One survivor’s story became a hit book, Ravished Armenia, that was then turned into a silent film. Aurora Mardiganian had made it to Ellis Island in 1917 following the deaths of her mother, father, brother, and sisters. British authorities allowed showing of the film in their country only after producers deleted a scene of Armenian women being crucified—but the story behind that scene shows how today’s Islamic State is not setting the record for barbarism.
Mardiganian acknowledged that the scene, which showed the women crucified on large crosses with their long hair covering their nude bodies, was inauthentic. She said, “The Turks didn’t make their crosses like that. The Turks made little pointed crosses. They took the clothes off the girls. They made them bend down. And after raping them, they made them sit on the pointed wood, through the vagina. That’s the way they killed.”
She said Americans had made a more civilized movie: “They can’t show such terrible things.”
There’s more info at the Armenian Genocide Museum website.