Armenians Recall 1915 Genocide in Turkey

Boston area Armenians gathered yesterday to commemorate the 74th anniversary of the start of a 1915 genocide in Turkey that claimed as many as 1.5 million lives.

At noon, about 500 people gathered at Boston City Hall to protest the Turkish government's human rights violations against Armenians. And at Harvard last night a lecturer on Armenian art described what she said were the Ankara government's current efforts to eliminate all traces of Armenian culture in Turkey.

"The rally was held to commemorate the genocide, to remind us and the people among which we live that such a thing happened," said protest organizer Vahe Habeshian, executive secretary of the Armenian National Committee.

"We also seek to reaffirm that the Armenian people have a struggle which includes restoration of the homeland," Habeshian added.

The massacres were partly a religious conflict between the Muslim Ottomans and the Christian Armenians. Many Armenians dispute Turkish claims that the killing was motivated by wartime conditions, but was not a genocide. The issue has not been resolved.

Speakers at the rally incuded Boston Mayor Raymond S. Flynn, U.S. Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.) and Mel King, a founder of the Rainbow Coalition.

The Perfect Place

According to Thomas J. Samuelian, a first-year Harvard law student and rally participant, Flynn told the crowd that Boston was the perfect place for such a rally because the struggle for American human rights began in the city. He added that Armenians are now engaged in a similar struggle.

Armenians hold memorials on April 24 because the seven-year genocide began on that date in 1915, said Dork H. Alahydoian '89, president of the Harvard-Radcliffe Armenian Club. He said the massacres eventually left nearly three-quarters of his people dead.

"That night the Ottoman Government rounded up all the Armenian leaders and intellectuals and began killing them," Alahydoian said.

After killing most of the leaders, Turkish soldiers evacuated rural Armenian villages, telling the men they had to serve in the army and then working them to death in forced labor camps, Samuelian said. The women and children were then marched into the Syrian desert, where most of them died, he added.

"Anything horrible that could have happened happened" on these marches, Samuelian said, adding that his grandmother was forced to watch her sister being eaten alive by vultures after she had died of typhus.

"Every Armenian family in the U.S. has a similar story to tell," Samuelian said.

A second genocide, consisting of the widespread destruction of Armenian churches and monuments throughout Turkey, is still occurring, Lucy Der Manuellian, a Tufts lecturer in Armenian Art and Architecture, told an audience of about 15 last night in Union Parlor B.

"Churches have been damaged, defaced and desecrated," Manuellian said. "The slaughter of people has been accompanied by the slaughter of monuments."

Manuellian added that preserving examples of Armenian culture is important because the Turkish government wants to remove all traces of Armenian occupation of the land. Tour guides who mention Armenian culture are sometimes thrown in jail, she said.

The destruction of Armenian artifacts is part of a greater effort to deny that the genocide ever occurred, Daniel E. Maljanian, a third-year law student, said in an interview yesterday.

"The Turks are fabricating new stories about that time and denying the number of Armenians who were killed," Maljanian added.

The bulk of Armenians today live in the United States. An estimated 90,000 Armenians live in Massachusetts, with most residing in Watertown and Cambridge.

All participants in yesterday's events agreed that keeping public awareness of the Armenian genocide high was a high priority.

"Genocide forgotten will be genocide revisited," Maljanian said.