THE LAST SURVIVOR: DENIAL

Huffington Post
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April 22 2009

Michael Pertnoy and Michael Kleiman Filmmakers, The Last Survivor

Archbishop Vicken Aykazian speaking at the "Honor the Past, Act
Now for Darfur" commemoration event in Washington, D.C. on Sunday,
April 19th. Despite, the world’s refusal to acknowledge the Armenian
Genocide of 1915, the Armenian community acts as some of the strongest
advocates for the Darfuri people.

In the 1980s, with her children grown, Hedi Fried, decided to dedicate
her life to Stockholm’s community of Holocaust Survivors of which she
is a part. Now, at 84 years old, she has dedicated her remaining years
to ensuring that the stories of horror that she was made to witness
and experience are passed on to future generations – allowing a new
generation to take on the important responsibility of keeping and
sharing such memories. In Hedi’s view, the degree to which we allow
our memory to fade is tied to directly to the persistence with which
the past will repeat itself. Voices such as Hedi’s are imperative
at a time in which it has become all too common to deny that the
Holocaust ever occurred.

"The first time I heard it, I laughed," Hedi told us, speaking of
her first encounter with such denial. "The second time I heard it,
I realized that this was nothing to laugh at; and the third time,
I realized I had to do something."

Unfortunately, the trend of denial is not relegated to the Holocaust
alone. While deniers in Iran hold conferences that seek to dispute
the facts of the Holocaust, Hutus in Rwanda have insisted that tales
of one million Tutsis slaughtered in 1994 are mere myths. In addition
to the extreme pain such claims undoubtedly bring to Survivors like
Jacqueline, who is reminded daily of the genocide’s reality by the
extreme absence that remains in her life, denial has turned to acts
of violence. In April, the day after a commemoration event in Kigali
that honored the victims of the 1994 genocide, a grenade was thrown
at the city’s genocide memorial – the same horrific incident occurred
last year. And, even as genocide continues in Darfur, governments
across Africa have already launched a widespread campaign of denial –
insisting that claims of genocide are the stuff of Western propaganda.

Indeed, it is more important than ever that champions of truth
speak up to ensure that our collective memory does not fade at the
hands of those who seek to repeat the horrors of the past. However,
in denouncing those who spread variations on history, deviations from
the truth, and all out lies, we must remind ourselves that as a nation,
we too are engaged in this evil movement of denial.

Tomorrow, Armenians around the world will commemorate the horrific
genocide that was carried out against their people. On April 24,
1915, the Ottoman authorities arrested 250 Armenian intellectuals
and community leaders in Istanbul. The execution and deportation
of these Armenians launched a genocide that would claim nearly two
million lives. 94 years later, the Armenian community still waits
for the world to acknowledge this crime.

Nations around the world, including our own, continue to refuse this
simple request.

In Darfur, four million refugees wait for the world to respond to
their continued cries for help. In response, we tell them that there is
little we can do – that it is far too complicated of a situation for
us to get involved. Despite the indifference to evil that saturates
such refusals of intervention, implicit within them is at least an
acknowledgment of the suffering of the Darfuri people – an assertion
that the horror they are experiencing is real and not a delusional
figment of their nightmarish imaginations. While it is rightfully
outweighed by the frustrations of our unwillingness to act, we must
not forget that acknowledgement is indeed a powerful thing. For one
will never seek to stop, what he does not believe to exist.

In Germany, the government is unable to take back their trespasses of
the past. Such impossibilities are a fact of our limitations as mortals
– the movement of history insists that we look forward. Understanding
these restrictions all too well, the German people have done what they
can to ensure that the horror that began in Germany in the 1930s,
does not repeat itself there. They have adopted a firm policy of
Holocaust education in their schools and a newly erected Holocaust
Memorial in downtown Berlin serves as a daily reminder to the German
people of both the atrocious actions undertaken by their nation and the
inhumane silence with which they responded to such actions as citizens.

In comparison to the 11 million lives taken during the Holocaust,
this may seem like a rather small step. Small as it may be, it is
unlikely that the next genocide we witness as a people will be carried
out in Germany.

In Turkey, these small, pertinent steps of acknowledgement are
constantly refused. Such denial is not only a slap in the face of the
Armenian community, it is an affront to all us – an attempt to rob
us of the facts of our collective story of life; an insistent error
in the history of our species; an attempt at tipping the balance of
memory, compelling us to repeat the horrors of the past. As a nation
that values freedom, peace, and truth, it is our responsibility to
speak up to such atrocious lies.

Today, President Obama will speak at our National Holocaust Museum
in Washington, D.C. Undoubtedly, just days following the annual
commemoration of the Holocaust – Yom Hashoa – the President will honor
the memory of those who perished during the Holocaust. What remains
to be seen is whether, on the day preceding the 94th anniversary of
the Armenian Genocide, he will honor the two millions lives taken in
1915 with the simple action of acknowledgement.

In the aftermath of genocide those who survive are often left with
very little. An indiscriminate killer, genocide claims mothers,
fathers, children, siblings, teachers and friends as its victims. As
it continues it kills a people’s history and traditions. What it
cannot take is the memory of those who come out alive. It is us only
us, the people of posterity, who can commit such an atrocious crime
against those who have already lost so much.

Watch a 20-minute sneak preview our film now and commemorate the
Armenian Genocide along with the five other genocides commemorated
in April by participating in Genocide Prevention Month.