Author: Kajoyan Gevork

ALLEMAGNE
150 scientifiques allemands appellent à la reconnaissance du génocide
des Arméniens par Berlin

Lettre ouverte aux membres du Bundestag allemand

Reconnaissance maintenant РPas de relativisation du g̩nocide arm̩nien

Nous, les soussignés, lançons un appel aux membres du Bundestag
allemand : Ne ratez pas une occasion historique de rendre justice aux
victimes, aux survivants et aux descendants du génocide arménien. Il y
a 100 ans a débuté le génocide contre la population arménienne dans
l’Empire ottoman : Ce qui a commencé avec l’expulsion des
intellectuels arméniens et les notables de Constantinople le 24 Avril
1915 a pris fin par la mort en masse de 1,5 million d’Arméniens,
hommes, femmes et enfants dans les vallées des déserts de Syrie du
Nord. L’extermination bien planifiée des Arméniens, qui a inclus la
persécution et l’assassinat des chrétiens syro-araméens avait beaucoup
de visages : la faim, la maladie, l’épuisement, le viol et le pillage
au cours des déportations mortelles des années 1915 à 1916 ainsi que
la torture et les massacres d’une cruauté et d’une violence
indicibles,

Même 100 ans après le génocide, il semble que le Bundestag ne soit pas
en capacité d’appeler l’anéantissement des Arméniens par son nom. Ce
serait une concession à la position officielle du gouvernement turc.
Ce serait un consentement à la politique de déni. Ce serait également
un rejet de la chance de surmonter les idéologies nationalistes et les
conceptions historiques qui germent dans la société allemande issue de
la migration.

(…)

En souvenir des victimes du génocide arménien il y a un besoin
particulier de reconnaissance publique. Cette reconnaissance doit
également inclure l’identification claire de l’action.

La commémoration du 100e génocide contre la population arménienne de
l’Empire ottoman est une occasion appropriée pour le Bundestag
allemand, de s’incliner devant les victimes et de montrer sa
désolation aux descendants des survivants.

(…)

De nombreux parlements nationaux, y compris Français, Suédois et
Néerlandais ont récemment, ainsi que des résolutions du Parlement
européen, clairement nommé le génocide des Arméniens, démontrant ainsi
qu’une position morale ne doit pas devenir victime des possibilités de
politique étrangère.

Une telle attitude du Bundestag allemand serait honteuse. La
désignation de la politique des Jeunes Turcs comme une politique
d’extermination systématique, intentionnelle planifiée et exécutée,
ainsi donc génocidaire est la seule façon de commémorer et de
rechercher à préparer un espace dédié à la mémoire et à la poursuite
de la vie.

(…)

Les soussignés appellent les membres du Bundestag allemand à
sauvegarder leur dignité en reconnaissant la destruction des victimes
du génocide et soulager leurs descendants du fardeau insupportable de
la preuve.

Les signataires :

Dr Hülya Adak (Istanbul)

Prof. Dr. Elmar Altvater (Berlin)

Dr Bilgin Ayata (Berlin)

Prof. Dr. Aleida Assmann (Constance)

Prof. Dr. Jan Assmann (Heidelberg / Konstanz)

Prof. Dr. Klaus J. Bade (Osnabrück)

Prof. Dr. Boris Barth (Constance)

Dr Seyhan Bayraktar (Zurich)

Prof. Dr. Frank Becker (Duisburg-Essen)

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Beilenhoff (Bochum / Peleschjan)

Dr. Tayfun Belgin (Hagen)

Dr Nicolas Berg (Leipzig)

Prof. Dr. Natalie Binczek (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Bleek (Bochum / Toronto)

Prof. Dr. Manuel Borutta (Bochum / Essen)

Prof. Dr. Peter Brandt (Hagen)

Prof. Dr. Christina von Braun (Berlin)

Dr Médard Brehl (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Micha Brumlik (Frankfurt am Main / Berlin)

Prof. Dr. José Brunner (Tel Aviv)

Dr Ralph Buchenhorst (Halle-Wittenberg)

Dr Peter Carrier (Braunschweig)

Prof. Dr. Mihran Dabag (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Iris Därmann (Berlin)

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Ebach (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Andreas Eckert (Berlin)

Dr. Andreas Eckl (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Eßbach (Fribourg)

Dr Richard Faber (Berlin)

Friederike baril (épée)

Prof. Dr. Manfred Frank (Tübingen)

Prof. Dr. Norbert Frei (Jena)

Dr. Stefan Friedrich (Lüneburg)

Prof. Dr. Heidrun Friese (Chemnitz)

Hajo Funke Prof. Dr. (Berlin)

Dr. Detlef Garbe (Hambourg)

Prof. Dr. Raffi Hacik Gazer (Erlangen-Nuremberg)

Dr. Jan Gerchow (Frankfurt am Main)

Prof. Dr. Constantin Goschler (Bochum)

Dr. Kurt Gruenberg (Frankfurt am Main)

Dr. Christian Gudehus (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Dieter Haller (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Ludger Heidbrink (Kiel)

Prof. Dr. Drs. Hc Armin Heinen (Aachen)

Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Heintze (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Heitmeyer (Bielefeld)

Prof. Dr. Hans Günter Hockerts (Munich)

Prof. Dr. Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann (Berkeley)

Prof. Dr. Lucian Hölscher (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Axel Honneth (Frankfurt am Main)

Prof. Dr. Jochen Hörisch (Mannheim)

Dr Rolf Hosfeld (Potsdam)

Evêque émérite de Prof. Dr. Dr. Wolfgang Huber (Berlin)

Prof. Dr. Jörg Hübner (Bad Boll)

Prof. Dr. Andreas Huyssen (New York)

Dr. Stefan vôtre (Jérusalem)

Prof. Dr. Oliver Janz (Berlin)

Prof. Dr. Nikolas Jaspert (Heidelberg)

Prof. Dr. Antje Kapust (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan (Villingen-Schwenningen)

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Knöbl (Hambourg)

Prof. Dr. Waltraud Kokot (Hambourg)

Prof. Dr. Christopher Kopper (Bielefeld)

Prof. Dr. Yavuz Köse (Hambourg)

Pasteur Friedrich Kramer (Wittenberg)

Prof. Dr. Johann Kreuzer (Oldenburg)

Prof. Dr. Gerd Krumeich (Dusseldorf / Freiburg i. Br.)

Dr Philip Kuntz (Bochum)

Dr. Thorsten Latzel (Frankfurt am Main)

Prof. Dr. Stephan Laux (Trèves)

Dr. Stephan Lehnstaedt (Varsovie)

Prof. Dr. Fabian Lemmes (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Jörn Leonhard (Freiburg i. Br.)

Prof. Dr. Martin Leutzsch (Paderborn)

Dr Kerstin von Lingen (Heidelberg)

Prof. Dr. Otto Luchterhandt (Hambourg)

Prof. Dr. Christoph Marx (Duisburg-Essen)

Prof. Dr. Paul Mecheril (Oldenburg)

Prof. Dr. Norbert Mecklenburg (Cologne)

Prof. Dr. Kate Meyer-Drawe (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Andreas Nachama (Berlin)

Prof. Dr. Michael Naumann (Berlin)

Prof. Dr. Susan Neiman (Potsdam)

Prof. Christoph K. Neumann (Munich)

Prof. Dr. Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis (Berlin)

Prof. Dr. Lutz Niethammer (Jena)

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Osterhammel (Constance)

Prof. Dr. Anja Pistor-Hatam (Kiel)

Dr Kristin Platt (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Dieter Pohl (Klagenfurt)

Prof. Dr. Andrea Polaschegg (Berlin)

Dr. Dieter Rammler (Braunschweig)

Prof. Dr. Prof. Dr. Sina Rauschenbach (Potsdam)

Prof. Dr. Sven Reichardt (Constance)

Prof. Dr. Stefan Reichmuth (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Jörn Rüsen (Essen)

Dr. Reyhan Sahin (Hambourg)

Dr. Gerhard Scharbert (Berlin)

Prof. Dr. Julius H. Schoeps (Potsdam)

Christine Isabel Schröder MA (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Berlin)

Prof. Dr. Regina Schulte (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Michael Schwartz (Berlin)

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Seibel (Constance)

Prof. Dr. Sybille Steinbacher (Vienne)

Prof. Dr. Bernd Stiegler (Constance)

Prof. Dr. Dres. Hc Günter Stock (Berlin)

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Straub (Bochum)

Dr Talin Suciyan (Munich)

Dr Sefik Tagay (Duisburg-Essen)

Prof. Dr. Shabo Talay (Berlin)

Dr. habil. Hans Ulrich Treichel (Leipzig)

Prof. Dr. Stefan Troebst (Leipzig)

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Rock Forest (Bochum / Munich)

Prof. Dr. Bernd Weisbrod (Göttingen)

Prof. Dr. Dorothea Weltecke (Constance)

Prof. Dr. Kristin Westphal (Koblenz)

Lasse Wichert M.A. (Bochum)

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wippermann (Berlin)

Prof. Dr. Egbert Witte (Schwäbisch Gmünd)

Dr. Oliver von Wrochem (Hamburg)

Prof. Dr. Ioannis Zelepos (München)

Prof. Dr. Benjamin Ziemann (Sheffield)

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Martin Zillinger (Köln)

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Zimmerer (Hamburg)

Prof. Dr. Raimar Zons (Konstanz)

Prof. Dr. Moshe Zuckermann (Tel Aviv)

Prof. Dr. Meik Zülsdorf-Kersting (Osnabrück)

dimanche 19 avril 2015,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

________________________________

Prof. Dr. Mihran Dabag, directeur de l’Institut pour la Diaspora et
des études sur le génocide

Agerpres, Bucharest, Romania
April 16, 2015 Thursday

Corlatean on genocide against Armenians: Romania preferred to
encourage dialogue between Turkey and Armenia

April 16–BUCHAREST — Former Foreign Affairs Minister Titus
Corlatean, currently honorary adviser to the Prime Minister, on
Thursday said that Romania had a “wise attitude” and preferred to
encourage the dialogue between Turkey and Armenia concerning the
“extremely delicate” topic of “the genocide” against Armenians.

“It is a topic, which in Bucharest, all these years, has been avoided
and there has been a certain caution to enter the political
sensitivity of this topic. Here, in Bucharest, the historic dimension
was rather preferred (…) and also the encouragement of the direct
dialogue between the authorities of Ankara and Yerevan, in order to
gradually get closer through political dialogue, for the two states
directly interested in the topic to finally find a convenient
solution. (…) I believe that Romania had a wise attitude in an
extremely delicate matter, in the sense of encouraging and supporting
the two countries to solve this difference on their own,” Corlatean
told RFI radio.

The European Parliament (EP) on Wednesday evening adopted a resolution
urging Turkey to admit the Armenian “genocide,” three days after a
statement of Pope Francis, who used this word to describe the massacre
against Armenians committed by the Ottoman Empire during the First
World War, AFP informs.

During a debate on the resolution, conservative German MEP Elmar Brok
said: “My own people committed genocides,” evoking “a moral
obligation” to recognise and commemorate such massacres. “Hundreds of
thousands of Armenians died at the hands of the Ottoman empire’s
henchmen between 1915 and 1917,” Brok added.

The EU executive refuses to speak of “genocide,” as this term is not
used by all the 28 EU member states.

In the resolution adopted by a wide majority, the MEPs hail the
remarks made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu “offering condolences and recognising
atrocities against the Ottoman Armenians.”

Moreover, the EP encourages Turkey to use the commemoration of 100
years since the Armenian genocide as an important opportunity to open
the “archives and come to terms with its past” and “thus to pave the
way for a genuine reconciliation between the Turkish and Armenian
peoples.”

The Armenian side estimates that 1.5 million Armenians were killed
between 1915 and 1917, in the last years of the Ottoman Empire. A
great number of historians and over 20 countries, including France,
Italy and Russia recognised the genocide against Armenians. In
exchange, Turkey says it was a civil war during which between 300,000
and 500,000 Armenians died and as many Turks.

___ (c)2015 Agerpres, Bucharest, Romania Visit Agerpres, Bucharest,
Romania at www1.agerpres.ro/english Distributed by Tribune Content
Agency, LLC

ACC-NO: 20150416-1AR-Corlatean-on-genocide-against-Armenians-Romania-preferred-to-encourage-dialogue-between-Turkey-and-Armenia-0416-20150416

Turkey Rights Groups Demand Apology, Compensation, and Restitution for Genocide

By Contributor on April 19, 2015 in Headline, News //

Human rights organizations in Turkey’under the umbrella group `100th
Year ` Stop Denialism” have issued the following statement:

An indelible, massive crime was committed in these lands, 100 years
ago’a crime that will remain irreversible, irremediable, and
unforgivable. During the genocide of 1915, Armenians and other
Christian peoples of Asia Minor, among them Assyrians and Rums, were
targeted by a systematic politics of extermination, and destroyed
along with their social organizations, economy, arts and crafts, and
historical, and cultural heritage.

Our initiative, `100th Year ` Stop Denialism’ was established to
commemorate the genocide on April 24, in Istanbul and Diyarbakır. The
initiative brings together (in alphabetical order): Anatolian Cultures
and Research Association (Aka-Der), Human Rights Association `
Committee against Racism and Discrimination, Nor Zartonk, Platform for
Confronting History, Turabdin Assyrians Platform, and Zan Foundation
for Social, Political, and Economic Research. Our initiative is also
supported by the Gomidas Institute (London), the Armenian Council of
Europe, and Collectif Van (Paris), whose representatives will be
joining us.

Shame and responsibility are the basis of the `100th Year ` Stop
Denialism Initiative’s’ conceptualization of the commemoration. We
believe that any commemoration of the crime of genocide on these lands
will have to express the responsibility of genocide denial itself, and
the shame felt by the descendants of the peoples who have had the
opportunity for growth, development, and enrichment in the absence
of“due to the absence of“the peoples who fell victim to genocide.

While this understanding constitutes the ethical core of our acts of
commemoration on April 24, our concrete demands are for recognition,
apology, compensation, and restitution.

Our initiative’s commemorations begin at 11 a.m. on April 24, in front
of the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts on Sultanahmet Square, where
we will hold a moment of silence in memory of the victims. This
building was known as the central prison in 1915; individuals from the
Istanbul Armenian community, including intellectual leaders, were
arrested in their homes, detained here, and then sent off to the
HaydarpaÃ…?a train station.

After the moment of silence, we will begin our `Genocide March,’
walking in silence from Sultanahmet to Eminönü, and then crossing over
to HaydarpaÃ…?a by sea. The detainees of April 24, 1915 were deported
from HaydarpaÃ…?a to the depths of the country’in actual fact, to their
deaths. Here, our `Genocide March’ will end with another
commemoration.

>From HaydarpaÃ…?a, we will proceed to the Ã…?iÃ…?li Armenian Cemetery to
commemorate Sevag Å?ahin Balıkçı, who fell victim to ethnic-hate murder
on April 24, 2011 while on mandatory military duty in Batman, and
express our support to the Balıkçı family in their pursuit of justice.

Before and after the events of the `100th Year ` Stop Denialism
Initiative,’ the constituents of the initiative will participate in
two other events. Representatives of the Armenian Council of Europe,
who were invited to Istanbul by the Human Rights Association `
Committee Against Racism and Discrimination, will hold a commemoration
on Beyazıt Square at 10 a.m. on the same day, April 24. Members of the
HRA Committee Against Racism and Discrimination, human rights
defenders, and activists against genocide denial will participate in
the commemoration of 20 Henchak Party leaders and members who were
executed by hanging on June 15, 1915“yet another mass execution, of
symbolic import, during the period of the Armenian Genocide.

A protest march organized by Nor Zartonk will start out at 6:30 p.m.,
from Galatasaray Lycée and head toward Taksim Square, followed by a
100th year commemoration event led by the Platform for Commemorating
the Armenian Genocide, at 7:15 p.m., at the Taksim end of Istiklal
Street.

Concurrently, in Diyarbakır, the Human Rights Association Diyarbakır
branch and the Gomidas Institute are jointly organizing a
commemoration of Armenian and Assyrian victims in the ruins of Surp
Sarkis Church, at noon on April 24, with support from the Diyarbakır
Bar Association and the Zan Foundation.

The struggle for genocide recognition and against denialism will end
neither on April 24, 2015, nor on Dec. 31, 2015. Until the state of
the Republic of Turkey and the majority following official ideology
recognize the crime and take steps toward compensation for the
irreversible and irremediable losses, we will persevere in our pursuit
of justice for the genocide victims of Asia Minor and for their
descendants, who are dispersed around the world or who continue to
live under the conditions of genocide perpetuated by denial.

100th Year ` Stop Denialism Initiative

Turkish city Mayor honors memory of Armenian Genocide victims

00:04, 18.04.2015
Region:Armenia, Turkey
Theme: Politics

During the Municipality Assembly session of the Turkish Van city, the
attendees honored the memory of the victims of Armenian Genocide and
Anfal campaign (slaughter of Kurds in Iraq).

At the beginning of the 3rd Municipality Assembly session, the
Assembly Deputy Chairman Cahit Bozbay and press-secretary of
Democratic Regions Party (DBP) Ramazan Alver made a statement on
Armenian Genocide and Anfal campaign, Van city municipality official
website reports.

Cahit Bozbay, the Van city Municipality Assembly Deputy Chairman,
stated that they condemn the Armenian Genocide and Anfal campaign and
honor the memory of the victims. In his remarks, Bozbay noted that the
society should confront the past genocides and massacres. In his turn,
Ramazan Alver stated that what happened to Armenians in 1915 is a
human tragedy, which lies at the core of genocide. He said that DBP
recognized the 1915 events as genocide, noting that the Pope’s
statement was the precise definition of the events. “Although 100
years have passed, this human tragedy is still fresh, and the
government is trying to paper it over,” the Democratic Regions Party
press-secretary noted.

WE’RE ALL CAPABLE OF COMMITTING GENOCIDE

The Times, UK
April 15 2015

David Aaronovitch

Turkey’s row with the Pope over the Armenian massacre highlights how
no country can hide from its history

Editorial

A row between the Pope and the Turks has a pleasingly antique ring
to it, invoking 16th century tapestries of the Battle of Lepanto
or the Siege of Malta. And the summoning of the ambassador of the
Vatican to the foreign ministry in Ankara (not, alas, to the Sublime
Porte in Istanbul) for a dressing down was indeed over a historical
matter. But one that resonates even a hundred years after the event.

Last Sunday, Pope Francis referred to the “first genocide of the
20th century” as being that of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. A
century ago next week, it began with the arrest and murder of more than
200 Armenian intellectuals and politicians. In the succeeding months,
between a million and a million and a half members of this Christian
minority died in a series of forced marches and deportations into the
desert areas of Ottoman Syria and Iraq. Those who were not murdered
died from starvation, thirst and disease.

Why did it happen? The Armenians were seen by the government as fifth
columnists aiding their Russian Christian brethren to the north,
with whom Turkey was at war. Much of the brutality was abetted by
neighbours of the Armenians who both feared them and stood to gain
from their disappearance. By the end of 1916 the Armenian population
of Turkey had almost completely disappeared, creating a bitter diaspora
outside the country and leaving mass graves inside.

Turkey and Turkish patriots have refused to accept what happened as
a genocide. Even in the 21st century to speak or write openly about
the events of 1915-16 can be fatal. In 2007 the Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink, who had appeared in a documentary about the
genocide, was shot dead in Istanbul by a teenage nationalist.

In one of those ironies defined by the inability of the perpetrator
to appreciate irony, Dink was murdered by a man insulted by the idea
that he was the kind of man who might murder people.

On the day Dink was killed his newspaper, Agos, carried a story about
the restoration after 90 years of an Armenian church on an island in a
lake in Turkey. It was a place I knew. Twenty years before I had stood
outside that church – the Church of the Holy Cross on Akdamar island –
and marvelled at its romantic location and the unique friezes on its
outside walls.

When I was there it was ruined, having been abandoned at the time of
the genocide. But then the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in its
expansive, seemingly ideologically generous phase, first restored the
building and then, four years later, permitted a Christian liturgy to
be said there, followed in 2013 by the baptism of some Armenian boys.

I am something of a Turkophile. I love the country and its people and
so I was pleased. If Erdogan could somehow drain the swamp of extreme
Turkish nationalism then Turkey could make a great contribution to
the modern world. But I knew too that at the reopening of the Akdamar
church there had been a demonstration against the ceremony. A banner
read: “The Turkish people are noble. They would never commit genocide.”

The elastic band snapped back.

Almost as soon as Erdogan found himself under real political pressure
he reverted to nationalism.

Critics of the government were not just wrong, they became
unpatriotic. Opposition to Erdogan was not legitimate because it was
somehow foreign – associated with conspiracies by outside powers to
diminish Turkey.

Volkan Bozkir, Turkey’s minister for European affairs, criticised the
Pope by reference to his native Argentina this week. In that country,
said Mr Bozkir, “the Armenian diaspora controls the media and business”
and that was why the Pope said what he did. You would have thought
it was a too-obvious echo of Holocaustdeniers’ accusations about the
Jewish lobby.

But Mr Bozkir was not finished with Argentina. Who, in any case, were
the Argentinians to talk? Was not Argentina “a country that welcomed
the leading executors of the Jewish Holocaust, Nazi torturers,
with open arms”? If Mr Bozkir’s “Armenian lobby” point was absurd
and demeaning, his “Argentinians are not innocent” point was almost
the opposite. Because, of course, he was right. And, indeed, he could
have taken it further. Where, after all, were the original inhabitants
of that long, grassy country? Dead, scattered and deprived of land
and liberty by the ancestors of those now calling Mr Bozkir’s great
grandparents genocidaires. He might have added (and Turks often do)
the “whatabout” objection to any discussion of culpability. What
about the Turks “ethnically cleansed” from the Balkans in the long
decline of the Ottoman Empire after 1878? Or those displaced from
Greece following the war of 1919 to 1922? Where are the minarets of
Thessalonica now? And much of that would have been true too. Because
the awful reality of massacres and despoliations is not that any
of us could become the victim of them, but that any of us – in the
wrong circumstances – could become the perpetrators. For example,
the tribal ancestors of the Kurds, a people whose aspirations to
nationhood and democracy I support – played a horrible part in the
genocide of the Armenians. By the 1980s they were themselves the
victims of a genocidal campaign by Saddam Hussein of Iraq.

Our ancestors first profited massively from and then repented the
slave trade, selectively massacred rebels in the colonies and presided
neglectfully over terrible famines. It was not all they did, but they
did it all the same. It is a necessary condition to not repeating such
crimes, I think, that you must recognise that they were indeed crimes.

Nor does it end there. There is, of course, a moral difference between
committing genocide and other gross violations of human rights, and
looking on while others commit them. But the latter – the stance of
the Bad Samaritan – is still morally hard to defend. I am thinking of
Rwanda in 1994. And also I reflect that many thousands of Armenians
ended up as corpses in the region of Syria and Iraq now held by
Islamic State or after being barrel bombed by President Assad. To
judge by our leaders, we’re happy to walk by on the other side.

I am something of a Turkophile. I love the country and its people

The stance of the Bad Samaritan is still morally hard to defend.

TURKEY’S HIDDEN ARMENIANS SEARCH FOR STOLEN IDENTITY

France 24
April 17 2015

In 1915, during World War I, the Ottoman Empire ordered the
extermination of the Armenian people. One and a half million were
killed in the first genocide of the 20th century. But up to 200,000
women and children survived, converting to Islam and being integrated
into the Kurdish and Turkish communities. Today, their descendants are
discovering their Armenian roots that had lain hidden for generations.

Our reporters followed them on their difficult search for identity.

We meet Armenak and his friends, who thought they were Turkish or even
Kurdish until a few years ago. After discovering their Armenian roots,
they decided to travel through their ancestral lands in eastern Turkey.

We also meet Armen, who discovered his origins while rummaging through
some old family photos. Raised as a Muslim, he now plans to convert
to Christianity. It’s a decision that his wife, a devout Muslim,
has difficulty accepting.

Their stories are typical of descendants of Armenians who survived
the genocide. Many of those who managed to escape forcibly erased
all traces of their identity, adopting Turkish or Kurdish names. A
century later, their descendants have opened a Pandora’s box that
was locked by previous generations.

By Johan BODIN , Achren VERDIAN

MARKING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE, ARTIST FORGES PATH TO FORGIVE WITH PAINTING

DNAinfo
April 17 2015

By Stephanie Lulay

PILSEN — Growing up in Lake Bluff, there was a sadness that hung
over artist Jackie Kazarian’s family.

“It was just always about sadness,” she said reflecting on her
Armenian heritage.

For the last decade, the Logan Square artist has been on a path to
change that sadness. To forgive.

As Armenians everywhere commemorate the 100th anniversary of the
Armenian Genocide, Kazarian’s “Armenia,” a massive painting that
celebrates the Armenian culture, opens with a reception from 6-9 p.m.

Friday at Mana Contemporary in Pilsen. At 4 p.m. Sunday, the artist
is scheduled to talk about the painting at the gallery.

Kazarian’s passion project, a tribute to her four grandparents who
were survivors of the genocide of historic Armenia, has been two years
in the making. The region her family descended from is now known as
Eastern Turkey.

Left portrait: Artist Jackie Kazarian’s grandmother Elmas Shahinian
Bogosian; Right portrait: Kazarian’s grandmother, Mariam Betlezian
Kazarian, as a child, standing on the left View Full Caption Jackie
Kazarian

“This has been a personal journey for me. When I knew the anniversary
was approaching, I started thinking about my childhood as an
Armenian-American and what that meant,” said the 56-year-old artist.

Beginning in 1915, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians died at the
hands of the Ottoman Turks, along with many other ethnic minorities.

Today, the Turkish government denies their was ever a plan to
systematically wipe out the Armenian population, arguing instead that
the atrocities were wartime acts.

Both of Kazarian’s grandmothers ended up in orphanages after most
of their families were killed, she said, and eventually all of her
grandparents fled their homeland before World War I, immigrating to
the United States.

As she spent time researching the culture in the Armenia Library
in Watertown, Mass. and at the Regenstein Library at University in
Chicago, combing over original texts, the idea of forgiveness dwelled
in her mind, Kazarian said.

“Growing up, my parents refused to go to Turkey. I’m the only one who’s
ever been back to [historic] Armenia, saw relatives in Istanbul —
we really came from an area that is in Turkey,” she said. “That was 10
year ago, and even then, I knew that I wanted to bring some closure.”

Kazarian said that sadness manifested as anger in her father, who
would go into a rage about the genocide. But it was something her
grandmother said in her 80s, when she asked to paint her portrait,
that made Kazarian understand the family’s sadness.

Stephanie Lulay says the project was very personal for Kazarian:

“She told me that she was afraid that if someone knew [or thought]
she could afford to have a portrait they would come and take all
of her things away,” she said. “This was a real big fear for her,
and it was really shocking.”

The sadness has been passed down generations, she said.

“I thought a lot about how I could release the sadness so it couldn’t
be passed down beyond me, to my children,” Kazarian said.

The 11.5 by 26-foot painting, which Kazarian has worked on since
October, is the exact same dimensions as Pablo Picasso’s famous
painting “Guernica,” an anguished response to Francisco Franco’s
aerial bombing of defenseless civilians in Spain.

“People know what happened in Guernica because of that painting,”
Kazarian said.

“Armenia” includes depictions of ancient churches, maps, and motifs
from illuminated manuscripts. The names of communities that suffered
in the genocide are also depicted and are written in both Armenian
and English.

At the base of the painting are two open hands, a nod to Kazarian’s
grandmother, whose needle lace is also included in the work.

Now that the painting is finished, Kazarian said the intended target
of her forgiveness has changed.

“It’s funny because who am I forgiving? Am I forgiving on behalf of my
grandparents? No I can’t do that. Do I forgive the Turkish government
for denying it?” she asked. “I think I forgive people. People who
allowed the history and events to be forgotten and lost and not
believed. I forgive those people.”

The painting will remain on display through May 29 at the Pilsen
gallery, 2233 S. Throop St. The gallery is open Friday, Saturday and
Sunday Noon-5 p.m.

After the Chicago show, Kazarian plans to exhibit Armenia in
communities across the United States and the world.

HOW OBAMA BROKE HIS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RECOGNITION PROMISE

Arutz Sheva, Israel
April 17 2015

What was the Armenian genocide and why hasn’t it been recognized as
such? 100 years on, the facts are laid bare.

By Arutz Sheva Staff

Mass killings? Mutual bloodletting? Genocide? The hundreds of thousands
of dead have been silent for a century, but generations on, Armenians
are still battling to get the World War I slaying of their ancestors
by Ottoman Turks recognized as a genocide.

As Armenians around the world gear up to mark 100 years since the
start of the slaughter on April 24, the struggle to get the world –
and above all Turkey – to use the term “genocide” remains deeply
divisive, reports AFP.

To Armenians the word represents definitive proof of their ancestors’
horrific suffering at the hands of the Ottoman empire during World
War I, but Ankara claims the violence was perpetrated by all sides
and describing the events as “genocide” is a red line it cannot cross.

Trapped somewhere in the middle is an international community, notably
the United States, under pressure from Armenia’s large diaspora but
worried about upsetting a rising Turkey.

“For Armenians the word ‘genocide’ encapsulates what happened to their
forefathers in 1915 and also elevates the Armenian experience to the
level of that of the Holocaust,” said Thomas De Waal, an expert on the
region at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

“Precisely for the same reason, official Turkey has always rejected the
term, on the grounds that it equates the behavior of their grandparents
with the Nazis and also out of paranoia that the application of the
word could lead to legal claims against Turkey.”

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were systematically
murdered between 1915 and 1917 by Ottoman authorities as their empire –
the precursor to modern Turkey – crumbled.

Over one-third of the Armenian population was massacred by the Turks,
in a campaign launched when Turkish authorities ordered the executions
of much of the Armenian elite in Istanbul on April 24, 1915. Men,
women, and children were later murdered by various means, including
through forced marches, starvation, and poison.

The Ottoman government set up some 25 concentration camps as well
throughout the period, and mass graves of up to 60,000 people were
found in some locations.

And yet Turkey claims that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and as many
Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their
Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.

Rise of a movement, broken Obama promise

For some 30 years after the killings no one thought of calling the
massacres of Armenians a genocide – because the term itself did
not exist.

Up until then, Armenians referred to the tragedy simply as the “Great
Catastrophe” – or Medz Yeghern in Armenian.

Coined only in 1944 by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, the word
“genocide” became codified in law in the 1948 United Nations Genocide
Convention, which defined it as “acts committed with intent to destroy,
in whole or part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

The start of the clamor for recognition came later in 1965 as Armenians
around the world marked the 50th anniversary of the killings.

In Armenia itself – then a republic of the Soviet Union –
discussing any official acceptance of the genocide was a taboo but
an unprecedented protest that saw some 100,000 take to the streets
forced the Kremlin to start reevaluating its position.

“It was like a genie was let out of the bottle,” Rolan Manucharyan,
a physics professor who took part in the 1965 demonstration in downtown
Yerevan, told AFP.

The 1980s then saw an surge in the international movement for
recognition, mainly fueled by the Armenian community in the US,
with outbursts of violence as radical groups killed Turkish officials.

So far, Armenia says 22 countries – prominently France, with its
large Armenian community – have recognized the genocide.

Last Sunday Pope Francis became the latest international figure to
wade into the controversy as he used the term “genocide” to describe
the killings, sparking a furious reaction from Turkey.

For American presidents, the issue has always been a thorny one.

Ronald Reagan used the term in the early 1980s – but since then,
the commanders-in-chief in Washington have shied away.

Barack Obama – who pledged before he won the presidency to recognize
the genocide – has sidestepped the contentious term by using the
Armenian term Medz Yeghern.

Perhaps partially explaining Obama’s turn of heart are the close ties
he nurtured with Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
with Obama at one point reportedly referring to Erdogan as the leader
he was closest to in the Middle East.

Return of land?

The fallout from the massacres still shapes the region with official
ties between Turkey and Armenia frozen.

Part of the fear in Ankara over the push for genocide recognition is
that it could see Armenians lay claim to land in eastern Turkey.

“The term ‘genocide’ is not just an academic concept but also a
legal one. It means that a crime was committed and suggests that
there should be punishment and compensation,” said Ruben Safrastyan,
the director of Yerevan’s Institute of Oriental Studies.

At present Armenia has no official territorial claims against Turkey,
but in 2013 prosecutor general Aghvan Hovsepyan sparked fury in Ankara
by saying Armenians should have their “lost territories” returned.

But despite the dreams of some Armenians to reclaim their land,
analysts said few outside the community seriously think there will
be any move to retake the land.

“It would be very difficult for any Armenian political leader to say
that Armenia has no territorial claims to Turkey,” Svante Cornell
from the Washington-based Central Asia-Caucasus Institute told AFP.

“But Western politicians don’t take seriously” the possibility of a
land dispute.

As the 100th anniversary of the killings approaches, the struggle for
official recognition is as intense as ever. And the burden of what
happened – and getting recognition for it – still weighs heavily over
Armenia and Armenians around the world.

“The pain forces us to constantly look back into the past,” said
Armenian author Ruben Hovsepyan, whose mother fled the killings as
a child.

“It does not allow us to fully build our future as we use up so
much national energy and potential on forcing Turkey to recognize
the genocide.”

HOW NOVEL ABOUT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BECAME BESTSELLER IN WARSAW GHETTO

Jewish Daily Forward
April 17 2015

Inspirational Epic Spurred Resistance of Doomed Jews

By Edna S. Friedberg
Published April 17, 2015, issue of April 24, 2015.

By any measure, the Warsaw Ghetto was hell on earth. An urban prison
zone in the middle of German-occupied Warsaw, after November 1940
the ghetto was enclosed by a ten-foot high wall that was topped
with barbed wire and tightly guarded. German authorities packed over
400,000 Jews of all ages into an area of just 1.3 square miles, with an
average of 7.2 persons living in each room. Conditions were miserable:
inadequate food, no sanitation, little heat. By mid-1942, 83,000 Jews
had died of starvation or disease. Of those who managed to survive,
the German authorities deported almost three hundred thousand of them
to the Treblinka killing center to be gassed.

And yet in Warsaw and many other ghettos across occupied Poland, Jews
organized clandestine schools and libraries, smuggling in books and
other cultural materials in collective acts of spiritual resistance.

Arguably the most popular book in the Warsaw Ghetto was the novel
The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, by Austrian-Czech writer Franz Werfel.

The Nazis had burned Werfel’s earlier writings in May 1933, labeling
them the poison fruits of a Jewish author who advocated pacifism,
love for all mankind, and hostility to extreme nationalism and Nazism.

First published in Austria just a few months after the Nazi book
burnings, Musa Dagh detailed the systematic expulsion and murder
of at least one million Armenian Christians by authorities in the
Ottoman Empire starting in 1915-16-a series of actions we now call
the Armenian genocide.

Based on actual events, Werfel shone a light on a group of Armenian
men fighting under desperate conditions. Quickly translated from its
original German into many languages, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh was
critically acclaimed and widely read in both the United States and
Europe, except in Nazi Germany where it was soon banned.

Werfel cast the Armenian characters’ armed revolt against their
oppressors in a heroic vein. As the editor of The New York Times Book
Review described the novel in 1934, “[It is a] story which must rouse
the emotions of all human beings… . a story of men accepting the
fate of heroes… . It gives us the lasting sense of participation
in a stirring episode of history.”

Just a few years later, Werfel’s tale of a besieged people taking
control of its destiny captured the imagination of those imprisoned
in German ghettos. Copies of the novel were passed from hand-to-hand
among members of Jewish youth groups marshalling the courage to
revolt. When leaders of the underground movement in the BiaÃ…~Bystok
Ghetto debated whether to take up arms, they invoked Werfel’s book.

A young man wrote, “Only one thing remains for us: to organize
collective resistance in the ghetto, at any cost; to consider the
ghetto our ‘Musa Dagh’, to write a proud chapter of Jewish BiaÃ…~Bystok
and our movement into history.” Many leaders of the resistance in
the Warsaw Ghetto also drew strength from the struggle at Musa Dagh.

Across Europe, Jews in mortal danger looked back one generation to
the annihilation of the Armenians and saw themselves.

We study history for inspiration and for warning. But first we must
remember-and the Armenian genocide has been almost totally forgotten
in this country. In 1915 alone, The New York Times published 145
stories about Ottoman attacks, including startling death tolls.

Millions of Americans supported food and clothing drives to help
Armenian refugees in what may have been the first public charitable
appeal of its scale. Yet how many Americans today have even heard of
the atrocities that rallied their great-grandparents to action?

This month marks one hundred years since the beginning of the massive
crime perpetrated against the Armenians. Raphael Lemkin, the man
who coined the word “genocide” in 1944 and who himself was deeply
influenced by Armenian suffering, wrote that “the function of memory is
not only to register past events, but to stimulate human conscience.”

Haunted by the loss of his own family during the Holocaust, Lemkin
declared, “I have transformed my personal disaster into a moral
striking force.”

If we forget what happened in 1915, which forces truly prevail? Which
books will guide our actions?

Edna S. Friedberg is a historian at the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum

ATTORNEY SEEPAN PARSEGHIAN INVITED TO SPEAK AT STANFORD FOR THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION

News Bites – Private Companies
April 14, 2015 Tuesday

Snell & Wilmer Attorney Seepan Parseghian Invited to Speak at Stanford
for the Armenian Genocide Centennial Commemoration 13 April 2015

Snell & Wilmer attorney Seepan Parseghian has been invited by the
Stanford University Global Studies Program to speak on a panel on
the occasion of the Armenian Genocide Centennial Commemoration.

Parseghian, an attorney in the firm’s Los Angeles office, was chosen
as a Stanford alum specifically to discuss the impact of the genocide
on him as a Diaspora Armenian. He also was selected for his legal
experience at the UN Rwanda Genocide Tribunal and his knowledge
of possible legal avenues for reparations and reconciliation. The
panel discussion, titled “The Meaning of the Armenian Genocide for
the Diaspora,” will take place at the Stanford Humanities Center on
April 20, 2015 at 4 p.m.

At Snell & Wilmer, Parseghian’s practice is concentrated in
intellectual property litigation, commercial litigation and real estate
litigation in state and feder al court. He represents both large and
small businesses in intellectual property and other litigation matters
including trademarks, trade secrets, patent, unfair competition,
breach of contract, fraud and various business torts.

Parseghian has an active in ternational human rights pro bono practice,
having filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court regarding
insurance claims of genocide survivors, and having served as a
supervising attorney for the USC Law School Iraqi Refugee Assistance
Project in a refuge settlement matter. He also served as an official
observer on behalf of the Pacific Council on International Policy
at the Military Commission in Guantanamo Bay, which is tasked with
prosecuting those detainees charged with crimes related to the Sept
ember 11, 2001, and USS Cole terrorist attacks.

Prior to joining the firm, Parseghian worked in Arusha, Tanzania
for President and Judge Khalida Rachid Khan of the United Nations
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which was established
to prosecut e persons responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He
assisted in several historical trials, including the multi – accused
case of Bizimungu, et al., by conducting research and helping to
draft judgments and decisions. Parseghian also aided the Office of
t he President in its formulation of Tribunal policy in Rwanda, East
Africa and the UN. He received his J.D. from University of Southern
California Gould School of Law and his B.A. from Stanford University.

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