Panayiotis Diamadis

Panayiotis Diamadis is a genocide scholar specialising in the Genocides of the Hellenes, Armenians and Assyrians. Born in Sydney, Australia, he holds four qualifications from The University of Sydney: a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD), a Master of Arts, a Graduate Diploma in Education (Secondary) and a Bachelor of Arts. A student of genocide scholar Colin Tatz, he has followed his mentor into the field of comparative genocide studies. Since 2000, he has served as a Vice-President of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, including teaching Genocide Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney between 1999 and 2015.

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His international lectures include Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, Jerusalem, Israel, as well as at conferences and associations in Greece, Austria and England. Within Australia, he is a regular presenter at the annual International Conferences of the Australian Association of Jewish Studies, the biennial International Conferences of the Australian Association of Modern Greek Studies,) the biennial International Conferences on Greek Studies at Flinders University (Adelaide, South Australia)] and other academic meetings.

Diamadis' work in Shoah studies focuses on Greece and Cyprus. He has developed and presented studies on the languages of the Romaniote Jews of Ioannina before the Shoah, and on the rescue of eastern European Jews by smugglers of the Hellenic underworld in the 1930s and 1940s. In recent years, Diamadis' research focus around the Shoah has shifted to the interaction of Cyprus and Israel, especially the emerging strategic alliance. Amongst his papers around the Holocaust are:

"Romaniotes and Gregos" Australian Association of Jewish Studies Annual Conference, The University of Sydney, 13 February 2017

«Η σχέση της παιδείας και γενοκτονίας»: oι περιπτώσεις των Ελλήνων, των Αρμενίων, των Ασσυρίων και των Ισραηλιτών 1910-1945» (The relationship between education and genocide: the Hellenic, Armenian, Assyrian and Jewish cases) Πρακτικά του Στρογγυλού Τραπεζιού: «Σχολείο, παιδί και κοινωνία» στα πλαίσια του διεθνής συνεδρίου «Παιδική Ηλικία: Κοινωνιολογικές, Πολιτισμικές, Ιστορικές και παιδαγωγικές Διαστάσεις», Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών, 11- 14 Απριλίου 2013 (Proceedings of the Childhood: Sociological, Cultural, Historical and Paedagogical Dimensions International Conference, National University of Athens, 11–14 April 2013)

‘Australian Responses to Hellenic Genocide in 1910-1930s with additional references to Responses to the Assyrian Genocide and to the Shoah’ Genocide Prevention Now Issue 11, Fall 2012

The Myth of Refuge: Jews Under Turkish Rule’ Genocide Perspectives III (2006) Sydney: Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, pp. 214–247.

Diamadis' works on the genocides of the indigenous peoples of eastern Thrace, Anatolia and Mesopotamia (Bet-Nahrain) consistently include material on the Hellenes, Armenians and Assyrians together. A fierce advocate of the recognition of the three genocides by political and legislative bodies, Diamadis' work is regularly cited by parliamentarians the Hon. Cherie Burton MP the Hon David Clarke MLC; the Hon. Rev. Fred Nile MLC

Of particular interest to Australian lawmakers are the references of Australian servicemen to the genocides of the Hellenes, Armenians and Assyrians, accounts that arose out of the experiences of Anzac prisoners-of-war and other servicemen during World War One. Drawing on archival material held in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and the National Archives of Australia, Diamadis' work has returned to the light evidence on the state-orchestrated genocidal campaign against the indigenous peoples of Anatolia and Mesopotamia. During their terms as prisoners-of-war in the Ottoman Turkish Empire (1915-1918), over 400 ANZACs – Australians and New Zealanders – reported events of the Genocides of the Hellenes, Armenians and Assyrians which they either witnessed themselves or heard from their Muslim guards (of various nationalities: Turkish, Kurdish, Arab, Circassian and more). ANZACs were taken prisoner on all the battlefronts they were facing the Ottoman Turkish forces: the Sinai Peninsula and Palestine; Mesopotamia (modern Iraq); and the Gallipoli Peninsula and the Hellespont (Dardanelles).

Australian Flying Corps Captain Thomas W. White was captured in central Mesopotamia. In his memoir, Guests of the Unspeakable, he recorded that the Allied prisoners who were kept in the Armenian church in the city of Afyon Karahisar used its graveyard as their "exercise yard". White wrote that "[t]he iron-covered [Armenian] cemetery gates were riddled with bullets as if by machine gun fire and suggested that some Armenians had sold their lives dearly".

White’s presence at Afyon Karahisar is recorded in Shall this Nation Die?, the account of another internee Fr. Joseph Naayem, an Assyrian Catholic priest whose work includes eyewitness accounts of the Assyrian and Armenian genocides.

Thomas White went on to become the Member for Balaclava (since incorporated into the seat of Goldstein, in metropolitan Melbourne). Guests of the Unspeakable is but one of a large volume of Australian eyewitness accounts of the inhuman events of the Hellenic, Armenian and Assyrian Genocides. expertise in this field has been recognised by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) current affairs program, The 7:30 Report, "Turkey threatens to ban outspoken politicians from the Anzac Commemoration in 2015"

Amongst his geopolitical papers are History repeating: from the Battle of Broken Hill to the sands of Syria (The Conversation), which presents the ideological continuity between the genocides of 1914-1924 and the present wars in Iraq and Syria.

A complete list of his publications and public lectures is available at uts.academia.edu/PanayiotisDiamadis