Chicago centenarian honored as one of Armenian mass-slaughter’s by the Turks last survivors

October 22, 2013 By administrator

October 20, 2013|By Jennifer Delgado | Tribune reporter

Helen Paloian started her life without a home.

(Chuck Berman, Chicago Tribune)

Orphaned as a young child in Armenia, Paloian — then Helen Kherdian — wandered the streets, begging for food and shelter. She witnessed Ottoman Turk soldiers raid her village and deport the locals, just before mass killings that many historians call the Armenian genocide began in 1915, her relatives said.

During those killings, she briefly found refuge in an Armenian church but fled when she learned Turkish soldiers planned to burn it. She later moved into an orphanage that relocated several times across the Middle East until a cousin found her and brought her to Racine, Wis., in the mid-1920s.

On Sunday, a white-haired Paloian sat smiling, surrounded by family in the place that has become her home — St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Church on the city’s Northwest Side, which honored the 107-year-old, believed to be one of the tragedy’s last survivors, for her strength, perseverance and faith in God.

“It’s amazing. It’s as if the more bad things that have happened to her in 107 years, the stronger her faith is,” the Rev. Aren Jebejian told church members during a morning service. “By living today, she is an example to all of us.”

Almost a century ago, the Ottoman Turks killed an estimated 1.5 million Armenians as their empire dissolved during World War I. Many historians have called the period a genocide, but Turkey disagrees and has never formally apologized, said Richard Hovannisian, a professor emeritus at UCLA who held the Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Armenian History.

Born in 1906, according to relatives, Paloian does not remember how her parents died. During the slaughter, two of Paloian’s two older brothers were exiled and a third brother left for the U.S. Later on, she briefly reunited with the third brother but never heard from the other two again, relatives said.

Left on her own, Paloian lived on the streets until she was rescued by a woman from an orphanage, where she stayed until the end of World War I. After the war ended, the orphanage moved to other countries, like Syria and Lebanon. Paloian followed.

By chance, an American cousin of Paloian’s named Jacob Hardy found out she was living in Greece as he was recovering at an American hospital after he served during World War I. Visiting relatives had brought him an Armenian newspaper that listed orphans living in that country, including one he believed was his long-lost cousin.

That suspicion was enough for him to travel to Greece to bring her back to the U.S. with him. The pair traveled as far as Cuba before a Chicagoan originally from Armenia agreed to travel to Havana to wed Paloian, mainly to ease her entry into the U.S.

The two wedded in February 1926 in a civil ceremony in Havana. Once in the U.S., Paloian and her husband, Zadig, decided to stay together and eventually had four children.

To this day, Paloian talks about her love of America and how God has taken care of her despite the hardships, said her granddaughter, Marianne Ajemian. Paloian lives on the top floor of a two-flat with a caregiver in the Montclare neighborhood, just above her son and daughter-in-law.

“She was obviously very blessed … with a strong mind and spirit,” said Ajemian, when asked what has made Paloian live this long. “She loved life and she loved helping people … and I don’t think she ever wanted to say goodbye.”

At the service, Paloian wore a gentle smile as she sat in the pews, sometimes craning her neck to get a better view of the rituals performed at the altar. She clutched a cane inside the church, which was filled with the smell of incense and illuminated by small chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

Afterward, relatives helped her walk down the stairs to a special luncheon, where children gave her a red rose corsage.

“She had the worst life and God saw fit for her to live the longest. That’s what impresses me,” said her nephew, Chuck Hardy, who sat next to Paloian during the meal. “God works in a mysterious ways.”

jmdelgado@tribune.com

Twitter @jendelgado1

The Washington Post: Armenian ‘orphan rug’ is in White House storage, as unseen as genocide is neglected

October 22, 2013 By administrator

An Armenian rug woven by orphans in the 1920s was formally presented to the White House in 1925. A photograph shows President Calvin Coolidge standing on the carpet, which is no mere juvenile effort, but a complicated, richly detailed work that would hold its own even in the largest and most ceremonial rooms, The Washington Post writes.

The article says the plants and animals depicted on the rug may represent the Garden of Eden, which is about as far removed as possible from the rug’s origins in the horrific events of 1915, when the fracturing and senescent Ottoman Empire began a murderous campaign against its Armenian population.

The article by Philip Kennicott runs as follows:

“There was hope that the carpet, which has been in storage for almost 20 years, might be displayed Dec. 16 as part of a Smithsonian event that would include a book launch for Hagop Martin Deranian’s “President Calvin Coolidge and the Armenian Orphan Rug.” But on Sept. 12, the Smithsonian scholar who helped organize the event canceled it, citing the White House’s decision not to loan the carpet. In a letter to two Armenian American organizations, Paul Michael Taylor, director of the institution’s Asian cultural history program, had no explanation for the White House’s refusal to allow the rug to be seen and said that efforts by the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, John A. Heffern, to intervene had also been unavailing

Although Taylor, Heffern and the White House curator, William G. Allman, had discussed during a January meeting the possibility of an event that might include the rug, it became clear that the rug wasn’t going to emerge from deep hiding.

“This week I spoke again with the White House curator asking if there was any indication of when a loan might be possible again but he has none,” wrote Taylor in the letter. Efforts to contact Heffern through the embassy in the Armenian capital of Yerevan were unsuccessful, and the State Department referred all questions to the White House.

Last week, the White House issued a statement: “The Ghazir rug is a reminder of the close relationship between the peoples of Armenia and the United States. We regret that it is not possible to loan it out at this time.”

That leaves the rug, and the sponsors of the event, in limbo, a familiar place for Armenians. Neither Ara Ghazarian of the Armenian Cultural Foundation nor Levon Der Bedrossian of the Armenian Rugs Society can be sure if the event they had helped plan was canceled for the usual political reason: fear of negative reaction from Turkey, which has resolutely resisted labeling the events at the end of the Ottoman Empire a genocide. But both suspect it might have been.

“Turkey is a very powerful country,” says Der Bedrossian, whose organization was planning to fund a reception for the event.

And it’s a sign of the Obama administration’s dismal reputation in the Armenian American community that everyone assumes it must be yet another slap in the face for Armenians seeking to promote understanding of one of the darkest chapters in 20th-century history.

Aram Suren Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, says the president has had “a very negative reception across the board in the Armenian world, and that includes both Democrats and Republicans.” The principal emotion is profound disappointment. As a candidate, and senator, Obama spoke eloquently about the Armenian genocide, risking the ire of Turkey and Turkish organizations. But since taking office, says Hamparian, Obama has avoided the word, making more general statements about Armenian suffering. Critics of his silence point to the geopolitical importance of Turkey in a region made only more complex by the Arab Spring and a brutal civil war in Syria.

The word genocide is a flash point in the ongoing animosity between Turkey, Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora. Turkish resistance to accepting the historical facts of the Armenian genocide has included wholesale denial that the events took place, an effort to contextualize them as the fallout of a complicated, violent period, and semantic argument based on the 1948 legal definition of genocide, established by the United Nations. Independent scholars have eviscerated the first of these claims, demonstrated the bad faith of the second (the treatment of the Armenians was egregious) and grappled seriously with the legal particulars, especially the difficulty of proving the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” But few seriously argue that the events weren’t genocidal.

Samantha Power, for example, uses the term “Armenian genocide” throughout her landmark 2002 book on genocide, “A Problem From Hell.” Power was appointed by Obama to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and was confirmed in August.

But the president’s language has been more circumspect. As a candidate, he said, “The Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides.” But in his most recent presidential proclamation honoring April 24’s Armenian Remembrance Day, he used the Armenian term “Meds Yeghern” — “great calamity” — while avoiding explicit mention of genocide.

U.S. government officials and the Smithsonian have been reluctant to address a controversy that is often dismissed as just another intractable historical dispute. Although Armenian musicians performed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2002, a Smithsonian spokeswoman says the institution hasn’t taken up the subject of the genocide, a remarkable omission of scholarship concerning an important ethnic group in the United States and one of the last century’s most critical and notorious historical events. (Even Adolf Hitler supposedly referred to the Armenian genocide in a quote that is also disputed by some scholars: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” he asked in a speech just before Germany invaded Poland in 1939.)

In Power’s book, the author notes the power of “Turkish objections” to prevent official U.S. recognition of the genocide. As a presidential candidate, Obama said in a statement that he “stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey’s acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide.” But April’s presidential proclamation finessed the delicate situation by saying, “I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view has not changed,” suggesting he strongly supports a truth he no longer has the courage to utter.”

Before the 1915 Armenian Genocide, there were over 2,5 thousand churches in the Ottoman Empire. All of them are ruined now.

October 22, 2013 By administrator

October 22, 2013 – 19:07 AMT

A dilapidated Ergeni Armenian church in the city of Tunceli, Dersim province collapsed, with villagers hoping for it to be reconstructed and turned into a tourist destination, Haber 3 reported.

The church, located at 15 kilometers from the city of Hozat, Dersim province, was impossible to register and reconstruct. Thought the major part of the church, dilapidated after lengthy wars, collapsed, Armenian inscriptions can still be read on the ruins. The church is one of the biggest ones in Desrim. Though the church was taken under the control of the department of culture and tourism in 2012, no works to reconstruct the church were initiated.

2 Armenian cathedrals – Holy Cross Church on Akhtamar Island and St. Giragos Church in Diyarbakır have been reconstructed in Turkey. Restoration works in Ani, the capital of Armenian Bagratid Kingdom have been in progress for several years. Before the 1915 Armenian Genocide, there were over 2,5 thousand churches in the Ottoman Empire. All of them are ruined now.

Source: PanARMENIAN.Net

Turkey preventing U.S. institution from displaying Genocide-era artwork

October 22, 2013 By administrator

October 22, 2013 – 10:01 AMT

Turkey has reportedly pressured the Obama Administration into forcing the Smithsonian Institution to cancel an official display of the historic Genocide-era “Armenian Orphan Rug.” The ANCA is deeply troubled that foreign interference, from Ankara, appears to be preventing the Smithsonian from displaying this historic Genocide-era artwork.

“We hope and expect that our government will, as a matter of principle, reject foreign efforts to censor how Americans view a truly pivotal chapter in the history of America’s emergence in the early 20th Century – notably during the Armenian Genocide – as an international humanitarian power,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “Any barriers to the display of the Armenian Orphan Rug should be removed, and this important piece of artwork made available to the American public.”

In an article in The Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Philip Kennicott says: “If you can read a carpet’s cues, the plants and animals depicted on the rug may represent the Garden of Eden, which is about as far removed as possible from the rug’s origins in the horrific events of 1915, when the fracturing and senescent Ottoman Empire began a murderous campaign against its Armenian population. Between 1 million and 1.5 million people were killed or died of starvation, and others were uprooted from their homes in what has been termed the first modern and systematic genocide. Many were left orphans, including the more than 100,000 children who were assisted by the U.S.-sponsored Near East Relief organization, which helped relocate and protect the girls who wove the “orphan rug.” It was made in the town of Ghazir, now in Lebanon, as thanks for the United States’ assistance during the genocide.”

“Although Taylor, Heffern and the White House curator, William G. Allman, had discussed during a January meeting the possibility of an event that might include the rug, it became clear that the rug wasn’t going to emerge from deep hiding. This week I spoke again with the White House curator asking if there was any indication of when a loan might be possible again but he has none,” wrote Taylor in the letter. Efforts to contact Heffern through the embassy in the Armenian capital of Yerevan were unsuccessful, and the State Department referred all questions to the White House. Last week, the White House issued a statement: “The Ghazir rug is a reminder of the close relationship between the peoples of Armenia and the United States. We regret that it is not possible to loan it out at this time.”

That leaves the rug, and the sponsors of the event, in limbo, a familiar place for Armenians. Neither Ara Ghazarians of the Armenian Cultural Foundation nor Levon Der Bedrossian of the Armenian Rugs Society can be sure if the event they had helped plan was canceled for the usual political reason: fear of negative reaction from Turkey, which has resolutely resisted labeling the events at the end of the Ottoman Empire a genocide. But both suspect it might have been.”

Hamparian says the president has had “a very negative reception across the board in the Armenian world, and that includes both Democrats and Republicans.” The principal emotion is profound disappointment. As a candidate, and senator, Obama spoke eloquently about the Armenian genocide, risking the ire of Turkey and Turkish organizations. But since taking office, says Hamparian, Obama has avoided the word, making more general statements about Armenian suffering. Critics of his silence point to the geopolitical importance of Turkey in a region made only more complex by the Arab Spring and a brutal civil war in Syria.

Protest Turkish Lies (Visit by Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan to Los Angeles)

October 20, 2013 By administrator

Community Urged to Protest the Visit by Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan to Los Angeles on Monday.

GLENDALE—On Monday, October 21, Ali Babacan, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, will speak to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council about Turkey’s economic and foreign policy, including the US-Turkey business relations and the future of economic investment in the region.

A protest rally will be held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City, where Babacan will be addressing the World Affairs Council.

Protest the Representative of the government responsible for the first genocide of the 20st Century and the continued occupation of Western Armenia and over 1/3 of Cyprus.

Buses will depart promptly at 4 p.m. from the following locations:

St Mary’s Apostolic Church
500 South Central Ave.
Glendale, CA 91204

Holy Martyrs Apostolic Church
5300 White Oak Ave.
Encino, CA 91316

Rose and Alex Pilibos
1615 N Alexandria Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027

Holy Cross Armenian Church
900 West Lincoln Ave.
Montebello, CA 90640

Pasadena Armenian Center
2242 East Foothill Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91104

Armenian Genocide Orphans camp Baqubah, Iraq 1917, Brigadier-General Austin & his Staff, organizer of refuge. (Video)

October 20, 2013 By administrator

Brigadier-General Austin, the British Commandant organizer of the Refuge Camp at Baqubah, and his staff.

Photo’s shows tent one of 3,000 in the Refugee Camp, where 17,000 Armenian refugees and Orphans are enjoying the inestimable hospitality of H.B.M ‘s Government.

You will also see His Grace Moushegh Seropian, Archbishop Prelate of Mesopotamia (Iraq) Dioces, discussing with Arab Sheikh Fehed Bey of Enezch tribe, the liberation of the Armenian Orphans and Refugees.

Armenian have always been very thankful to the Arab people hospitality of opening their doors for Armenians Orphans and refuges, while the Turks use Islam as tools to massacre Armenian’s yet the Arab use Islam to save Armenians.

Historian Taner Akçam Awarded MESA’s Hourani Book Prize

October 16, 2013 By administrator

WORCESTER, Mass. (Armenian Weekly)—Historian Taner Akçam recently received the Middle East Studies Association’s (MESA) 2013 Hourani Book Prize for The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire.

MESA’s statement reads: “We award the 2013 Hourani Book Prize to Taner Akçam’s for The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire, a compelling work of scholarship that provides the strongest historical argument to date regarding the Armenian Genocide. Based solely on Ottoman documents, Professor Akçam details the motives, the planning, the communications, the organization and the execution of the Ottoman demographic policy. In the field of genocide studies it broadens the concept of genocide to include the forced assimilation of children and women and the confiscation of property. It sets a new standard for scholarship in a controversial field.”

The award holds particular significance in light of the history of MESA’s approach to Armenian Genocide scholarship. In the introduction to his book, Akçam wrote the following about MESA’s stance:

“This work may also be read as a critical reflection on the silences in Ottoman historiography as practiced both in Europe and in the United States until recently. Most historians of the Ottoman period have elided the internal deportations, expulsions, massacres, and genocide that took place during the demise of the empire. These events have been ‘nonexistent’ in their works. What is more, broaching this subject has generally been dismissed as a disturbing expression of narrow-minded ethnocentrism by members of the targeted ethnic groups. Not so long ago, it was common practice to shun anyone who tried to open the topic at the annual meetings of the Middle East Studies Association, the umbrella organization for scholars in this field. It was as if ignoring mass deportations and annihilation were an academic virtue and noble act.”

In light of MESA’s history, “I consider this as an historic award and historic step from MESA. I dedicate this award to scholars like Vahakn Dadrian and Richard Hovannisian who diligently and tirelessly worked in the early years of MESA to get their voices heard,” Akçam told the Armenian Weekly.

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

Los Angeles CA: Protest Turkish Lies

October 16, 2013 By administrator

Community Urged to Protest the Visit by Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan to Los Angeles on Monday.

A protest rally will be held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City, where Babacan will be addressing the World Affairs Council.

Protest the Representative of the government responsible for the first genocide of the 21st Century and the continued occupation of Western Armenia and over 1/3 of Cyprus.

Buses will depart promptly at 4 p.m. from the following locations:

St Mary’s Apostolic Church
500 South Central Ave.
Glendale, CA 91204

Holy Martyrs Apostolic Church
5300 White Oak Ave.
Encino, CA 91316

Rose and Alex Pilibos
1615 N Alexandria Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027

Holy Cross Armenian Church
900 West Lincoln Ave.
Montebello, CA 90640

Pasadena Armenian Center
2242 East Foothill Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91104

Article: Turkey covers up Armenian Genocide

October 15, 2013 By administrator

October 15, 2013 – 16:16 AMT

BY: Syuzanna Petrosyan

In 1915, under the cover of World War I, Ottoman Turks wiped out about a third of its Armenian population. To this day, Turkey denies any blame for the atrocity, and behind it, U.S. stands firm among a dwindling band of nations that fail to acknowledge the killings were genocide.

In the recent years, as recognition from governments around the world has increased, Turkey has also multiplied its efforts to combat remembrance and commemoration inside and outside of Turkey.

From the vivid photographs of Armin T. Wegner, a German soldiers and medic stationed in the Ottoman Empire during the genocide, to the reports of U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Henry Morganthau, and the front page headlines in the New York Times, it is remarkable how forcefully Turkey has been able to curtail the memory of this tragedy from its own people and those around the world.

It becomes perhaps less surprising when taking into account the billions of dollars the Turkish government spends on world-wide denial efforts. And one doesn’t have to look too far. For the past five years, The Pacifica Institute, a Turkish-American organization based in Orange County, Calif. has hosted the Anatolian Cultures & Foods Festival. Anatolia refers to the region of Turkey were majority of Armenians lived during the Ottoman Empire. The festival portrays the rich multiculturalism of the region, including displays of old Armenian churches, artifacts and music, with no mention of the annihilation of an entire people but also the complete destruction of its culture in their homeland of thousands of years.

By presenting the Ottoman era of the Turkey in a positive light, they appeal to the mass media and the public, which helps them spread their message in solidifying denial and shaping the discourse of the Armenian Genocide. They focus on perceptions and images to appeal rather than historical and scholarly accuracy.

Nonetheless, it is by no means an easy task to re-write history. In 1998, UCLA’s history department voted to reject a $1m offer to endow a program in Turkish and Ottoman studies because it was conditional on their denying the Armenian genocide.

In August of 2011, the Turkish government tried to suppress a Microsoft online encyclopedia entry. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the Turkish government threatened Microsoft with serious reprisals unless all mention of the Armenian genocide was removed. Authors Ronald Grigor Suny and Helen Fein refused to give in.

Professor Colin Tatz, director for the Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies at Macquarie University, in Sydney, Australia, claims that Turkey has used “a mix of academic sophistication and diplomatic thuggery . . . to put both memory and history into reverse gear”.

Despite the massive efforts by the Turkish government, however, in the recent years, intellectuals in Turkey have began rising the discussion of the genocide, risking persecution and arrest.

In 2005, Nobel prize-winning novelist Orhan Pampuk was put on trial in Turkey after he made a statement regarding the Armenian Geoncide. The controversy ensued with burning of Pamuk’s books at rallies and assassination attempts.

In 2007, Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was assassinated in Istanbul in front of his newspaper office. Dink had long endured threats by Turkish nationalists for his statements on the Armenian Genocide. He had also been under prosecution for violating Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code which makes it illegal to “insult Turkishness.” In a 2012 decision, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey had failed to protect Dink’s freedom of speech. His murder sparked international outrage.

In more recent years, academics in Turkey have risked fierce backlash by issuing a public apology campaign for genocide. The apology comes in an open letter inviting Turks to sign an online petition supporting its sentiments. In an interview with Cengiz Aktar, one of the founders of the apology campaign and a professor of EU studies at Istanbul’s University of Bahcesehir, he said that the purpose of the petition is to bring back the memory of the genocide which has been forcefully erased by the government.

By the end of 2000, the European Parliament, France, Sweden, the Vatican and Italy finally acknowledged the Armenian genocide. Of the major powers, only the US, Canada and Britain still hold back. There are too many conflicting interests at stake. Turkey, for instance, threatened to deny the U.S. use of its air bases if President Clinton agreed formally to accept the massacres as a genocide.

For the Turks, the problem is enormous. An acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide might result in land claims and reparations. They have only to look at recent German and Swiss history to take fright. It is no surprise, then, that they try to control every aspect of discourse on this topic.

As Thomas Bürgenthal, an Auschwitz survivor, lawyer and member of the UN Human Rights Committee, says, “I don’t know why the Turks can’t admit it, express sorrow and go on. That is the worst. You do all these things to the victim and then you say it never happened. That is killing them twice.”

Reach Executive Producer Syuzanna Petrosyan here. Follow her on Twitter.

Souce: neontommy.com

The Independent: Further proof emerges of Turkey’s genocide

October 14, 2013 By administrator

To other, earlier refugees. The Turks are preparing to smother the 100th anniversary of their Holocaust against the Christian Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 with commemorations of their victory over the Allies at Canakkale (Gallipoli) the same year. But each month brings yet further proof – in the testimony of Westerners – of what Turkey still officially denies: that the genocide of the Armenians was a fact of history.

Now come the memoirs of Alec Glen, a British army doctor of the 1914-18 war – written privately for his sons, but published by his family – which record the further agony of the Armenians.

Entitled In the Front Line: A Doctor in War and Peace, Dr Glen’s account includes the fate of the Armenians of Caucasia as the Turks tried to spread their pan-Turkic rule to the east in 1918 – after the original massacre of one-and-a-half million Armenians three years earlier. Marching through north-western Iran towards Baku, Dr Glen writes of how his British-Indian force began to pass several thousand Armenian refugees in a day.

“It was an amazing and tragic sight … now and then we passed at a roadside a dying person, or one already dead and half-eaten by dogs and jackals… we lifted some of the younger ones who might recover on to the mules and carried them forward to the next village.

“Salisbury Craig [a fellow British doctor] told me later that he attended an old refugee in the road who, before he died, gave him a leather belt full of sovereigns, which he asked him to spend to help the refugees.”

Greater love hath no man…

Armenian News – Tert.am