A DUTCH FINDS ARMENIAN ROOTS
By Hakob Tsulikian
AZG Armenian Daily
03/05/2006
On March 23, Netherlands Cinema of Amsterdam screened a new film
titled “The History of My Name” that tells about 51-year-old talented
entrepreneur and headmaster of Kijkduin primary school Alex Luiten,
The Armenian Mirror Spectator reports.
Alex was born and raised in Hague but currently lives in Terschelling
island in the north of Holland. At the age of 19 he finds out that
his father is an Armenian living in France, named Peltekian, who got
to France during the WW I from Turkish town of Dortyol where he was
born in 1912. Only at the age of 44 Alex changed his name Luiten for
Peltekian and got to studying his roots.
After his father’s death, documents in France reveal that he was the
son of a rich landowner and that part of his family found refuge in
Lebanon after the Genocide.
In the film directed by Dorothy Forman Alex tries to find answers from
residents of today’s Dortyol. The film was financed by the Dutch Fund
for cultural broadcasts.