The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
April 13, 2007 Friday
All Editions
Still reliving the horror;
Armenian genocide sears survivors’ memories
By JOSEPH AX, STAFF WRITER, North Jersey Media Group
Hagop Bahtiarian was 5 years old when police came to his home near
Ankara, Turkey, in 1915 and said the mayor wanted to speak to his
father. That would be the last time Bahtiarian saw him.
"My father went and never came back," the 97-year-old said on a
recent afternoon at the Armenian Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in
Emerson. "It’s impossible to forget. I [was] 5 years old, but my
memory is clear. They were selling his clothes at the market the same
day."
Bahtiarian is one of a dwindling number of survivors of what is
commonly known as the Armenian genocide. Most academics estimate that
1 million to 1.5 million Armenians died in Turkey during World War I
and its aftermath, from 1915 to 1923. Armenians commemorate the
killings every year on April 24.
Like Bahtiarian, Anahid "Annie" Boghosian, another resident at the
Armenian home, was only a child when soldiers forced members of her
family to leave their village home and march for days until they
reached a Kurdish area, where they were taken in. Boghosian’s father
had gone to look for work in Istanbul; he was never heard from again.
"I saw on the road, in the field, people lying injured," the
98-year-old said, her pink-rimmed glasses framing clear blue eyes
that occasionally filled with tears as she tried to remember her
experiences.
Both Bahtiarian, a longtime watchmaker who has lived in several
Bergen County towns since the 1960s, and Boghosian, who worked for a
rubber company and lived in Cliffside Park, say that Turks and
Armenians lived side by side in their communities before the Young
Turks government began to persecute Armenians.
"We went to school together," Boghosian said. "How can you hate
them?"
The nine decades that have passed, coupled with the fact that both
were young children, have conspired to dim their memories. Their
children, however, heard many stories while growing up.
One of Boghosian’s daughters, Thelma Sarajian, said that at one point
during the long trek, her grandmother stopped at a pond and decided
to drown Annie and her cousin, who was with them, rather than see
them come to harm at the hands of the Turkish soldiers.
"She saw their reflection and decided not to do it ? that it was a
sign from God," Sarajian said.
Bahtiarian and Boghosian and their families are not alone; thousands
of Armenians descended from survivors of the killings live in North
Jersey. Emerson, in fact, has one of the heaviest concentrations of
residents of Armenian heritage among American municipalities.
The exact nature of the killings has remained a political hot-button
issue for decades. While most Western countries have recognized the
killings as genocide sponsored by the Young Turks government that
ruled during those years, Turkey has maintained that the deaths were
a result of ethnic conflict, not deliberate extermination.
The United States has never recognized the Armenian genocide,
although 47 states, including New Jersey, have done so.
Woodcliff Lake resident Dennis Papazian, a retired University of
Michigan-Dearborn history professor who founded the Armenian Research
Center there, said the American Armenian population is acutely aware
of the United States’ reluctance to recognize the genocide because it
was the genocide that prompted so many Armenians to flee to America
after World War I.
"There was no significant immigration to the U.S. before the
killings," he said. "It’s something quite personal here."
U.S. presidents and other officials note the day of remembrance every
year and express sympathy without using the term "genocide." The
issue is politically perilous for relations between the U.S. and
Turkey, a key strategic partner.
The House of Representatives passed a resolution in 1984 establishing
April 24 as a day of remembrance for Armenians who were "victims of
the genocide" in Turkey. The House is currently considering a
stronger resolution; a similar one also has been introduced in the
Senate.
Armenia became an independent nation in 1991, after decades as a
Soviet republic beginning in the aftermath of World War I. It is one
of the world’s oldest population centers, dating to the origins of
human civilization.
Upcoming events
Today: Screening and debate at St. Leon Armenian Church in Saddle
River, featuring a controversial PBS televised debate on the genocide
and a discussion afterward.
April 22: Commemoration event at Times Square, 2 p.m. The event is
being organized by Samuel Azadian, a Hamburg resident whose four
older siblings perished in death marches.
April 24: Commemoration event at the Sts. Vartanantz Armenian
Apostolic Church in Ridgefield, 7 p.m.
May 3: Film screening, "The Genocide in Me," at the Englewood
Library, 7:30 p.m.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO, Tyson Trish, Staff Photographer – At 98, Anahid
"Annie" Boghosian of Emerson still recalls details of the day her
family was driven out of its village during the Armenian genocide of
1915-1923.
PHOTO, Bones unearthed in Erzinjan, Turkey, bear grim testimony to
the slaughter that took place during the Armenian genocide. It’s
estimated that upwards of 1 million Armenians were killed.
MAP, R.L. REBACH, STAFF ARTIST – Armenia