Genocide Archives

Faithful do not allow Armenian church in Singapore to fade away

May 21, 2017 By administrator

In a small sanctuary in Singapore’s oldest church, the Very Reverend Father Zaven Yazichyan conducts a traditional Armenian Divine Liturgy service.

Though he lives in Myanmar, Father Zaven, 36, travels here about five or six times a year to conduct a Divine Liturgy at the 182-year-old Armenian Apostolic Church of St Gregory the Illuminator, according to Straits Times.

With only an estimated 80 to 100 Armenians living in Singapore, there is no resident priest for the tiny community here, and there has not been one since the 1930s. But its loyal worshippers are not about to let this pillar of Armenian identity, formally recognized as a national monument in 1973, fade away.

Ani Umedyan, 35, a volunteer at the church who has worshipped there for nine years, moved to Singapore with her husband from Armenia in 2008 and speaks passionately about seeing it grow.

“When I first started worshipping here, there were only about 20 or so people. Now that more expats have come, there are more people and we are happy to see the church crowded with about 40 to 50 people at each service,” said the musician.

When asked what keeps him motivated to keep flying back to conduct services for such a small crowd, Father Zaven said: “Every soul is important. Even if there are only a few people, it is my duty and honor to minister to them.”

Another draw for the Armenian community here is music. The Armenian Heritage Ensemble was established in 2009 to encourage learning of the history and culture of Armenians.

“The aim is to expose people to the church, to our culture and our heritage through music,” said one of the church’s four trustees, Pierre Hennes, 44.

Another trustee, Gevorg Sargsyan, 35, added that the concerts bring life to the church.

Armenia pays tribute to the memory of Pontian Greek Genocide victims

May 19, 2017 By administrator

Armenia pays tribute to the memory of Pontian Greek Genocide victims Vice-President of the Armenian National Assembly Edward Sharmazanov, other MPs, representatives of the Greek Embassy in Armenia and the Greek community visited the Tsitsernakaberd memorial today to pay tribute to the memory of victims of the Pontian Greek genocide.

On behalf of the Armenian Parliament, Edward Sharmazanov laid a wreath at the memorial to the Armenian Genocide victims.

Condemning the crime committed by Ottoman Turkey at the turn of the 20^th century, Edward Sharmazanov said “This is also a day of revival.”

“We’ll do our best to prevent reoccurrence of such crimes against humanity in the future. An evidence of this is the existence of two Greek and two Armenian states. The Armenian authorities will do everything to reach international condemnation of genocides against Christian nations, and we have to combine efforts, because the denial of genocide is as dangerous as its perpetration,” Sharmazanov stated.

In 1994 the Hellenic Parliament recognized and condemned the genocide of more than 600 thousand Pontian Greeks. Many of those who fled the genocide found refuge in Armenia and integrated into the social-economic and political life of the country.

The genocide of Pontian Greeks has been recognized by Armenia, Greece, Cyprus, Sweden and Artsakh Republic.

The Armenian National Assembly observed a minute of silence today in memory of victims of the genocide.

Texas recognizes the Armenian Genocide

May 19, 2017 By administrator

texas recognize armenian genocide

The Texas House of Representatives unanimously passed House Resolution 191, titled “Recognizing the Armenian Genocide,” on May 19, thus making The Lone Star State the 46th state in the U.S. to officially classify and commemorate the 1915-1923 annihilation of Ottoman Turkey’s indigenous Armenian community as genocide.

“We are grateful to the Texas House of Representatives for standing on the right side of history by making their dynamic state the latest member of our Union to unequivocally and vociferously honor the memory of the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide despite overwhelming Turkish opposition,” remarked Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region (ANCA-WR) Chair Nora Hovsepian.

“This incredible victory, which achieves universal recognition of the Armenian Genocide in the Western Region’s 19 states, was possible because of the outstanding unity and activism demonstrated by the diverse Armenian community of Texas, the unflinching leadership of State Representative Scott Sanford and his fellow lawmakers, as well as the dedication and persistent work of our grassroots—ANCA-Houston and ANCA-Dallas—and staff. While many Texan-Armenians and community groups were instrumental in the passage of and building ground for HR191, I would like to specifically recognize the former ANCA-Dallas founding chair Lucia Nazarian for initiating Texas’ recognition of the Armenian Genocide, as well as Focused Advocacy President Brandon Todd Aghamalian and University of Texas Austin Professor and Armenian Church of Austin representative Mihran Aroian for their leadership in bringing the Armenian community together to make this important recognition a reality,” continued Hovsepian.

The resolution, which had more than 50 original bipartisan cosponsors and passed unanimously, declares, in part, that “During World War I, the crumbling Ottoman Empire began a systematic campaign to eradicate its Armenian population, which then numbered more than two million; and… as many as 1.5 million Armenians perished and today, only 3 million live in Armenia, a country that covers no more than 10 percent of the ancient Armenian homeland, while the Armenian diaspora numbers 8 to 10 million in countries around the world, including the United States,” concluding with the resolved clause “That the House of Representatives of the 85th Texas Legislature hereby recognize the Armenian Genocide.”

The recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Texas follows renewed activism in The Lone Star State, including the 2015 defeat of anti-Armenian resolutions as well as adoption of HR 1541, which recognized Texans’ contributions to the Near East Relief that saved 132,000 orphans of the Armenian Genocide. The latter humanitarian effort was recognized by ANCA-Dallas during its April 2, 2016 ‘Texas We Thank You’ Gala, at which Rep. Sanford received the ANCA-Dallas Advocate of Justice award for his long-time support for Armenian Genocide awareness.

HR 191 was introduced by Rep. Sanford on jan. 26, followed by a public hearing in the International Trade and Intergovernmental Affairs committee on April 24, during which ANCA-WR Chief Legislative Consultant Haig Baghdassarian joined a large group of Armenian Americans as well as representatives from the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission and Houston’s Holocaust Museum in testifying in support of HR 191. Following the testimony, ANCA-WR called its online activists in Texas to action, as a result of which hundreds of letters were emailed to state legislators. Many more phone calls were made through joint efforts of the Armenian community in a strong demonstration of unity and grassroots activism.

Texas’ passage of HR 191 follows the Wyoming Governor’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide in April, thus completing universal recognition in the ANCA-WR, which consists of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

American Armenians to protest Erdogan’s visit to Washington

May 16, 2017 By administrator

Armenians of America will stage a protest action in front of the White House on May 16 to protest Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Washington and his meeting with President Donald Trump.

“This is President Trump’s chance to stand up to Erdogan. It’s time to challenge Erdogan’s arm-twisting and – even more importantly – to call out the Turkish government’s covert campaign to hijack U.S. policy through questionable payments to foreign agents, lobbyists, and other influence peddlers,” said Aram Hamparian, Armenian National Committee of America Executive Director.

“He can start putting American principles and priorities first by rejecting Ankara’s gag-rule against honest U.S. remembrance of the Armenian Genocide.”

The Armenian National Committee of America will be joining with a broad array of human rights, religious freedom, Kurdish, Hellenic and Assyrian groups in front of the White House to call attention to President Erdogan’s repression at home and aggression abroad.

US $1m funding restored for Armenian-American museum

May 12, 2017 By administrator

US Senator Anthony J. Portantino (D – La Cañada Flintridge) on Thursday said he is very pleased with one significant aspect of Governor Brown’s May revision of the California State Budget, the restoration of funding for the Pasadena Playhouse and the Armenian American Museum in Glendale, Asbarez.com reports.

“While others were declaring defeat, I got to work and advocated in favor of the budget allocations for these two laudable projects. I’m very pleased and grateful that the Governor responded to these requests and restored the funding for two outstanding projects in the 25th State Senate District,” commented Portantino.
The Pasadena Playhouse is the State Theatre of California. It is a showcase for world class theatrical productions and educational programs targeted to California’s diverse population. The Armenian American Museum, proposed to be built in Glendale, is a new facility slated to bring Genocide awareness and educational programming to our region. Both facilities were set to receive $1 million dollars from last year’s budget but had that funding initially suspended by the Governor in his January budget proposal.

Upon seeing the budget draft, Senator Portantino impressed upon the Governor’s office, the Department of Finance and the Senate Budget staff on the importance of these projects. The Governor agreed by restoring the funding for both.

The Genocide of Armenian and Greek Christians Revisited: New Discoveries and Politically Correct Memory Loss

May 11, 2017 By administrator

By Mike Scruggs – The beginning of the Armenian Genocide is usually dated as April 24, 1915, now over 102 years ago. It was a planned operation of the Ottoman Empire that exterminated at least 1.5 million Armenian Christians in Eastern Turkey from 1915 through 1918. According to George Horton, a U.S. State Department Consul General in Turkey from 1917 to 1922, it was actually preceded by sixteen massacres of Armenian, Greek, Assyrian, and Maronite Christians from 1822 to 1909, killing a total of over 358,000 men, women, and children. He noted that this was only a partial list. This was under the Ottoman Caliphate, which was replaced by the Turkish Republic in 1923.

In 2016, I wrote a series of six articles for the Tribune Papers in North Carolina and the Times Examiner in South Carolina (June 22 to July 27) about the Greco-Turkish War and the genocide of Greek Christians by Turkish troops and auxiliaries from 1919 to 1922. According to Rutgers University research, 1.5 million Greek civilians died. Of these, between 260,000 and 360,000 perished by fire, drowning, systematic massacre, and related causes during the Great Smyrna Fire in 1922. This includes 160,000 men who were marched off for hard labor and never heard from again. The Turks systematically exterminated residents of the Armenian quarter of Smyrna, before they started the fire. In addition to the Smyrna deaths, Greek soldiers suffered 43,000 deaths from battle, wounds, and captivity. According to League of Nations reports, 50,000 Greek and Armenian girls were sold into sex slavery.

According to “Democide” scholar, Dr. Rudolph Rummel, various Turkish regimes killed from 3.5 million to 4.3 million Armenian, Greek, Assyrian, Maronite, and other Christians from 1900 to 1923. The non-Muslin population of Turkey, which was probably over 20 percent in 1900 and was 19.1 percent in 1914, dropped to 2.5 percent by 1927 and is now less than 0.3 percent.

There have been some recent break-throughs in research on the Armenian Genocide bravely reported in a New York Times article by Tim Arango on April 22, 2017. These included a “smoking gun” original ciphered telegram proving official Ottoman/Turkish government planning and execution of the genocidal series of actions resulting in the death of 1.5 million Armenian Christians from 1915 through 1918. Dr.Taner Akcam, professor and researcher of Turkish history at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, unearthed the document among many others from the archives of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Akcam has studied the Armenian Genocide for decades, methodically putting the pieces of the murderous puzzle together in the analytical fashion of Sherlock Holmes.

The Ottoman official who sent this telegram was Behaeddin Shakir. He was convicted based on a deciphered copy, but the original and most of the records of his trial had mysteriously disappeared as the Ottoman and later Turkish governments began to deny any responsibility for the genocide and to downplay its numerical significance. Shakir escaped to Germany, where he was later assassinated by “swarthy foreign men” believed to be Armenians.

Dr. Akcam is a patriotic Turk who believes that only truth and not denials and propaganda are worthy of true patriotism. He made this statement in that regard:

“My firm belief as a Turk is that democracy and human rights in Turkey can only be established by facing history and acknowledging historic wrongdoings.”

Patriots everywhere should give this courageous brand of patriotism a hearty “Amen.” This has a Biblical precedent:

“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”—Proverbs 28: 13 ESV.

Many of the photos recovered in the archive are grim and emotionally wrenching. There are piles of and shelves of decapitated heads, men being hung on Turkish tripod devices, and dead and starving children. There are railroad cattle cars filled with families probably heading toward death. The most memorable to me was a photo of eight Armenian Christian girls, probably in their teens, being crucified on traditional Christian crosses.

The Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas terrorist front in the United States, seems to have been successful in convincing WordPress to take down the webpage that had the photos mentioned above. CAIR makes constant use of the Islamic doctrine of Taqiyya, which provides that Muslims may lie or deceive non-Muslims for the purpose of advancing or defending Islam. CAIR spokesmen on Network TV news shows spew tirades of falsehoods and half-truths that are incredibly and obviously disingenuous, yet many media pundits and politicians take them seriously.

Turkey continues to deny responsibility for the Armenian genocide. For many decades Turkish leaders moved the country to a more secular practice of Islam. Under President Erdogan that secularism is disappearing and being actively persecuted and replaced by the Jihadic Islam of the Koran and Muhammad. Erdogan may view himself as the new Caliph of a resurrected salafist (fundamentalst-revivalist) Ottoman Empire imposing Islam and Sharia Law on Europe first and then the world. He wants to send ten million more Muslim “immigrants” to Europe.

The Greek Genocide is less well known in the West, probably because the Italian, French, British, and U.S. governments attempted to minimize the number of deaths and atrocities reported in order to maintain favorable diplomatic relations and commercial opportunities with the nationalist government of Kemal Ataturk, which had taken effective control of the Turkish government and army in May 1919. In Smyrna in 1922, Allied naval vessels were ordered to observe strict neutrality in evacuating only their own nationals from the burning city, while tens of thousands of Greek refugees attempting to escape the wrath of the Turks perished by fire, slaughter, and drowning. Finally, British, American, French, and Italian naval commanders, acting against the orders of their own governments, began rescuing thousands of Greeks, eventually totaling 250,000. An American YMCA employee, Rev. Asa Jennings, negotiated the use of over 50 Greek Navy ships and their crews, which rescued over 250,000 people, bringing the total rescued from Smyrna to over 500,000. In 1927, the Greek government awarded Jennings its highest military and civilian medals. He never received any official recognition by the U.S. government.

Tragically, most of Western Europe is still deceived by the Big Lie that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. Many American leaders are also ignorant of the true nature of fundamentalist Islam and suffer under the delusion that Islam can be accommodated or appeased without fatally undermining the foundations of Western civilization and Judeo-Christian survival and religious liberty.

Source: http://www.thetribunepapers.com/2017/05/10/the-genocide-of-armenian-and-greek-christians-revisited-new-discoveries-and-politically-correct-memory-loss/

New French leader Macron on the Genocide, Karabakh issue, Armenian community

May 9, 2017 By administrator

Prior to being elected French president on Sunday, May 8, Emmanuel Macron had weighed in on the Armenian Genocide, the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, as well as the Armenian community in France.

In April 2017, former economy minister, EnMarche! movement leader Macron pledged to fight for the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

He visited the Komitas Monument and Armenian Genocide Memorial in Paris on April 24 to pay tribute to the memory of the 1.5 million victims of the killings.

Macron also expressed support for including April 24 in the French Republic’s calendar.

Speaking about the Karabakh conflict, then-candidate Macron stated that France’s efforts alone are not enough to solve the issue.

“In case I become the president of France, I will make every effort to settle the conflict,” he said then.

Macron also expressed his admiration for the Armenian community of France, which sets an example of integration, as well as conservation of historic roots and culture.

The centrist was elected French president on Sunday, with a business-friendly vision of European integration, defeating Marine Le Pen, a far-right nationalist who threatened to take France out of the European Union.

Turkish Writer Exposes Persecution of Jews in Turkey

May 4, 2017 By administrator

by Harut Sassounian, Publisher, The California Courier,

Israel National News published an extremely interesting article written by Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut on the discrimination and persecution that Turkish Jews have suffered since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923.

This is an important exposé since the Turkish government has gone to great lengths for many decades to deceive the international community that there is great tolerance for Jews in Turkish and that Jews lived in a democratic society which protected their civil and religious rights. The aim of this Turkish propaganda campaign was two-fold: To keep Israeli leaders and American Jews happy so they would support Turkish interests in Washington and enlist the political lobbying clout of American Jews in Washington to counter congressional efforts to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

The Turkish government back in 1992 commemorated with a big splash the 500th anniversary of Jews fleeing from Spain and relocating in Turkey. Ankara co-opted many of the Jewish community leaders, including the Chief Rabbi, into propagating this false historical narrative. When I wrote an editorial back then exposing the lies of that celebration, I got a letter from the head of the commemorative events, asking why I wanted to cast a negative light on their celebration.

Interestingly, that Jewish leader did not contest any of the facts in my article on the persecution of Jews in the Ottoman Empire throughout the centuries.

Bulut’s article is significant because it describes the persecution of Jews not centuries ago but during our own times in ‘modern’ Turkey! The article begins with a news item from the Turkish Milliyet newspaper reporting that dozens of historic Jewish synagogues “run the risk of disappearing forever.”

One of the main reasons why these synagogues are disappearing is that the majority of the Jewish community of Turkey has departed from Turkey fleeing from “systematic discrimination and campaigns of forced Turkification and Islamization.” Bulut reports that in 1923, at the beginning of the Turkish Republic, there were 81,454 Jews in Turkey. That number has dwindled to “fewer than 15,000.” The last of Jewish schools was shut down by the Turkish government in 1937, according to Bulut.

Here is the list of the major episodes of Turkish persecution and discrimination against Jews and other non-Turkish minorities in recent decades, as compiled by Turkish journalist Bulut:

— The Turkish Law of Family adopted in 1934 forced Jews and other non-Turks to abandon their ethnic names and adopt Turkish sounding names.

— “Jews were deprived of their freedom of movement at least three times: in 1923, 1925 and 1927.” Bulut also mentions that “during the Holocaust, Turkey opened its doors to very few Jewish and political refugees and even took measures to prevent Jewish immigration in 1937.”

— Hate speech and anti-Semitic comments are very prevalent in Turkish society and the media. Activities in support of Israel by the Jewish community were banned by the Republic of Turkey.

— The Turkish government has assigned secret code numbers to individuals of Jewish, Armenian and Greek descent. That way the government can track them down and expose their background when necessary.

— “Laws that excluded Jews and other non-Muslims from certain professions:” The Republic of Turkey banned these minorities from holding government positions. “Thousands of non-Muslims lost their jobs,” according to Bulut.

— Prohibition of the use in public of all languages except Turkish. The “Citizen Speak Turkish” campaign in the first years of the Republic mainly targeted the Jewish community, according to Rifat Bali, the leading scholar of Turkish Jewry.

— “The Jews of Eastern Thrace were targeted by pogroms from June 21-July 4, 1934. These began with a boycott of Jewish businesses, and were followed by physical attacks on Jewish-owned buildings, which were first looted, then set on fire. Jewish men were beaten, and some Jewish women reportedly raped. Terrorized by this turn of events, more than 15,000 Jews fled the region.”

— The conscription of non-Muslims in the Turkish Army (1941-42). “On April 22, 1941, 12,000 non-Muslims (also known as “the twenty classes”), including Jewish men — even the blind and physically disabled — were conscripted. But instead of doing active service, they were sent to work in labor battalions under terrible conditions for the construction of roads and airports. Some of them lost their lives or caught diseases.”

— “On Nov. 11, 1942, the Turkish government enacted the Wealth Tax Law, which divided the taxpayers in four groups, as per their religious backgrounds: Muslims, non-Muslims, converts (‘donme’), i.e. members of a Sabbatean sect of Jewish converts to Islam, and foreign nationals. Only 4.94 percent of Turkish Muslims had to pay the Wealth Tax. The Armenians were the most heavily taxed, followed by Jews. According to the scholar Başak İnce, ‘the underlying reason was the elimination of minorities from the economy, and the replacement of the non-Muslim bourgeoisie by its Turkish counterpart.’”

— “During the 6-7 September 1955 government-instigated attacks against non-Muslim communities in Istanbul, Turkish mobs devastated the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish districts of the city, destroying and looting their places of worship, homes, businesses, cemeteries, and schools, among others.”

— “Murders of Jews: Yasef Yahya, a 39-year-old Jewish dentist was brutally murdered on August 21, 2003 in his office in the Şişli district of Istanbul, many Jewish lawyers and doctors in Istanbul removed the signs on their offices in order not to have the same fate as Yahya.”

This list of continued harassment and persecution of Jews and other minorities should be sent to the international media each time that the Turkish government misrepresents its record of mistreatment of the Jewish community in Turkey.

It is a shame that the Israeli government does not whisper a single word of criticism in the face of such persecution of fellow Jews in Turkey. On the contrary, Israeli officials cowardly buckle under pressure from Turkey to deny the Armenian Genocide and ban this crime against humanity from Israeli TV and academic conferences.

The Last Brick in the Denialist Wall: Akçam Speaks with the Armenian Weekly on His Latest Discovery

May 4, 2017 By administrator

By Dickran Khodanian,

Akçam: ‘My Argument is that Based on the New Documents, it is Now Very Difficult to Deny the Armenian Genocide’

Special for the Armenian Weekly

WATERTOWN, Mass. (A.W.)—As Armenian communities around the world marked the 102^nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, a recent revelation by Turkish historian Dr. Taner Akçam has become a central topic of discourse, covered by major news outlets and publications. Akçam—aptly named the “Sherlock Homes of the Armenian Genocide” in a recent New York Times article—has been studying the genocide for years by compiling documents from around the world to combat the Turkish states’ denial.

According to Akçam, his recent discovery—which is he refers to as the “smoking gun” and one of the “last bricks in the denialist wall”—proves the Ottoman government’s awareness of and involvement in the annihilation of the Armenian population. The discovery of these documents was made after they were believed to have vanished following World War I .

The document, acknowledged as authentic by the postwar Ottoman government, helped convict its author, Behaeddin Shakir, one of the founders of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), as one of the masterminds of the Armenian Genocide.

On May 11, the Armenian Museum of America and the National Association of Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) will present “The Story Behind: ‘The Smoking Gun’,” a presentation of these never-before-seen-documents by Akçam. For the first time, this and other documents will be discussed in public.

The Armenian Weekly recently caught up with Dr. Akçam ahead of his Boston-area talk, to discuss his recent discovery and its significance in combating the Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide.

Below is the interview in its entirety.

***

Dickran Khodanian: You have called the discovery of the telegram “the smoking gun,” one of the “last bricks in the denialist wall.” What makes this piece of evidence more significant than other proofs that were available in the past?

Taner Akçam: This evidence enhances the evidence that has been compiled over the years. One of the most important sources of the Armenian Genocide is the military tribunal records in Istanbul. Historian Vahakn Dadrian has used these tribunals to break through Turkey’s denialist wall and has used them extensively. However, the evidences from the Court were constantly criticized because they were not the originals.

In fact, when Guenter Lewy published his book entitled The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide, he discredited court martial materials with the argument that we do not have the originals since they don’t exist. In the book, he writes, “the most serious problem affecting the probative value of the 1919–20 military court proceedings is the loss of all documentation of these trials. This means that we have none of the original documents, sworn testimony, and depositions on which the courts based their findings and verdicts,” (p. 80).

And now we have the original documents with official letterheads that have been deciphered with a certain coding system. The coding system allows for us to authenticate letters that are either related to the killing or the killing operation. It is a major blow to the denialist argument. I will continue to publish more of these kinds of documents from court martial tribunals because it is a very strong addition to the existing scholarship.

D.K.: You have mentioned that you uncovered the document from the nephew of an Armenian Catholic priest, Krikor Guerguerian. Can you provide some background on this? How were you able to finally secure the document?

T.A.: The document is in the private archive of Armenian Catholic priest Krikor Guerguerian in New York. The original document is in Jerusalem Armenian Patriarch’s archive and Guerguerian had visited this archive in the 1960s and had filmed all the materials. It is a very well known document and has been published several times in the form of quotations. In the main tribunal of Istanbul in 1919-1921, it was quoted extensively! Dadrian personally visited Jerusalem and was in contact with Guerguerian; he used this specific telegram and made references to Guerguerian and Jerusalem Archive in his footnotes.

More importantly, the Armenian Assembly microfilmed the entire Guerguerian archive in 1983. These archives have been available since 1983, but nobody could look extensively because there was no proper cataloging system. There were maybe hundred of rolls of microfilm and it would have been almost impossible to go through each roll to find this document. The existence of Guerguerian Archive and copies in the Assembly was public knowledge among scholars. When I first came to the United States in 2000, I approached Guerguerian’s nephew and asked for his permission to look at the originals that are held by him in New York. He rejected, since the materials were all microfilmed in Washington. In 2015, I called the nephew again to ask for permission to see the original materials and this time he allowed me.

D.K.: Could there be more materials to discover?

T.A.: There are still a lot of other materials to discover. This will be one of the main issues I will address in my presentation on May 11. We have several original materials from the Istanbul Tribunal that we know ended up in the archives in Jerusalem and Guerguerian’s personal archives.

In the 1940s, while Krikor Guerguerian was doing research on the extermination of the religious clergy during the Armenian Genocide for his Ph.D in Cairo, he met a former Ottoman judge who was a member of the Istanbul military court tribunal following WWI. The judge told Guerguerian when he was the presiding judge of the court martial, the Armenian Patriarchate was the official representative of the Armenians during the trial. They were given legal rights to have access to the court material and as a result he allowed them to take the court material.

The judge also told Guerguerian that in 1922 Zaven [Der Yeghiayan] Patriarch in Istanbul transferred the materials to Europe, first to Marseilles, then to Manchester, Britain, and then eventually ending up in the Jerusalem archives. So in the 1960s, Krikor Guerguerian went there and took pictures everything.

D.K.: What has made your discovery different? You have mentioned to other publications that you do not believe that this latest discovery will lead to any immediate changes in Turkey’s stance on the issue. Why do you think that is?

T.A.: The important discovery I made is the coding system as well as revealing that the document has an Ottoman letterhead. The Turkish authorities will not be able to claim that it is not authentic. The coding system on the telegram is irrefutable and shows the authenticity of this document.

Today, in the Ottoman Archives, there are hundreds of documents, mainly in the form of telegrams coming from provinces to Istanbul. These are all coded in Arabic numbers. Four or five digit numbers denote each word or plural endings or suffixes. When these coded telegrams arrived Istanbul, the officials wrote the equivalent words or endings on top of each number groups. This is how we are able to read these documents today. I compared the coding system in Bahaettin Şakir’s telegrams with those in the Ottoman archive and I found a match.

Just to give one example: the term for deportation is coded with “4889” on Shakir’s telegram; if you check the Ottoman materials coming to the central government from the provinces in the same period, which have four digit numbers like Shakir’s telegram, you will see that all have the code “4889” for deportation.

Nobody could claim that this telegram is not authentic. Now, the Turkish government has to find an explanation because this argument of “show the original” is not valid. We have the original. They have cornered themselves with their own argument.

I am sure they will continue to deny the genocide because denialism has nothing to do with academic research; it is a political problem. My argument is that based on the new documents, it is now very difficult to deny the Armenian Genocide. The arguments that they have been bringing up over the years will no longer work. Therefore, they will have to resort to something new.

D.K.: Are historians not allowed to research at the archive in Jerusalem?

T.A.: Yes, scholars do not have access. I was declined over the years several times. I had wanted to check Krikor Guerguerian’s material to see whether he really filmed everything. I couldn’t get access. And they have a standard answer: “We are in the process of cataloging,” I am not sure whether this is true. There is no specific reason to my knowledge for why historians do not have access to the archives in Jerusalem. I don’t want to speculate on this.

D.K.: You will be in Watertown, speaking at the Armenian Museum of America on May 11. Tell us a little about what you will be covering during your talk.

T.A.: My presentation on May 11 will mainly be about the contents of Krikor Guerguerian’s archives that are related to the materials of the Istanbul military tribunal. There are a lot more materials in the archives but I will only focus on the tribunal and the materials that were collected during this time.

***

Taner Akçam is the Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University.

He is the author of The Spirit of the Laws: The Plunder of Wealth in the Armenian Genocide, with Ümit Kurt (Berghahn Books, 2015), The Young Turk’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton University Press, 2012), Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials with Vahakn Dadrian (Berghahn Books, 2011), A Shameful Act: Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility (Metropolitan Books, 2006), and From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide (Zed Books, 2004).

He has also authored other works in German and Turkish, including most recently Naim Efendi’nin Hatıratı ve Talat Paşa Telgrafları: Krikor Gergeryan Arşivi [Naim Efendi’s Memoir and the Talat Pasha Telegrams: The Krikor Guerguerian Archive] (İletişim, 2016), forthcoming in English translation.

Akçam will present his talk at the Armenian Museum of America on May 11, at 7 p.m. Click here for further details about the presentation

Armenian school marks 150th anniversary in Istanbul

May 3, 2017 By administrator

Armenians in Istanbul have celebrated the 150th anniversary of Kalafyan School, the cradle of national identity and culture, Agos reports.
Students in national costumes performed ethnic songs and dances at the ceremony which featured also a video reel telling about the school’s foundation and history.
“Today, Kalafyan is the only school which, apart from Istanbul-Armenian students, admits also children from different corners of Western Armenia as a boarding school. For them, Kalafyan it is the source of revealing their Armenian identity, culture and language,” said Diana Kamparosian, the chairperson of the school’s orphanage foundation.
Founded in 1887, the school initially pursued a mission to educate and give safe haven to orphans.