
• The archaeologists found that some graves were marked with metal plaques, which would have been used initially after burial if a stone was not ready to be placed (45m5s).
• The tributes and disturbed human remains were carefully reburied exactly where they were found, pending a decision on what to do next (45m41s).
• Anthropologist Antoinette Jackson is leading a project to build a database of desecrated African American cemeteries nationwide, with around 107 sites listed so far, including those in Clearwater, Florida (46m46s).
• These cemeteries have been built over, erased, marginalized, and underfunded, and Jackson's project aims to bring forward the memory and knowledge of these sites and the families who lived, died, and contributed to their communities (47m4s).
• The issue of lost and abandoned cemeteries is not unique to African American communities, but it is more acute due to historical issues such as slavery and segregation (47m37s).
• When a cemetery disappears, history, respect, and the ability to visit and bring closure to one's own soul are lost, and a cemetery is supposed to be a final, honorable resting place (48m7s).
• In Clearwater, there is ongoing debate about how to honor those buried beneath the school and the property of the Frank Crumb company, which bought its headquarters decades after the cemetery was established (48m21s).
• Sebie Atkinson, the former head of the Clearwater NAACP, believes that the decision to disturb or not disturb the Missouri Avenue site, where bodies are buried, should not be made by those who do not have family members buried there (48m40s).
• The community is discussing what to do with the bodies, with some wanting to move them to a place where they can be properly memorialized, while others want to leave them where they are (49m3s).
• The city of Clearwater is spending $291,000 to learn the truth about the graves and is searching for a compromise that will honor the dead (49m40s).
• The Frank Crumb Corporation has expressed its desire to be part of the community's solution, with ideas including monuments (49m51s).
• O'Neal Lin believes that the only route to justice is to tear down the building and create a shrine of memories to properly remember and treat the deceased with dignity (50m1s).
• In contrast to the treatment of the black cemeteries, the white cemeteries in Clearwater have been treated with dignity, with monuments and decorations, including a fresh banner on a Confederate soldier's grave (50m26s).
• Only a few images of those buried in the black cemeteries of Clearwater are available, including Reverend Arthur L. Jackson, Reverend Joseph Hines, and Mack Dixon senior, while the faces of over 500 others remain unknown due to segregation and lost memories (51m4s).

The Nuremberg Prosecutor (51m39s)

• Ben Ferencz, a 97-year-old man, holds a significant place in history as the prosecutor of what's been called the biggest murder trial ever, which took place in the Nuremberg courtroom after World War II (51m39s).
• The trial involved a group of German SS officers accused of committing the largest number of Nazi killings outside the concentration camps, with over a million men, women, and children shot in their own towns and villages in cold blood (52m3s).
• Ferencz is the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive today and believes he has something important to offer the world, having seen the ugliest side of humanity and evil during his time as a prosecutor (52m31s).
• Despite his age, Ferencz is still active, enjoying his daily swim, gym workout, and morning push-up regimen, which includes 100 push-ups (52m57s).
• Ferencz made his opening statement in the Nuremberg courtroom 73 years ago, presenting a plea of humanity to love and accusing the defendants of having committed crimes against humanity (53m14s).
• The Nuremberg trials were historic, being the first International war crimes tribunals ever held, with Hitler's top lieutenants being prosecuted first, followed by subsequent trials against other Nazi leaders (53m33s).
• Ferencz was 27 years old when he prosecuted the trial, having never prosecuted a trial before, and had immigrated to the US as a baby, the son of poor Jewish parents from a small town in Romania (54m1s).
• Ferencz grew up in a tough New York City neighborhood, became the first in his family to go to college, and got a scholarship to Harvard Law School, but enlisted in the Army after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor (54m14s).
• Ferencz was transferred to a brand new unit in General Patton's third Army to investigate war crimes as US forces liberated concentration camps, and his job was to rush in and gather evidence (55m10s).
• Ferencz is still haunted by the things he saw and the stories he heard in those camps, including the story of a father who saved a piece of bread for his son, who had died just as they were entering the camp (55m28s).
• Ferencz came home, married his childhood sweetheart, and vowed never to set foot in Germany again, but eventually returned to prosecute the trial (56m9s).
• General Telford Taylor asked Ben Fen to direct a team of researchers in Berlin, where they found a cache of top-secret documents in the ruins of the German Foreign Ministry, including daily reports from the Eastern Front detailing the number of people killed by unit, including Jews, gypsies, and others (56m23s).
• The documents revealed the existence of secret SS units called Einsatzgruppen or action groups, whose job was to follow the German Army as it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and kill Communists, Gypsies, and especially Jews (56m53s).
• There were 3,000 SS officers trained for the purpose and directed to kill without pity or remorse every single Jewish man, woman, and child they could lay their hands on (57m8s).
• The Einsatzgruppen would round up Jews, kill them, and only one piece of film is known to exist of the Einsatzgruppen at work, which is difficult to watch (57m22s).
• Ben Fen started adding up the numbers from the documents and reached over a million people murdered by the Einsatzgruppen (57m56s).
• Fen took the information to General Taylor, who initially told him that adding another trial was impossible due to the ongoing Nuremberg trials and stretched prosecution staff (58m10s).
• However, Fen convinced Taylor to let him take on the case, and at 27 years old, he became the chief prosecutor of 22 Einsatzgruppen commanders at trial number nine at Nuremberg (58m32s).
• The defendants all pleaded not guilty, but Fen knew they were guilty and could prove it without calling a single witness by entering into evidence the defendants' own reports of what they had done (58m56s).
• The reports, such as exhibit 111, detailed the number of Jews liquidated, and exhibit 179 described the killing of 34,000 Jews in Kiev in 1941 (59m7s).
• The lead defendant, Otto Ohlendorf, did not deny the killings but claimed they were done in self-defense, which he was proud of as he was carrying out his government's instructions (59m48s).
• All 22 defendants in a historic trial were found guilty, with four of them, including Olendorf, being hanged, as stated by Fen, who aimed to affirm the rule of law and deter similar crimes from being committed again (1h1m0s).
• Fen met many people who perpetrated war crimes, who would otherwise have been normal, upstanding citizens, and believes that these men would never have been murderers had it not been for the war (1h1m25s).
• Fen thinks that war makes murderers out of otherwise decent people, and he has spent his life trying to deter war and war crimes by establishing an international court (1h2m6s).
• Fen scored a victory when the International Criminal Court in The Hague was created in 1998, and he delivered the closing argument in the court's first case (1h2m26s).
• Despite the creation of the International Criminal Court, genocide has continued to occur in places like Sudan, Rwanda, and Bosnia, but Fen remains optimistic and encourages people not to be discouraged (1h2m43s).
• Fen believes that wanting peace instead of war is not naive, but rather a necessary goal, and he continues to push his message of "War, not war, never give up" (1h3m41s).
• Fen is donating much of his savings to a genocide prevention initiative at the Holocaust Museum and is grateful for the life he has lived in the United States (1h3m50s).
• Fen considers himself a realist, not an idealist, and sees the progress that has been made in areas like the emancipation of women and same-sex marriages (1h4m2s).
• At 97 years old, Fen remains energetic and passionate about his cause, and believes that he is right in his pursuit of peace and justice (1h4m43s).