Armenian Genocide Museum: Reliving a painful history

November 27, 2015 By administrator

One of the most poignant aspects of my visit to Armenia last September was the heart-rendering tales of the genocide, the pain of which every Armenian across the world continues to carry in his / her heart. As many as 28 countries across the world recognise the Armenian genocide that had happened between 1915-1923 in the Ottoman Empire. India incidentally is not among those nations. The genocide museum and memorial is a painful reminder of the sad history of the nation that has seen the death of 1.5 million people in the beginning of the 20th century. As every visitor to Armenia will realise, the last 100 years do not seem to have lessened the pain for them any less.

The Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex in Yerevan was built in 1967 on Tsitsernakaberd hill. The imposing tall structure of the genocide monument towers over the area.. As soon as one steps into the garden and the extended lawn that leads to the memorial, notes of sad music wafts through the air in keeping with the sombre atmosphere of the premises.

The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute was inaugurated in 1995 on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the genocide. The museum leaves a powerful impact on every visitor. The detailed explanations according to chronology is a moving account of the horrific events. The museum exhibits the photographs of the orphans of the genocide, women and children sent to Syrian desert without food and water, stark documentaries, methods of mass killing depicted are tragic reminders of the darkest hours for the Armenians. All photographs were taken by eye witnesses who saw the genocide.

For Armenians it was not only the death of its people but also a cultural genocide on account of the massacre of Armenian intellectuals, clergymen, and destruction of historical and cultural heritage. A century has passed but it is a grief that they do not want to ever lessen leave alone forget.

Source: financialexpress

Legal settlement with Armenian church lets Getty Museum keep prized medieval Bible pages

September 21, 2015 By administrator

One of the eight illustrated table of contents pages from a 750-year-old Armenian Bible that the Getty Museum acquired in 1994. The Getty has reached a legal settlement with an American branch of the Armenian Apostolic Church in which the church is being recognized as owner — but is donating the works to the Getty. (J. Paul Getty Trust)

By Mike Boehm

The Getty Museum will keep eight brilliantly illustrated table of contents pages from a 750-year-old Armenian Bible after settling a long-running lawsuit brought by an American branch of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The church contended they had been illegally separated from the rest of the book amid the Armenian genocide during World War I.

The Getty and the Western Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America jointly announced the settlement Monday. Both sides said they were happy with the outcome, but for very different reasons.

The Getty gets to keep the art, and the church gets recognition that all along it has been the rightful owner of the pages, which were separated about 100 years ago from a complete Bible called the Zeyt’un gospels.

The rest of the book is at the Matenadaran, a museum and library for manuscripts in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. The Getty bought its pages in 1994 from an Armenian American family for $1.5 million in today’s dollars.

Under the settlement, attorneys said, the church will donate the eight pages, known as a “canon table” that prefaces the rest of the Bible, to the Getty on Jan. 1, 2016. The Getty will pay all legal expenses from the suit the church had brought in 2010 – a sum attorneys for the two sides declined to disclose.

“It’s a resolution both sides are equally happy with, a win-win,” said Timothy Potts, director of the Getty Museum. “It’s an acknowledgment of their ownership, but maintains the work as an integral part of the collection here.”

Potts said that the Getty will keep custody of the manuscript pages until it officially takes ownership.

They were created during the mid-1200s by a renowned Armenian artist, T’oros Roslin, but were separated from the rest of the Zeyt’un Bible sometime during the upheaval caused by the Armenian genocide of 1915 to 1918. It claimed the lives of about 1.2 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, which became the modern republic of Turkey. The Turkish government disputes that a genocide took place.

Lee Boyd, the attorney for the Armenian church, said its main objective was not to wrest the pages from the Getty, which it feels has been a good custodian and offers continuing access to a Southern California public that includes a large number of Armenian Americans.

The foremost goal, she said, was to set the historic record straight and draw attention to the fact that there is much unfinished legal business for heirs of Armenian families or institutions that lost property during the Genocide.

“This is the first restitution of an artwork from the Armenian genocide,” Boyd said. “I hope it’s not the last. The case was brought to acknowledge the ownership of the church and [establish] recognition that they were taken during the Armenian genocide. It had devastating effects felt for generations, including much loss of cultural patrimony, particularly of the Armenian church.”

Before the settlement, according to court files, the church had sought the pages’ return, along with damages of at least $35 million. But both sides would have been on unpredictable legal terrain had the case proceeded, complicated by what Potts described as “lots of gray areas and facts we don’t know” relating to the manuscript pages’ whereabouts during and immediately after World War I.

According to court documents, the Zeyt’un Gospels were housed at a church in a traditionally Armenian area of what’s now Turkey. As chaos broke out, members of the Armenian community removed the prized Bible from the church for safe keeping. At some point the front pages with the most beautiful art were separated from the rest.

They wound up in possession of an Armenian man who immigrated to the United States in 1923, settling in Massachusetts. That family handed them down through generations until the Getty bought them more than 70 years later.

The pages became a highlight of the Getty’s collection of illuminated manuscripts. The materials – paint on vellum, a parchment made from calf’s skin — are too fragile and light-sensitive to be on permanent or frequent display, Potts said. But as delicate medieval manuscripts go, the Zeyt’un canon tables have been in heavy rotation, with one or more pages displayed in 11 exhibitions since 1997 – 10 at the Getty and one at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

They will have been out of view for 19 months when two of the pages go back on display Jan. 26 in the Getty’s exhibition “Traversing the Globe Through Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts.”

For the record, Sept, 21, 2:40 p.m.: an earlier version of this post incorrectly said that all eight of the Getty’s Armenian bible pages would be displayed in its upcoming exhibiiton of manuscripts.

The church’s legal position got a boost in December 2013 from a ruling in another art-restitution case brought against a Spanish museum, involving California heirs of a family that lost a painting by Camille Pissarro during the Holocaust.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to declare unconstitutional a special 2011 California law that extends the statute of limitations for claims to recover allegedly stolen works held by museums and art dealers. That took away some of the Getty’s legal ammunition.

But Boyd, the Armenian church’s attorney, said that pushing forward rather than settling the suit would have meant fighting additional procedural battles over whether the church had waited too long to sue.

In court documents the Getty had pointed to articles published in 1943 and 1952 that showed church officials were fully aware that the family in Massachusetts possessed the canon tables, and did not take action to get them back.

Also important to the settlement, Boyd said, was the knowledge that the Getty can give the artworks the best scholarly attention and technical care. “The Matenadaran has expanded its preservation abilities, but [Armenia] is still an emerging economy and the resources are not there as they are at the Getty,” she said. Boyd said “there are hopes this resolution will forge a relation between the Getty and the Armenian church” in which the Getty, which has an international program for art conservation, would take on projects in Armenia.

Potts said that “it could happen…but that hasn’t been a part of the [settlement] agreement.”

The museum director said another future possibility is a joint exhibition in which the Getty would loan its pages to the Matenadaran for an exhibition of the entire Zeyt’un gospels in Armenia, and in turn the full book would be shown at the Getty.

More likely in the near term, Potts said, is a ceremony to mark the church’s donation of the art to the museum.

“It’s an important moment for both parties, and we would love for there to be some such event,” he said.

Source: latimes.com

Plans afoot for Armenian museum here

September 16, 2015 By administrator

Venture capitalist Pierre Hennes, one of the trustees of the Armenian church, says the Armenian community has been discussing setting up the museum since 2005.ST PHOTO: DESMOND LIM

110-year-old building may house maps, religious relics

Singapore’s oldest church, the 180-year-old Armenian Apostolic Church of St Gregory The Illuminator in Hill Street, will soon have an Armenian heritage museum.

Venture capitalist Pierre Hennes, 43, one of its four trustees, says the tiny, close-knit Armenian community here and about 15 Armenians overseas have been discussing setting it up since 2005.

Before that, the community was focused on sprucing up the church, which was declared a national monument in 1973.

Hardly any Armenians here worship in the church and Armenians say there is no pressure on them to attend church regularly, as religion is a very personal and private matter to them. But building churches everywhere they landed was their way of preserving their roots.

The premises are often rented out to other Orthodox Christians, such as the Coptics, for their services. What they earn goes towards maintaining the church.

If all goes well, the museum will open next year in the 110-year-old house across the church.

The two-storey building was originally a parsonage but there has not been a resident priest since 1933.

The trustees hope the museum will have maps, religious relics and Armenian literary works. The museum plan is quite a turnaround from just 10 years ago, when Armenian archbishop Aghan Baliozian tried to sell the church and parsonage.

The community stopped that sale and, today, the mother church in Armenia is giving the museum plan its support.

Last November, the world leader of the church, known as the Catholicos, was here to bless the Armenian congregation and the church.

•Do you have Armenian memorabilia to lend or give to the new museum? Write to singapore@armeniansinasia.org

Source: straitstimes.com

Armenia: Hayk Demoyan “every day of Turkish citizens visiting the Genocide Museum of Yerevan”

July 10, 2015 By administrator

Hayk Demoyan

In his speech on 8 July at the 12th meeting in Yerevan on the theme of genocide of the 20th century of the International Association of Genocide scholars, Hayk Demoyan, director of the Museum of the Armenian Genocide claimed that almost every day Turkish citizens visited the Genocide Museum in Yerevan. “Today it is still 4 Turkish citizens who have visited (…) we are encouraged to see that among the visitors, they want to know their own history. We must also be willing to work with civil society in Turkey. It’s very important, “said director of the Museum of the Armenian Genocide.

Krikor Amirzaya

Holocaust Museum spotlights 100th anniversary of #Armeniangenocide

February 11, 2015 By administrator

By Mike Isaacs

(Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education… (Illinois Holocaust Museum)

Some 100 years later, the black-and-white photo, grainy and archaic as it may be, remains ghastly and gruesome, documentation of grand inhumanity still difficult to digest today.

The remains of a woman and two young children lay lifeless, starved to death and apparent victims of the Armenian genocide that dates back to 1915. report chicagotribune

Tragically, other global genocide — whether the Holocaust waged by Nazi Germany against the Jews or barbarity more recent and current —- have produced their own photos documenting systematic, brutal murder, efforts to eliminate a demographic of human beings.

In marking the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide with a symposium Feb. 8 at Skokie’s Illinois Holocaust Museum, a panelist concluded that every genocide is unique and yet every genocide is the same.

“The magnitude of them could be different, the causes of them could be different, but there tends to be common elements that you see persistently through most of them,” said Shant Mardirossian, chairman of the Near East Foundation.

One of the most basic is dehumanization of a group of people. Eventually targeted for persecution, those people become regarded as less than human beings so attempts to eliminate them take on a warped and skewed sense of morality.

Now That the Lawsuits Are Settled, Let’s Build the Genocide Memorial

July 22, 2014 By administrator

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN

On July 15, a Federal Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s 2011 decision, ordering the return to the Cafesjian Family Foundation (CFF) the properties intended for the construction of an Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Here is how Appeals Court Judges Garland, Wilkins, and Ginsburg summarized the series of lawsuits and counter-suits filed by the contending parties in the past seven years:

Armenian Assembly of America officials, including Hirair Hovnanian and Gerard Cafesjian, “secured sizeable funding contributions, and formed a nonprofit corporation, the Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial (AGM&M). They also agreed on and purchased a historic building for the museum’s site, just a few blocks from the White House. But as the years wore on, they were unable to agree on much else. Progress staggered. Tensions mounted. Little true headway was made. Eventually, one of the project’s principal founders and benefactors, the late Gerard Cafesjian, chose to part ways with the group and resigned his post as President of AGM&M. The split was far from amicable. And so began a chain of events culminating in this tangle of litigation. After several years of legal wrangling, the parties’ claims ultimately proceeded to a bench trial before the District Court. Save for a single cause of action, all of the claims were found unproven. Post-trial proceedings ensued on a multitude of issues, and, after many of the District Court’s decisions were appealed on a piecemeal basis, the assorted cases on appeal were consolidated and presented to us for resolution.”

In the last page of their ruling, the Appeals Court Judges voiced their frustration and dismay at the wasteful series of lawsuits. In utter exasperation, they wrote:

“This legal saga has been long-lived. What began as a single lawsuit to collect on an unpaid promissory note quickly escalated into a morass of litigation. More than seven years and millions of dollars in legal fees later, much of the parties’ work to achieve their dream of a museum appears to have been for naught, which is regrettable. Whatever happens next, hopefully our decision today can at least serve as the last word on this dispute’s protracted journey through the courts.”

I received scores of e-mails from many readers last week deploring the fact that two prominent Armenian organizations wasted millions of dollars in suing each other instead of settling their dispute out of court and building a Genocide Museum, scheduled for completion long before the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide. Unfortunately, the inauguration of the Museum, located just two blocks from the White House, may not take place at all!

It is deeply regrettable that both sides had rejected all offers by third parties to mediate their dispute. The millions of dollars spent on litigation would have helped fund the Genocide Museum. This is yet another sorrowful example of Armenians acting against their own interests!

A miracle could still happen! Even though Mr. Cafesjian passed away last September, he had repeatedly declared that it was his fervent desire to build a Genocide Museum and Memorial in the nation’s Capital. Armenians worldwide ardently wish that his heirs and CFF trustees honor Mr. Cafesjian’s commitment to this revered project and bring his undying dream to fruition.

Armenia’s leaders, heads of Diaspora organizations, and community members should notify CFF trustees that they are fully ready and prepared to provide all possible support to make Mr. Cafesjian’s dream a reality. This museum shall be a lasting tribute to Gerard Cafesjian who donated tens of millions of dollars for humanitarian projects in Armenia and the United States.

Now that this acrimonious lawsuit is behind us, it is high time for the Armenian American community, with the consent of CFF trustees, to come together and form a pan-Armenian committee, including the Armenian Assembly, to begin planning the building of this important landmark in Washington, D.C.

The Genocide Museum would be a lasting reminder to millions of visitors not only of the terrible tragedy that befell Armenians in 1915, but more importantly, the story of their indomitable spirit to survive and thrive. The Museum, therefore, could more properly be called, “Memorial to Armenian Survival from Genocide.”

Should CFF trustees and the Armenian-American community share this miraculous vision, the groundbreaking ceremony could be held on the future site of the Armenian Memorial on April 24, 2015!

Armenian Genocide museum to be built in Buenos Aires

June 12, 2014 By administrator

June 12, 2014 – 09:17 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Buenos Aires city authorities officially provided a property for the construction of an Armenian Genocide museum on Tuesday, June 10, in a ceremony attended by the City’s Chief of Staff Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, Undersecretary for Human Rights and Cultural Pluralism Claudio Avruj and various representatives of the Armenian community in the country, as well as the Armenian Ambassador Vahagn Melikian, according to Asbarez.

Rodriguez Larreta said that this museum is “a way to ensure that humanity will not commit atrocities like those committed almost 100 years ago in Armenia” and highlighted the “pride” that Armenians had to “emerge with such force” after having suffered the Genocide.

Avruj said that “the Armenian Genocide, as well as the Holocaust or the genocide in Rwanda represents absolute evil” and stated that “the recognition of those facts allow us and the next generations to have a better society.”

The property for the Armenian Genocide Museum was transferred to the Memory of the Armenian Genocide Foundation, an organization led by Professor Nelida Boulgourdjian and architect Juan Carlos Toufeksian, the same institution that organized the International Congress on Armenian Genocide in Buenos Aires last April.

Toufeksian gave some details of the project: the Museum will have a memorial on the ground floor and a screen with testimonies of the survivors. The first floor there would have the Museum of Genocide itself, while the second floor will be dedicated to the cultural heritage of the Armenians in Argentina and temporary exhibitions. The third floor will host a library.

“The laws and judgments of justice, along with the recent decisions to build museums in Montevideo and Buenos Aires are an example of the conviction to overcome the discourse and the pressures of the states that continue to deny the existence of the Armenian Genocide, like Turkey and Azerbaijan,” said Alfonso Tabakian, director of the Armenian National Committee of South America.

450 new archival documents provided to the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan

May 25, 2014 By administrator

Nearly 450 photographs were offered to the Genocide Museum by Khaniguian family living in Greece. Family archives going back to genocide transmitted for several generations and which have been entrusted to Yerevan. The collection represents many photographs from the early 20th century, taken in the Ottoman Empire, Greece, Egypt, and Syria in orphanages.

They are orphans Armenian genocide survivors, gathered in institutions or orphanages. These archives contain numerous annotations, names and places that are important elements in the case of genocide. “On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, this collection is not symbolic, it is also exceptional on the reality of genocide. These photographs have their rightful place in the new part of the Genocide Museum will open its doors in April 2015. Among these photographs that the arrest Young Turk leader, Ismail Hakki Bey by military English is exceptional, “said Hayk Demoyan director Genocide Museum in Yerevan.

Krikor Amirzayan

Armenian Genocide Museum Gifted Hundreds of Original Photographs

May 24, 2014 By administrator

YEREVAN—The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute has acquired a unique and rich collection of photos related to the Armenian Genocide and its aftermath. Highlighting the importance of the preservations of memory and its transmission to future generations, the heirs of the Khanikian family from Greece donated around 450 original photos to the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan.

The collection contains original photos documenting the lives of the countless orphans of the Genocide, the orphanages in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Greece and Syria, the orphan care activities of America’s Near East Relief organization, as well as photographs related to episodes of the history of the Armenian Genocide. The majority of the photographs have extremely important original captions on their back sides.

The director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, Hayk Demoyan, noted that “on the eve of the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide the acquisition of this collection is not only symbolic, but also an exceptional event for our museum, and these photographs will find their special place in the exhibition of the new museum to be opened in 2015. Among the photos, the photo of Young Turk leader Ismail Hakki Bey arrested by British soldiers is of unique importance, indeed”

The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute thanked the Armenian Ambassador to Greece Gagik Ghalachyan for his help in the acquisition of this unique collection.

In early September 1915, American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Henry Morgenthau appealed to the U.S. State Department via telegraph, in which he considered it very necessary to set up a special committee in order to organize fundraising and finding resources to support those who survived the massacres.

From October, 1915, the fundraising organizations were carried out by the Armenian Relief Committee. Two similar committees in the Middle East operating before that were then united with the Armenian Relief Committee and formed “American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief”, which on August 6, 1919 was renamed as “Near East Relief” by the decision of the U.S. Congress.

Initially established as a temporary Committee, “Near East Relief” turned into a large organization. Originally it aimed at raising about $100,000, but during fifteen years of its activity the organization had more than 110 million dollars of investment in saving refugees and orphans. This humanitarian mission was carried out by American citizens and missionaries in the Caucasus, the Middle East and the Balkans. It was the first ever large-scale humanitarian effort of its kind.

Armenian Genocide Museum Planned in Buenos Aires

May 9, 2014 By administrator

BUENOS AIRES (Agencia Prensa Armenia)—The City of Buenos Aires will donate a property to the Armenian community for the construction of an Armenian Genocide Museum, according to Undersecretary for Human Rights and Cultural Pluralism Claudio Avruj.

In dialogue with Prensa Armenia, Undersecretary Avruj stressed the importance of the project “that joins the efforts of both Buenos Aires and Argentina” to recognize the Armenian Genocide and added that it is an initiative that will benefit both the Armenian community and people in general.

Carolina Karagueuzian, director of the Armenian National Committee of Buenos Aires, said that “this will be a collective project that will show the struggle of the Armenian community in the country to keep the memory of the Armenian Genocide alive”, and also “a space for reflection on genocidal practices and the importance of respect for human rights.”

Last April 24 a similar project was launched in Uruguay, with the presentation of the Armenian Genocide Museum Foundation coordinated by the Ministry of Education and Culture together with Uruguayan Armenian organizations in the country.