MUSA DAGH PHOTO COLLECTION TO BE PART OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MUSEUM OF AMERICA
AZG Armenian Daily
02/06/2009
Armenian Genocide
Rare and historically significant photographs of the Armenians of Musa
Dagh will be among the Genocide-era images featured in the Armenian
Genocide Museum of America (AGMA), thanks to the generosity of a
private collector who is providing the museum with exclusive access
to the photos.
Very few families survived the Armenian Genocide without loss of
life. Pictured is the family of Krikor Boursalian of Yoghunoluk
village, Musa Dagh. The picture was taken at the Port Said refugee
camp in Egypt sometime between October 1915 and summer 1916.
This unique collection of black-and-white photographs, dating from
1915 to 1939, is the life’s work of Dr. Vahram Shemmassian, a Los
Angeles-based historian who is the world’s leading expert on the
Armenians of Musa Dagh.
"We are profoundly grateful to Dr. Shemmassian for allowing the museum
to use his priceless photo collection to help tell the heroic story of
the Musa Dagh Armenians against the backdrop of the larger and much
more tragic story of the Armenian Genocide," said Van Z. Krikorian,
AGMA Board Trustee and Building and Operations Committee Chairman. "In
addition, as the foremost authority on the subject of Musa Dagh,
Dr. Shemmassian is able to provide authentication of the evidence
documented in these photographs."
Krikorian said the Musa Dagh photo collection is the fourth significant
collection of Genocide-era visual materials which, in the past year,
have been made available for use by AGMA. AGMA has been granted access
to the archives of the Near East Foundation and the Armenian Genocide
Museum-Institute in Yerevan, Armenia, and has received a donation of a
privately-held research library containing books, maps, photographs and
other materials focused on the Armenian Genocide and its documentation.
Dr. Shemmassian has also undertaken pioneering research on the fate
of Armenian women and children during and in the aftermath of the
Genocide, another focus area of the museum. Shemmassian, who is
currently Director of the Armenian Studies Program at California
State University, Northridge, said the Armenian Genocide Museum in
Washington, DC is a "perfect match" for his collection.
"The thousands of people who will visit the museum will be able to look
into the faces of those brave Armenians of Musa Dagh and learn of their
unique story," Dr. Shemmassian said. "They resisted and most of them
survived, but they were forced to leave their homes. These photographs
document the trying conditions and difficult challenges that the
displaced Musa Dagh Armenians faced as survivors and refugees."
According to Dr. Rouben Adalian, Director of the museum’s research
arm, the Armenian National Institute, "The story of Musa Dagh is one
of the rare instances during the Armenian Genocide era where Armenian
villagers, who were targeted for annihilation by the Ottoman Turkish
Army, put up an organized resistance for 49 days and were eventually
rescued by Allied warships patrolling the Turkish coast."
Adalian said, "There are no known photographs of the actual defense
of Musa Dagh, however, the rescue and delivery to safety in Egypt of
over 4,000 survivors made headline news." The Austrian author Franz
Werfel also immortalized the gripping events in his "Forty Days of
Musa Dagh," which became a best-seller upon its release in 1933 and
was subsequently translated into numerous languages.
The AGMA recently received a copy of the Dutch edition of "Forty Days
of Musa Dagh" from a Canadian donor whose family had lived through
World War II. Adalian added, "The book is important supplemental
material to the Musa Dagh photo collection, and points to the
world-wide impact of the story of the resistance of the Armenians of
Musa Dagh."
"Franz Werfel’s book was widely read in Europe and made the Jewish
author unpopular with the Nazi regime, prompting Werfel to flee
Austria in 1938," Adalian said. He noted that according to Professor
Yair Auron of the Open University of Israel, Werfel’s novel was a
source of inspiration and reflection for Jews who were trapped by the
Nazi occupation of Europe. In one historical account, a Holocaust
survivor from the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania stated: "Our analysis
of the book indicated that if the world did not come to the rescue
of the Armenians, who were Christians after all, how could we, Jews,
expect help? No doubt Hitler knew all about those massacres and the
criminal neglect by the free world, and was convinced that he could
proceed with impunity against the helpless Jews."