Daily Targum , NJ
April 25 2005
Signs, posters remember Armenian Genocide
By Mike New / Associate News Editor
One poster depicted an elderly man with hands buried in his face,
reading “Break the Chains of Grief.”
Beneath that visage was a hand lying limp in the sand.
Another read “Still Waiting For the Fair Trial.”
The banner overhead proclaimed “Still Not Recognized – 1.5 Million
Killed R.I.P.”
These were just a few of the signs lining the steps of Brower Commons
on the College Avenue campus Thursday, as students remembered the
90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
In 1915, the Ottoman Turks tried to systematically purge their
country of the Armenian people – who had existed since the sixth
century B.C. – in hopes of creating a Turkic state, said Jonathan
Blackenberg, a Rutgers College first-year student.
The day of rememberance is on April 22 because it’s the day when a
large group of dignitaries and educated Armenian men were mass
murdered, said Christina Nazy, a Rutgers College senior.
One reason why the event is held is to oppose the long-standing
policy of the Turkish government denying that the genocide ever
occurred, organizers said.
But Kevork Massoyan, a Rutgers College junior, said there is very
specific evidence, which doesn’t come from survivors of the genocide
or from the English, French and Russians, who were Turkey’s enemies
at the time.
Instead, proof is drawn from Turkey’s allies in World War I, Germany
and Austria, and from Turkey’s own archives.
“The German and Austrian evidence is explicit,” Massoyan said. “It’s
inconceivable to believe allies will record false information to
incriminate their ally.”
Massoyan said the word “extermination” appeared again and again in
the documents. “Archives in Turkey show one document in 1915
specifically ordering the deportation of Armenians,” he said.
Several speakers described just some of the horrors the Armenians
faced.
“Men were forced into the army and forced to dig their own graves at
gunpoint,” Blackenberg said. “The idea was not just kill them, but to
physically demoralize them.”
Livingston College senior Amy Parrish said Armenians had their hair
pulled out and their flesh torn off, with boiled butter poured into
the open wounds.
“Turks were stationed around the camps, beating drums to drown out
the screams,” Parrish said.
“1.2 million people started out on a journey saying ‘pray for us,’ as
they left homes their ancestors had lived in for 2,500 years,” she
said.
In a clip from his recap of the century in 1999 – one of several
audio clips played during the event – Peter Jennings, the host of
ABC’s “World News Tonight,” called it the “forgotten genocide,”
drawing parallels to the situation in Kosovo at the time.
So why would non-Armenians want to hear what I have to say?
That’s a question Eric Ashbahian, a Rutgers College sophomore, asked
the crowd.
“[Then] I realized what the day is about – it’s about a feeling of
belonging you have to your nationality,” Ashbahian said. “It’s a day
of remembrance of what our ancestors went through. We are able to
speak about injustice, to do something about it and to make sure it
never happens again.”