Armenian Genocide Museum of America
1140 19th Street
NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
Web:
PRESS RELEASE
May 22, 2009
Contact: Carole Karabashian
Email: news@agmm.org
Phone: (202) 383-9009
MUSA DAGH PHOTO COLLECTION TO BE PART OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MUSEUM OF
AMERICA
Washington, DC – Rare and historically significant photographs of the
Armenians of Musa Dagh will be among the Genocide-era images featured in
the Armenian Genocide Museum of America (AGMA), thanks to the generosity
of a private collector who is providing the museum with exclusive access
to the photos.
This unique collection of black-and-white photographs, dating from 1915
to 1939, is the life’s work of Dr. Vahram Shemmassian, a Los
Angeles-based historian who is the world’s leading expert on the
Armenians of Musa Dagh.
"We are profoundly grateful to Dr. Shemmassian for allowing the museum
to use his priceless photo collection to help tell the heroic story of
the Musa Dagh Armenians against the backdrop of the larger and much more
tragic story of the Armenian Genocide," said Van Z. Krikorian, AGMA
Board Trustee and Building and Operations Committee Chairman. "In
addition, as the foremost authority on the subject of Musa Dagh, Dr.
Shemmassian is able to provide authentication of the evidence documented
in these photographs."
Krikorian said the Musa Dagh photo collection is the fourth significant
collection of Genocide-era visual materials which, in the past year,
have been made available for use by AGMA. AGMA has been granted access
to the archives of the Near East Foundation and the Armenian Genocide
Museum-Institute in Yerevan, Armenia, and has received a donation of a
privately-held research library containing books, maps, photographs and
other materials focused on the Armenian Genocide and its documentation.
Dr. Shemmassian has also undertaken pioneering research on the fate of
Armenian women and children during and in the aftermath of the Genocide,
another focus area of the museum. Shemmassian, who is currently
Director of the Armenian Studies Program at California State University,
Northridge, said the Armenian Genocide Museum in Washington, DC is a
"perfect match" for his collection.
"The thousands of people who will visit the museum will be able to look
into the faces of those brave Armenians of Musa Dagh and learn of their
unique story," Dr. Shemmassian said. "They resisted and most of them
survived, but they were forced to leave their homes. These photographs
document the trying conditions and difficult challenges that the
displaced Musa Dagh Armenians faced as survivors and refugees."
According to Dr. Rouben Adalian, Director of the museum’s research arm,
the Armenian National Institute, "The story of Musa Dagh is one of the
rare instances during the Armenian Genocide era where Armenian
villagers, who were targeted for annihilation by the Ottoman Turkish
Army, put up an organized resistance for 49 days and were eventually
rescued by Allied warships patrolling the Turkish coast."
Adalian said, "There are no known photographs of the actual defense of
Musa Dagh, however, the rescue and delivery to safety in Egypt of over
4,000 survivors made headline news." The Austrian author Franz Werfel
also immortalized the gripping events in his "Forty Days of Musa Dagh,"
which became a best-seller upon its release in 1933 and was subsequently
translated into numerous languages.
The AGMA recently received a copy of the Dutch edition of "Forty Days of
Musa Dagh" from a Canadian donor whose family had lived through World
War II. Adalian added, "The book is important supplemental material to
the Musa Dagh photo collection, and points to the world-wide impact of
the story of the resistance of the Armenians of Musa Dagh."
"Franz Werfel’s book was widely read in Europe and made the Jewish
author unpopular with the Nazi regime, prompting Werfel to flee Austria
in 1938," Adalian said. He noted that according to Professor Yair Auron
of the Open University of Israel, Werfel’s novel was a source of
inspiration and reflection for Jews who were trapped by the Nazi
occupation of Europe. In one historical account, a Holocaust survivor
from the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania stated: "Our analysis of the book
indicated that if the world did not come to the rescue of the Armenians,
who were Christians after all, how could we, Jews, expect help? No
doubt Hitler knew all about those massacres and the criminal neglect by
the free world, and was convinced that he could proceed with impunity
against the helpless Jews."
The Armenian Genocide Museum of America is an outgrowth of the Armenian
Assembly of America and the Armenian National Institute (ANI), catalyzed
by the initial pledge of Anoush Mathevosian toward building such a
museum in Washington, DC.
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Photo:
leadmin/aaainc/pdf_1/Q2_2009/Shemmassian015.jpg
[ Photo caption: Very few families survived the Armenian Genocide without
loss of life. Pictured is the family of Krikor Boursalian of Yoghunoluk
village, Musa Dagh. The picture was taken at the Port Said refugee camp
in Egypt sometime between October 1915 and summer 1916.
Copyright: ANI/AGMA – Shemmassian Collection]