The Shushi prison was indeed like Auschwitz, but for Armenians.
01-08-2026 10:12 Politics
1in.am The president of the "Enlightened Armenia" party, Edmon Marukyan, has commented on the video posted by Azerbaijani President's assistant Hajiyev on Twitter, which was translated from Russian to English, where the author, Richardas Lapatis, referred to the Shushi prison as the "Auschwitz of the Caucasus," meaning that "Nagorno-Karabakh is compared" to a Nazi concentration camp, and that "the entire report is about Armenians, where Armenians are portrayed as animals, cannibals."
Marukyan expressed dissatisfaction that "there is no material in the Armenian press about that report, what kind of video Hikmet posted, what money was spent to take that person to film the Shushi prison," and presented his political assessment: "We are portrayed as a people far from global civilization, who have thrown Azerbaijanis into the Shushi prison and tortured them."
It seems Marukyan is selectively familiar with the Armenian press. The author of these lines published an article on this matter in 1.am, but that is not the essence. In April-August 1991, the "Ring" military operation was carried out in Nagorno-Karabakh by Soviet punitive troops and special forces of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Internal Affairs. Arrested Armenian men were held in the Shushi prison and then transferred to the nearby "Shuvelyan" camp in Baku.
Nvard Soghomonyan, a journalist for the "Soviet Karabakh" newspaper, conducted individual interviews for months with dozens of individuals who were later released in exchange for Azerbaijani prisoners of war from the Shushi prison and "Shuvelyan," based on which she published the book "Ring" in Stepanakert in 1993.
Edmon Marukyan is the president of the party and has connections abroad. I believe Nvard Soghomonyan managed to save at least one copy of the book during the time of exile. My request is for Edmon Marukyan to take care of the expenses for the English and Russian translations and publication of Nvard Soghomonyan's "Ring," and to organize a presentation. A documentary film can also be made based on that material.
This will be a worthy response to Hikmet Hajiyev's "film." The Shushi prison was indeed Auschwitz, but for Armenians. As for why this important matter was not widely promoted in time, it is already a political question, the answer to which, I believe, is one: no one had the courage to "offend" Moscow in Stepanakert and Yerevan.
* This text was automatically translated by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
