USC Shoah Foundation launches Armenian Genocide Information Quest

USC Shoah Foundation launched its Armenian Genocide Collection in the Visual History Archive in April. Now, a new information Quest Activity about the Armenian Genocide is available for students and educators to view in IWitness.

The introduces students to the context of the Armenian Genocide and includes clips of survivor testimonies about deportation, forced marches, hiding and perpetrators. Students engage with the testimonies using a built-in tool that enables each to construct a word cloud, a fitting title, a meaningful quotation, and a personal response to reflect individual feelings and perceptions about the story.

The Armenian Genocide claimed the lives of 1.5 million men, women and children between 1915 – 1923. Through this activity, students will learn about the history of the Armenian Genocide, learn to identify the differences between sources of information on the same topic, and recognize the value of multiple perspectives in the learning process.

Weeks after the first 60 testimonies of the Armenian Genocide Collection were incorporated in the Visual History Archive, 12 of those testimonies were added to IWitness. The 12 full testimonies include survivors such as Samuel Kadorian and Haroutune Aivazain, as well as witness Nium Sukkar and Henry Morgenthau III, grandson of U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Henry Morgenthau.

All the testimonies are fully indexed. IWitness now includes 26 new indexing terms that are used in the Armenian testimonies, such as “Young Turks,” “Tehcir Law,” “gendarme,” and “Euphrates River.”

– See more at: http://sfi.usc.edu/news/2015/06/9481-iwitness-publishes-first-armenian-genocide-activity#sthash.ByBcYKkp.dpuf

Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS