GENOCIDE VICTIMS’ MEMORIAL TO TAKE A SWEEPING APPROACH
Peter Hecht, Sacramento Bee
Scripps Howard News Service
SACRAMENTO, Calif.
December 26, 2006, Tuesday 4:18 PM EST
Assemblyman Lloyd Levine says he came to understand his Jewish cultural
roots and comprehend a horrific epoch in history on a trip to Israel
in 2004.
He was at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, transfixed
by cubes stacked like children’s play blocks. Each depicted children
who died of Nazi genocide. A somber voice intoned their names as 1.6
million beams of light reflected the toll of young lives taken.
"For the next several hours, I had the abiding urge to throw up,"
Levine, D-Van Nuys, said. "It makes you sick knowing what happened."
Levine returned to California determined to make his own contribution
to the victims by seeking a "dignified and quiet" memorial outside the
Capitol to honor those who "perished and suffered" in the Holocaust.
But as the bill he sponsored was debated and amended in the Legislature
and then signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sept. 30,
Levine’s original vision grew markedly.
Under Assembly Bill 1210, which went into effect Monday, California
will begin a quest to construct a memorial at Capitol Park not only for
victims and survivors of the Holocaust, but for all people who faced
genocide and ethnic cleansing across the world and many generations.
On its face, the effort raises a poignant challenge by seeking to
bring together diverse peoples and histories to acknowledge acts of
inhumanity from the Holocaust of Nazi Germany to the killing fields
of Cambodia to the ongoing ethnic slaughter in Darfur.
Though still an ill-defined concept, the idea of such a memorial is
stirring emotional discussions among vast, varied communities affected
by genocide.
In Glendale, Haig Hovespian hopes the memorial will acknowledge the
mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Turkey in 1915.
"A vast majority of Armenians who came to California were either
survivors or descendants of the victims of Armenian genocide,"
said Hovespian, community relations director for Armenian National
Committee of America. "If you want to boil it down, it is the reason
that they are Californians today."
In Sacramento, Zang Fang, 36, believes such a monument should
acknowledge Hmong refugees who fled wanton killings in Laos during 30
years of retaliations for the Hmong’s support of the United States’
secret war against communist Pathet Lao in the 1970s.
As a toddler, Fang lost his father, Joua Lue Fang, who fought alongside
U.S. forces and was killed in an explosives accident. As an 8-year-old,
he saw an uncle, Zong Chue Fang, executed and lost a cousin, Xialee
Fang, who was gunned down while collecting wild roots as Pathet Lao
forces sacked Hmong villages.
Thousands were ultimately killed or imprisoned, and 200,000 people
were forced into exile. Fang’s family attempted a perilous trek on
a mountain trail lined with bodies of Hmong victims. They eventually
made it to Thailand in a boat crossing the Mekong River, as 16 people
drowned when a second boat capsized.
"What the Hmong did to help the Americans needs to be acknowledged,"
Fang said of the Capitol memorial. "And the price they paid to help
the Americans needs to be acknowledged."
Under AB 1210, a nine-member International Genocide Commission,
including at least six survivors or descendants of genocide, will
be appointed to select a design and initiate private fundraising to
build the memorial.
"The construction of this memorial will help all Californians remember
the unimaginable suffering genocide survivors endured," Schwarzenegger
said in signing the legislation.
The bill declares that "California recognizes the atrocities of
all ethnic cleansing campaigns," including "the Holocaust, Kosovo,
Armenian genocide, Rwanda, African American slaves, Native Americans
and the plight of the Hmong in Southeast Asia."
If built, the memorial would be the 16th major monument at Capitol
Park, joining the Civil War Veterans Grove, the Father Junipero Serra
statue, and veterans, Vietnam War and firefighters memorials.
The planned genocide memorial’s attempt to meld such horrific events
from far corners of world history may prove particularly sensitive.
(Distributed by Scripps-McClatchy Western Service,
)