Tragic memories caught on tape
By Naush Boghossian (818) 546-3306 naush.boghossian@dailynews.com
Staff Writer
Samuel Kadorian [...], the 98-year-old vividly recalls a horrific memory from 1915, when he was just 8, and Armenians were rounded up in Turkey: A baby wouldn't stop crying, he said, so one Turkish soldier threw the infant up into the air and another caught the child on his bayonet.
Those memories will never be erased, said Kadorian, one of the last survivors of what is known as the Armenian Genocide - the organized killing of 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey beginning in 1915.
[...]
For nearly 40 years, UCLA professor Richard Hovannisian has overseen a project - the largest oral history project in the Armenian community - to interview survivors and record stories like Kadorian's.
[...]
"Has Professor Hovannisian interviewed families or descendants of any of the Turkish or Muslim families killed by Armenians?" said Engin Ansay, consul general of Turkey in Los Angeles. "But I don't want to engage in a game of one-upmanship. That is not my intent.
"I strongly believe a dialogue is essential and also an understanding between Armenian Diasporans and Turkish-Americans."
[...]
For every survivor there was a story of a Turk or a Muslim who tried to intervene. And when people 400 miles apart have the same stories, it helps show it was an organized, premeditated operation against the Armenian people in the Turkish empire, Hovannisian said.
[...]
Compared with the Shoah Foundation, which since 1994 has compiled 120,000 hours of video on 52,000 Holocaust survivors in 56 countries and in 32 languages, Hovannisian said their efforts are "amateurish" mainly due to a lack of financial resources.
The Shoah Foundation's work has cost about $100 million - $40 million of which was provided by director Steven Spielberg, said Douglas Greenberg, president and CEO of the foundation.
[...]
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears on:
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~2859446,00.html
Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...].The bold emphasis is mine.
Staff Writer
Samuel Kadorian [...], the 98-year-old vividly recalls a horrific memory from 1915, when he was just 8, and Armenians were rounded up in Turkey: A baby wouldn't stop crying, he said, so one Turkish soldier threw the infant up into the air and another caught the child on his bayonet.
Those memories will never be erased, said Kadorian, one of the last survivors of what is known as the Armenian Genocide - the organized killing of 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey beginning in 1915.
[...]
For nearly 40 years, UCLA professor Richard Hovannisian has overseen a project - the largest oral history project in the Armenian community - to interview survivors and record stories like Kadorian's.
[...]
"Has Professor Hovannisian interviewed families or descendants of any of the Turkish or Muslim families killed by Armenians?" said Engin Ansay, consul general of Turkey in Los Angeles. "But I don't want to engage in a game of one-upmanship. That is not my intent.
"I strongly believe a dialogue is essential and also an understanding between Armenian Diasporans and Turkish-Americans."
[...]
For every survivor there was a story of a Turk or a Muslim who tried to intervene. And when people 400 miles apart have the same stories, it helps show it was an organized, premeditated operation against the Armenian people in the Turkish empire, Hovannisian said.
[...]
Compared with the Shoah Foundation, which since 1994 has compiled 120,000 hours of video on 52,000 Holocaust survivors in 56 countries and in 32 languages, Hovannisian said their efforts are "amateurish" mainly due to a lack of financial resources.
The Shoah Foundation's work has cost about $100 million - $40 million of which was provided by director Steven Spielberg, said Douglas Greenberg, president and CEO of the foundation.
[...]
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears on:
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~2859446,00.html
Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...].The bold emphasis is mine.
posted by Vahe Balabanian at 7:22 AM
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