Author: Babajanian Karo

THE INTERNATIONAL RAOUL WALLENBERG FOUNDATION WILL RENDER HOMAGE TO THE ARMENIAN RESCUERS

Lragir.am
Society – 24 February 2015, 13:00

The Board of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation (IRWF)
has decided to create a Memorial Plaque to pay tribute to the brave
Armenian women and men who reached-out to the victims of Holocaust.

To date, 24 Armenians have been officially recognized as Righteous
among the Nations, but many more stories are waiting to be revealed.

Researchers from the IRWF are collecting and evaluating information
regarding additional Armenian rescuers, whose feats have not been
hitherto properly documented.

In a special statement, Mr. Eduardo Eurnekian, Chairman of the
International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation has elaborated further:
“Despite the small size of the Armenian nation, the share of Armenian
rescuers is remarkable, exemplifying the spirit of solidarity of this
ancient people. The Wallenberg Foundation is proud to have embarked
in a two-pronged quest to unveil unknown cases of rescue protagonized
by Armenians and paying tribute to those who have been recognized and
those who are still awaiting recognition. The decision of the IRWF to
create a specially designed Memorial Plaque is our way to recognize
their courageous deeds and say thanks to these heroes”.

The commemorative plaques will be affixed in major cities of the world.

The Armenian Association of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, which headquarters are
adjacent to the St. Nicholas Monastery will be the first house to
host the commemorative plaque.

The same will be unveiled in a special ceremony at a future date to
be determine.

WHAT HINDERS EDMON MARUKYAN FROM JOINING HHK (VIDEO)

19:10 | February 24,2015 | Politics

When becoming a deputy independent deputy Edmon Marukyan didn’t promise
his electors that by entering the National Assembly he would demand
Serzh Sargsyan’s resignation, “As I have known that it is unrealistic.”

Now he is fighting so that the radical opposition leaves the politics
and new opposition comes, “All are happy in this system. It means
that they can shout every day, they can demand the resignation of
Serzh Sargsyan, but when an impeachment project comes, not to vote
for the project.”

It turns out that the opposition is happy that they are not government,
“Yes. As they don’t want to come to power.”

Independent deputy thinks that all three Presidents have hindered
the formation of opposition in Armenia, and what we have has no
connection with political culture, “See, when I was making speech,
those, whom I was criticizing, hampered me, in the same way Arakel
Movsisyan hampered them. So what is the difference for me?”

But the opposition doesn’t threaten the authorities with bloodshed,
the authorities threaten with bloodshed if the opposition comes out
into the streets. So, mustn’t the head promising bloodshed, leave
without elections? “No one must leave without elections, as the next
will be worse.”

Normal electoral system, normal political powers are needed, which
will replace each other without bloodshed. Asked how there could
be regime change under the rule of a person, who threatens with
bloodshed, Edmon Marukyan answered, “First, I have no information
about the threat of bloodshed. Second, no one is speaking of that
fact at the moment. Third, I think that there is enough political
freedom in Armenia.”

What hinders Edmon Marukyan from joining HHK? Edmon Marukyan answers
that the fact, that the Republican Party like the opposition is in
favor of the Eurasian Economic Union, hinders him.

But independent deputy didn’t clarify why four years ago he didn’t join
the Republican Party, which led Armenia into the European Association.

TURKEY PAYS $1 MILLION TO EGYPT FOR ERASING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE TRACES

00:04, 24.02.2015

The Turkish authorities had paid $1 million to the Muslim Brotherhood
of Egypt for the eradication of the documents in the country, and
which attest to the Armenian Genocide.

At the Egyptian Cabinet meeting, Democratic Jihad Party Founder
Sheikh Nabil Na’eem stated that Turkey had given over $1 million to
Egypt to destroy the documents pertaining to the Armenian Genocide,
Demokrathaber website of Turkey reported citing the Veto newspaper
of Egypt. He also accused several Muslim Brotherhood members of
eradicating these documents.

The Egyptian newspaper noted that the Armenian Genocide-related
documents, which the Muslim Brotherhood had burned, would have put
Turkey in a difficult situation at international courts.

Nabil Na’eem also insisted that Egypt should punish Turkey for the
riddance of these documents.

SAINT-GREGOIRE DE NAREK DOCTEUR DE L’EGLISE

Religion

Saint Gregoire de Narek sera prochainement declare docteur de l’Eglise
universelle. Le Pape Francois a donne son approbation samedi matin,
au cours d’une audience accordee au prefet de la Congregation pour
la Cause des saints. Ce moine armenien est ne vers 950 et mort vers
1005 dans une region qui faisait alors partie de l’Armenie et qui se
trouve aujourd’hui en territoire turc, sur la rive sud du lac de Van.

Grand auteur mystique, Gregoire de Narek est surtout connu pour son
recueil de prières, d’environ 20 000 vers, compose en l’an 1000 et
utilise dans la liturgie armenienne. Les thèmes principaux de l’oeuvre
de Saint Gregoire, appreciee pour son expression poetique vigoureuse,
sont la solidarite dans le peche, la confiance en la Misericorde
divine malgre la necessite absolue du combat spirituel et l’amour de
la vie mystique. Passionne par l’etude des Pères de l’Eglise, Saint
Gregoire a passe presque toute sa vie au monastère de Narek. Hommage
de saint Jean-Paul II

En 2001, a l’occasion du 17° centenaire du bapteme du peuple armenien,
Jean-Paul II avait rendu hommage a ce grand poète spirituel >.

L’annonce de sa proclamation comme docteur de l’Eglise intervient
a deux mois des commemorations du centenaire du massacre des
armeniens par les Turcs, le 24 avril 1915, question ultra-sensible
qui complique les rapports entre Ankara et une vingtaine de pays qui
ont officiellement reconnu le genocide armenien. Aujourd’hui encore
les blessures ne sont pas refermees. Le 23 avril, les victimes de ce
massacre seront beatifiees a Etchmiadzine, ville où le se trouve le
siège de l’Eglise apostolique armenienne. A Rome, le Pape Francois
celèbrera une messe pour les fidèles armeniens le 12 avril prochain,
en la fete de la divine Misericorde, dans la basilique Saint-Pierre.

mardi 24 fevrier 2015, Jean Eckian (c)armenews.com

D´autres informations disponibles : sur Radio Vatican

JAAFARY, ARMENIAN AMBASSADOR DISCUSS PREPARATIONS FOR HOLDING 1ST MEETING OF JOINT COMMITTEE

All Iraq News Agency (AIN)
February 23, 2015 Monday

A statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs received by AIN cited
“Jaafari received an invitation from his Armenian counterpart to visit
Armenia. He asserted that Iraq seeks to open to the world countries
on the basis of mutual interests and facing common threats, adding
that he would visit Armenia to boost relations.”

“For his part, the Armenian Ambassador stressed his country’s keenness
on enhancing bilateral relations, noting that Armenia is providing
lots of aids to the displaced Iraqi families, thanking the Iraqi
government for exerting efforts to preserve the security and safety
of the minorities in Iraq,” the statement concluded. /End/

ARMIN WEGNER, WRITER, POET AND EYEWITNESS TO THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

February 24, 2015

Intellectual, Doctor in Law, Photographer, Writer, Poet, Civil Rights
Defender, Eyewitness to the Armenian Genocide

Armin Theophil Wegner (1886-1978)

Armin T. Wegner, whose photographic collection documents conditions
in Armenian deportation camps in 1915-1916, was born in Germany
in 1886. At the outbreak of World War I, he enrolled as a volunteer
nurse in Poland during the winter of 1914-1915, and was decorated with
the Iron Cross for assisting the wounded under fire. In April 1915,
following the military alliance of Germany and Turkey, he was sent
to the Middle East as a member of the German Sanitary Corps. Between
July and August, he used his leave to investigate the rumors about
the Armenian massacres that had reached him from several sources. In
the autumn of the same year, with the rank of second-lieutenant in
the retinue of Field Marshal Von der Goltz, commander of the 6th
Ottoman army in Turkey, he traveled through Asia Minor.

Eluding the strict orders of the Turkish and German authorities
(intended to prevent the spread of news, information, correspondence,
visual evidence), Wegner collected notes, annotations, documents,
letters and took hundreds of photographs in the Armenian deportation
camps. With the help of foreign consulates and embassies of other
countries, he was able to send some of this material to Germany and the
United States. His clandestine mail routes were discovered and Wegner
was arrested by the Germans at the request of the Turkish Command-and
was put to serve in the cholera wards. Having fallen seriously ill,
he left Baghdad for Constantinople in November 1916.

Hidden in his belt were his photographic plates and those of other
German officers with images of the Armenian Genocide to which he
had been a witness. In December of the same year he was recalled
to Germany.

Wegner was deeply moved by the tragedy of the Armenian people to which
he had been eyewitness in Ottoman Turkey. Between 1918 and 1921,
he became an active member of pacifist and anti-military movements
while dedicating his literary and poetic output to the search for
the truth about himself and his fellow man. On February 23, 1919,
Wegner’s “Open Letter to President Wilson” appealing for the creation
of an independent Armenian state was published in Berliner Tageblatt.

A man of conscience who protested his country’s responsibilities in
the Armenian Genocide, Wegner was also one of the earliest voices to
protest Hitler’s treatment of the Jews in Germany. He dedicated a great
part of his life to the fight for Armenian and Jewish human rights.

In 1968 he received an invitation to Armenia from the Catholicos
of All Armenians and was awarded with the Order of Saint Gregory
the Illuminator.

Armin Wegner died in Rome at the age of 92 on May 17, 1978.

Wegner served as a witness during the trial of Soghomon Tehlirian, who
had assassinated the Ottoman leader, Talaat Pasha, in Berlin in 1921.

GROUP TO DEAL WITH ARMENIAN POGROMS IN SUMGAIT NEEDED – LARISA ALAVERDYAN

13:44 * 24.02.15

The Armenian pogroms in Sumgait, Azerbaijan, are ready material
for drafting a package similar to the one by the Commission for
Coordination of events on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide, Larisa Alaverdyan, Executive Director of the Foundation
against the Violation of Law, told reporters on Tuesday as she spoke
of the 27th anniversary of the Armenian pogroms in Sumgait.

“Armenians in Azerbaijan were not a national minority. They were a
people that built up Azerbaijan,” she said.

Ms Alaverdyan pointed out the need for government’s involvement.

“We have to apply to relevant bodies for both funds and experts.

Enthusiasm alone is not enough now.”

INFANTS PLACED IN HOT OVENS AND BURNED ALIVE BY TURKS – THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, FEBRUARY 20, 1916

February 24, 2015

Infants Placed In Hot Ovens And Burned Alive By Turks, Says American
Missionary Rev. E. A. Yarrow

Special Dispatch To The Exquirer.

New York, February 19.- “One of the most diabolical massacres that
ever took place in history is going on in Turkey. It seems to be almost
incredible that the human mind could conceive or the heart perpetrate
such awful slaughter as that to which the Turks have resorted.”

This was the statement to-day of the Rev. E. A. Yarrow, a
Congregational missionary recently returned from Van, Armenia. He
recounted his escape and experiences to 200 members of the alumni of
Mount Hermon School, the institution founded by the late D. L. Moody,
at Broadway Tabernacle.

“It is not enough for the Turks to kill and maim, but the manner in
which they put to death helpless noncombatants-women and children-is
past understanding.” said the missionary. “Scarcely any victims
of their ruthless pillaging are put to death except after the most
heartless torture.

“As an instance of their fiendish methods, they left scores of babies
to be burned alive in ovens under which raging fires had been built.

The infants had been wrenched from the arms of their helpless mothers,
who were dragged away with the fleeing Turks at the approach of the
Russian army.

“One by one they sent out from a hospital where their own wounded are
being treated Armenian nurses and shot them to death in cold blood. A
single wounded Russian prisoner too ill to be transported, was killed
as he lay in his coat rather than have him rescued by his comrades.

“In attempting to minister to the wounded and dying, Americans of our
mission contracted typhus. On every side there was sickness and death.”

Dr. Yarrow almost dead from typhus, with other members of the mission
staff, managed to get away just as the barracks burst into flame
from an axploding shell. He survived the forty-mile trip in an army
ambulance and finally arrived at Tiflis, with thousands of Armenians
who sought refuge there.

Gia Aivazian on the Sachtleben Archive

The Adventurer Who Rode a Bicycle Across Asia

UCLA Library Special Collections

Wednesday, March11, 2015,12 PM

The exhibition Round Trip focuses on William Sachtleben$B!G(Bs role in the
history of late nineteenth-century bicycling. The photographic
negatives, prints, and diaries kept by Sachtleben documented his
journey, in 1891, through Asia Minor with Thomas G. Allen, Jr. and
form part of his archive in the UCLA Library Special Collections. The
archive also includes photographs, letters and notes associated with a
second journey Sachtleben undertook in 1895 to Erzerum, Turkey, in
search of a lost American cyclist by the name of Frank Lenz. He stayed
almost a year in Erzerum and came to know and learn about Armenians,
Turks and Kurds and record his impressions. More importantly, he was
eyewitness to the October 30th massacre of the Armenians in the town
of Erzerum.

Gia Aivazian, former Librarian for Armenian and Greek at UCLA$B!G(Bs Young
Research Library, was instrumental in the archive$B!G(Bs acquisition and
has spent many years studying it. In this talk, Aivazian shares her
reflections on the adventurer who rode a bicycle across Asia and also
the man, who contributed to our understanding of the people living on
historic Armenian lands-now part of Turkey, in a specific slice of
time.

Parking

Convenient parking is available in LOT 4, accessible from Sunset Blvd
at Westwood. Parking is $12; automated pay stations accept $1 or $5
bills and credit/debit cards.

Elizabeth Grigorian $B!|(B Armenian Outreach Coordinator $B!|(B City of
Glendale $B!|(B Library, Arts & Culture $B!|(B 222 East Harvard Street $B!|(B
Glendale, CA 91205 $B!|(B (818) 548- 3288 $B!|(B [email protected]

HIGH CORRUPTION PERCEPTION INDEX IN ARMENIA – VARUZHAN HOKTANYAN

13:26 * 24.02.15

With respect to corruption, the situation in Armenia leaves much to
be desired, Varuzhan Hoktanyan, Executive Director of the Transparency
International anti-corruption center, told reporters on Tuesday.

“The situation is neither worsening nor improving, and the perception
index remains unchanged,” he said.

Armenia remains a country with a high corruption perception index – 36.

“We are behind Georgia and Turkey, but the situation in Armenia is
better than in Azerbaijan and Iran,” Mr Hoktanyan said.

A number of reasons account for a better situation in Armenia as
compared with the other Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) member-states.