Category: News

Knar Yamenidjian, back row middle, is seen with her family in Egypt in 1931. Her father is situated on the bottom row, far right. (Courtesy of the Yemenidjian family)

Armenian Genocide survivor Knar Yemenidjian was remembered in Canada, the reports.

She was one of Canada’s last living links to an atrocity that occurred more than 100 years ago. Although Knar Yemenidjian, who died on Jan. 19, reached the age of 107, her childhood was marred by unfathomable violence that nearly ended her life.

“We’re all grieving with the family,” Armen Yeganian, Armenia’s ambassador to Canada, commented after Ms. Yemenidjian’s death. “But she was also a bigger symbol, I would imagine, for the Canadian Armenian community and for Armenian people in general.”

She was born Knar Bohjelian on Feb. 14, 1909, in Caesarea, a city in central Turkey now known as Kayseri. Less than a year earlier, a group of Turkish reformers known as the Young Turks overthrew Sultan Abdul Hamid and established a constitutional government. Although the Armenian population of Turkey was initially optimistic about the new regime, they were caught off guard by the xenophobia of the Young Turks and their targeted hatred aimed at Christians and non-Turks who they believed were a threat to the Islamic, “pure Turkish” state they envisioned.

When the Young Turks began their campaign of mass murder on April 24, 1915, the first order of action was arresting and executing several hundred Armenian intellectuals. After that, other Armenians were either systematically slaughtered by marauding killing squads or forced on death marches across the Mesopotamian desert without food or water.

Six-year-old Knar and her family survived the first wave of violence by seeking sanctuary in a barn. Ms. Yeminidjian’s niece Nazar Artinian told CTV News that the family survived only because Knar’s father had been warned by a Turkish friend that “all the Armenians were going to be killed.”

According to Ms. Artinian, the family friend insisted, “if you want to live, leave your house, take your family and go to this farm and hide yourselves there.” So the family hid among the livestock. They were besieged by typhoid and had barely enough food to sustain themselves, but they survived.

When the violence subsided, Knar and her family returned to find many of their neighbours murdered, and all the Armenian homes – including theirs – burned to the ground.

Ms. Yemenidjian’s son said that his mother had a wonderful, self-effacing sense of humour. He noted that, although she spoke very little English or French, the other residents surprised him one day, when they remarked to him how funny his mother was. “We can’t understand her and she can’t understand us, they told him, but does she ever make us laugh!”

In 2004, Canada was among the first countries to officially recognize the genocide.

At the age of 106, Ms. Yemenidjian was among a handful of Armenian-Canadians who attended a special ceremony on Parliament Hill in 2015 to mark the centennial of the start of the genocide.

To this day, despite widespread agreement among historians, the Turkish government denies that an Armenian genocide occurred. Since 2003, Turkish teachers have been forbidden to use the term “genocide” in the classroom.

Last year, the country recalled its ambassador from Germany after the German parliament voted to recognize the genocide.

Historians conclude that approximately 1.5 million Armenians were killed during the genocide, but Turkey says the death toll has been exaggerated and considers those who were killed as casualties of a civil war.

Knar Yemenidjian leaves her two sons, Joseph and Noubar, three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

The voter turnout in the Artsakh Constitutional Referendum reached 46.82% (48 115 citizens) as of 2 p.m., the NKR Referendum Central Commission reports.

Artsakh is holding a referendum on a new draft Constitution. All 280 polling stations opened at 8 a.m. this morning. The number of eligible voters is 102 757.

Luisne Avanesyan
Public Radio of Armenia
Stepanakert

The peope of Artsakh are voting today on a new draft Constitution,which envisages shift to the presidential form of governance.  280 polling stations have been opened, including one in Yerevan.

About 30 settlements in Artsakh are also choosing their Member of Parliament. The seat of the 108th electoral district was left vacant after Vitaly Balasanyan was appointed National Security Secretary.

More tha 100 observers from 30 countries of the world have arrived in Artsakh to follow the referendum; 103 local observers and more that 80 mass media representatives have registered at the Central Electoral Commission.

On February 20, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic Karen Mirzoyan received deputies of the European Parliament, President of the Friendship group with Artsakh in the European Parliament Frank Engel (Luxembourg) and member of the Group Jaromir Stetina (Czech Republic), who are in Artsakh with an observation mission.

At the meeting, the mutual ties with the European Parliament were touched upon. The sides in particular, discussed a range of issues related to the activities of the Friendship group aimed at further strengthening and deepening of bilateral ties.

Vice-Presidents of the National Assemblies of Armenia and Artsakh Edward Sharmazanov and Vahram Balayan, MPs Gagik Melikyan and Alexander Arzumanyan visited the Artsakh frontlines today.

A number of issues related to the situation on the front-line, the conditions of military service and the strengthening of the defensive zone were discussed at a meeting with the command.

Dear compatriots,

On behalf of the Artsakh Republic authorities and on my own behalf, I cordially congratulate you on the Artsakh Revival Day.

February 20 of 1988 entered into the chronology of our people as a crucial and decisive day that heralded the unshakable will of the Artsakh people to live freely and independently. It has become the symbol of national unity and the revival of invincible spirit. A wave of protests against the foreign yoke turned into a national-liberation movement and recreation of our national statehood corresponding to democratic values, principles and norms of international law.

For the sake of our fair struggle brave sons of the Armenian nation sacrificed their lives, carving the heroic pages of the modern Armenian history through their unparalleled courage and brevity. Eternal honor and glory to all the devotees!

During all these years together with our brothers and sisters from Armenia and the Diaspora we are building and developing our dear and beloved Artsakh, defending our ancestral land and hearth, our children’s future. We don’t violate the rights of other people, but will always protect our own ones.

Dear Artsakh people,

I once again congratulate all of us on this significant holiday and wish peace and great successes to the independent Artsakh Republic and our whole people.

Yerevan supports the idea of creating a free trade zone between the Eurasian Economic Union and Iran, the Armenian foreign minister said.

The Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Russia will discuss a wide range of issues of bilateral cooperation, as well as regional and international politics on February 22, Press Service of the Russian Foreign Ministry has said, noting that “Armenia and Russia share a common stance on a number of issues on international and regional agenda.”

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian will visit Moscow from February 20-22. “The visit will be the logical continuation of the rich Russian-Armenian dialogue targeted at the further development of close cooperation in political, economic and humanitarian fields,” the Ministry said.

Armenia and Russia will mark the 25^th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations on March 3.

Baku will blacklist the foreign observers following the Constitutional Referendum in Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s Official Representative Hikmet Hajiyev told RIA Novosti.

The people of Artsakh are voting today on a new draft Constitution, which envisages shift to the presidential form of governance.  280 polling stations have been opened, including one in Yerevan.

More than 100 observers from 30 countries of the world have arrived in Artsakh to follow the referendum.

Photos: EPA

 

A telephone used by Adolf Hitler during World War Two has been sold for $243,000 (£195,744) at a US auction, the BBC reports.

The identity of the buyer, who bid by phone, has not been revealed. The bidding in Chesapeake City, Maryland, started at $100,000.

The red phone, which has the Nazi leader’s name engraved on it, was found in his Berlin bunker in 1945.

Soviet soldiers gave it to British officer Sir Ralph Rayner as a souvenir shortly after Germany surrendered.

The phone was sold by auction house Alexander Historical Auctions.

Auction house officials said the phone was a “weapon of mass destruction”, as it was used by Hitler to give orders that took many lives during the war.

A porcelain figure of an Alsatian dog, also owned by Hitler, fetched $24,300. It was bought by a different bidder.