Shoah to add Armenian genocide witness videos
Posted April 5, 2012 at 11:31 pm in News
Though the USC Shoah Foundation Institute is already renowned for its collection of testimonies from Holocaust survivors, it now hopes to broaden its archives to include the Armenian genocide.
More than 400 testimonies from survivors of the Armenian genocide recorded on 16mm film by Armenian-American filmmaker Dr. J. Michael Hagopian will soon be added to the foundation’s nearly 52,000 testimonies from around the globe.
An estimated 1.5 million people died between 1915 and 1923 in the Armenian genocide.
Hagopian met survivors of the massacre while traveling internationally to film documentaries and interviewed them to preserve their stories.
The Shoah Foundation Institute hopes adding the Armenian genocide to its archives will be the first step in expanding its collection to include all genocides. Researchers are also working to track down testimonies from genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia.
Stephen Smith, executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, said discovering similarities across genocide records allows scholars to find their origin.
“Having testimonies from different genocides is not about comparing human suffering, because that’s not possible, but about comparing the causes and the consequences [of the genocide],” Smith said. “It’s in understanding the causes and consequences that we understand how we might prevent genocide in the future and also how it affects the individuals who have been through it.”
The diversity in the survivors Hagopian interviewed only makes the collection more interesting, Smith said. The tapes include interviews from survivors not only in Armenia, but also from locations as far flung as North America, the Mediterranean basin and India.
“We are getting both a very personal and a very broadly based geographical understanding of what those individuals went through,” Smith said.
Smith said the personal nature of these interviews also makes Hagopian’s collection stand out.
“Most of what we have on the Armenian genocide so far is documentary information, but these testimonies will lend a tremendously valuable insight into understanding personally what these individuals went through,” Smith said.
Members of the Armenian community also see the addition of these testimonies as a key step in the preservation of the history of this genocide.
Jerry Papazian, a board member of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies’ Leadership Council and chairman of the Armenian Film Foundation, has even loftier goals for the institute.
“The goal is to start collecting other collections of Armenian genocide victim’s accounts to add to the collection and make this the largest collection of Armenian genocide testimonies side by side with those of the Holocaust survivors,” Papazian said.
Making the stories of these survivors available to the public is also a key motivator behind the project, Papazian said.
“Right now, when the interviews are sitting in a vault someplace, they are not available,” Papazian said. “We were originally able to salvage their testimonies on film, but now with better technology available, why not share them with more people?”
Combining records of the two genocides could also make the archive a much better learning tool, supporters said.
“We hope by learning about genocide through the archive at USC, our students will be better off as citizens of the world to understand genocide and address it,” Smith said. “Genocide is not something we want or anticipate, but it is a fact of human existence and something that we want to understand better.”
The USC Institute of Armenian Studies’ Leadership Council will hold a fundraising gala April 15 to raise money to digitize the testimonies. The Shoah Foundation Institute expects to complete the project by the end of 2012.
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This article is tagged: Armenian Film Foundation, Armenian Genocide, documentary, holocaust, Jerry Papazian, shoah foundation institute, Stephen Smith, usc institute of armenian studies
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Sir; can you provide the name and publication date of literature from any international rescue agency or aid society not affiliated or allegiant to the Turkish government that backs up your claim? For any reader who might be fooled by your lies all they need to do is google search “Armenian genocide” versus “Armenian role or cause in genocide”. Try it and acknowledge the truth. It won’t kill you…unlike what your forefathers did to mine
Google and wikipedia is littered with Armenian propaganda. Let’s refer to more reliable sources, shall we?
I am suggesting that you look at page 185 of the book ” Houshamatyan of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Centennial, Album-Atlas, Volume I, EPIC BATTLES, 1890-1914″, printed by Next Day Color Printin, Inc. in Glendale, in 2006. This book, is not written by Turks; it is written by Armenians (ARF).
Armenians love keeping two sets of books:
one for public consumption, “Poor starving, helpless, unarmed” Armenians exterminated by vicious Turks one day (April 24) out of the blue, after a millennium of cohabitation (The kind USC Shoah is duped into disseminating)
And the other, like this book I just described, for use by the Armenian youth, where the Armenian revolutonaries talk about “epic battles” with Turks and how they slaughtered Turks with those brave Armenian soldiers and gangs.
Armenians cannot seem to decide: are they victims of a genocide or victors of epic battles?
These two consepts are mutually excusive, by nature, logic, and truth.
There is a saying in Turkish: “Liar’s candle goes at by twilight.” Armenian candles are at their twilight now…
The
Case dismissed
3/3
What about it now, dear USC Shoah Foundation?
Do you still wish to be used by deceivers who promote personal stories of suffering, which may be factual, as proof of a genocide that is definitely not?
Jews were killed by the Nazis because of who they were; Armenians were temporarily resettled TERESET) because of what they have done.
Jews never established Jewish armies behind German lines to create a Jewish state on German soil or killed half a million German noncombatant women and children. Armenians, on the other hand, did all that and more in the Ottoman Empire between 1890 and 1922.
How can anyone, let alone USC Shoah Foundation, hold the long discredited Armenian claims of genocide equal to the silent memory of 6 million innocent Jews killed during WWII?
Take a look at this photo
2/3
Take a look at this incredible photo at http://www.ethocide.com, which refutes the Armenian narrative. Taken in 1906, it depicts cadets in uniform at an Armenian Military Academy in Bulgaria. The Armenian cadets are proudly posing while brandishing their Russian-made MOSIN rifles. The Armenian Revolutioanry Federation used these weapons since 1893. This photo is the tiny needle that bursts the “genocide balloon” …
Do these people in the photo look like “poor, starving, unarmed, helpless Armenians” ?
If you can say yes, then I will withdraw my objection to the discriminatory approach taken by USC Shoah Foundation. Then again, if you say yes, you are a bigger deceiver than the Armenian book writer Aram Andonian of “fake Talat Telegrams” fame ( http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/andonian.htm ).
This simple, unassuming photo is a “smoking gun” of sorts, pun intended, although none of the guns in the photo are smoking, that destroys the house of cards the Armenians built in their genocide claims,
… that Armenians were always loyal, hardworking citizens;
… that they never did anything to betray their country;
… that they never had armies;
… that they had no guns;
… that they were poor, starving, helpless souls;
… that everything happened one day on April 24, 1915 one day;
… that there was no provocation;
…and that the Armenians never posed a threat.
The Armenian myth is blown with a single photo…
Not All Suffering is Genocide
1/3
What USC Shoah Foundation seems to be doing is agreeing to archive Armenian stories of suffering during WWI, supplied by the Armenian lobby. This is okey as long as such individual stories are not promoted as proof of an alleged genocide, as that would be a dishonest and racist behavior on the part of a respectable institution. Dishonest because that would ignore Armenian revolts, terrorism, treason, territorial demands, and other Armenian complicity in this tragedy. And racist because the Turkish victims of Armenian revolutionaries would be disregarded or dismissed.
If the same institution, however, agreed to archive the personal stories of suffering of Turkish survivors at the hands of Armenians, and there are many more of those, all belonging to the same period, same area, and subjected to the same wartime conditions, then that would be a fair, decent, balanced, and righteous act. Right now, it has all the trappings of a partisan approach to a controversial historical issue.
What USC Shoah Foundation seems to be doing is agreeing to archive Armenian stories of suffering during WWI, supplied by the Armenian lobby. This is okey as long as such individual stories are not promoted as proof of an alleged genocide, as that would be a dishonest and racist behavior on the part of a respectable institution.
If the same institution, however, agreed to archive the personal stories of suffering of Turkish survivors at the hands of Armenians, and there are many more of those, all belonging to the same period, same area, and subjected to the same wartime conditions, then that would be a fair, decent, balanced, and righteous act. Right now, it has all the trappings of a partisan approach to a controversial historical issue.
Take a look at this incredible photo at http://www.ethocide.com, for example, that refutes the entire Armenian narrative. Take a good, hard, honest look at this single frame, taken in 1906, which depicts cadets in uniform at an Armenian Military Academy established in Bulgaria. The Armenian cadets are proudly posing while brandishing their Russian-made MOSIN rifles–used by Armenian revolutionaries since 1893. This is the tiny needle that bursts the “genocide balloon” forever…
Now, do these people in the photo look like “poor, starving, unarmed, helpless Armenians” to you?
If you can say yes, then I will withdraw my objection to this blatantly discriminatory approach taken by USC Shoah Foundation. Then again, if you say yes, you are a bigger deceiver than the Armenian book writer Andonian of “fake Talat Telegrams” fame ( http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/andonian.htm ).
Armenian military academy? Uniforms? Guns? 1906? Bulgaria?
Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
Welcome to the real Armenian-Turkish conflict !
This simple, unassuming photo–an Armenian document first exposed in 1990 in an Armenian language book which I do not have and then again in an English language book in 2006 which I own—is a “smoking gun” of sorts, although none of the guns in the photo are smoking, that destroys the house of cards the Armenians built in their bogus genocide claims,
…that Armenians were always loyal, hardworking citizens;
… that they never did anything to betray their country;
… that they never hurt the Ottoman interests;
…that they never had armies;
…that they had no guns;
… that they were poor, starving, helpless souls;
… that everything happened one day on April 24, 1915 one day;
…that there was absolutely no provocation;
…and that the Armenians never really posed a threat.
The entire Armenian myth is blown with a single photo…
Case dismissed…
What about it now, dear USC Shoah Foundation?
Do you still wish to be used by deceivers who promote personal stories of suffering, which may be factual, as proof of a genocide that is not?
Jews were killed by the Nazis because of who they were; Armenians were teresetted (temporarily resettled) because of what they have done. Jews never established Jewish armies behind German lines to create a Jewish state on German soil or killed half a million German noncombatant women and children. Armenians, on the other hand, did all that and more in the Ottoman Empire between 1890 and 1922.
How can anyone, let alone USC Shoah Foundation, hold the long discredited Armenian narrative equal to the silent memory of 6 million innocent Jews killed during WWII?