Mooradian comments
April issue
macomb observer
By Mitch Kehetian
DETROIT — For Tom Mooradian, Armenia’s apology for the cruel
treatment of "Armenian repatriats" during the post-World War II years
of 1946-48 was a positive sign that Yerevan seeks to correct the
disastrous repatriation drive.
Mooradian was a 19-year-old teenager from Detroit when he
witnessed the cruel punishment endured by thousands of repatriats to
Soviet Armenia in 1947. He was one of several hundred American
Armenians who went to then communist-controlled Armenia.
"It took 13 years to get the Soviets to let me return to America.
I still feel the pain of that self-imposed exile," author Mooradian
repeats at book signings of "The Repatriat, Love, Basketball and the
KGB."
Mooradian, now 79, applauds Armenia’s minister of diaspora
affairs, Hranush Hakobian, for having publicly apologized at last
December’s international diaspora conference in Yerevan . In
addressing the Dec. 13-14 conference Hakobian extended the
government’s apology to all the repatriats and their families for what
she had termed as being a botched attempt by the Soviet Union at
repatriating Armenians to the small Soviet Armenian republic.
News reports from Armenia on the public apology said Hakobian was
visibly shaken in her remarks, and took special note that her apology
about the suffering was also the first time that a ranking government
official had acknowleged the cruel life repatriats were forced to
endure.
She also confirmed that many of the repatriats were exiled to
Siberia on suspicion of taking anti-Soviet positions, heightened by
Stalin’s edicts that saboteurs had infiltrated the ranks of the more
than 100,000 repatriats who came to Armenia from the Middle East,
Greece, Romania, and the United States.
During book signings at two of Detroit’s large Armenian church
communities, St. John and St. Sarkis, Mooradian said "when my ship,
the Rossia, pulled out of New York harbor in November, 1947 with 150
other American Armenians reality sunk in my teenage brain. When I
applied for my Soviet entrance visa I had unknowingly applied for
Soviet citizenship. BY my own stupidity I was also relinquishing my
American citizenship. I spent the next 13 years trying to get back to
my home in Detroit. My prayers were answered on July 31, 1960 when the
Soviets granted me an exit visa."
In an interview with Vaughan Masropian, director of the Armenian
Radio Hour in Detroit, Mooradian said the recent positive economic
ranking Armenia received from The Wall Street Journal and The American
Heritage Foundation in their annual 2009 Economic Freedom report was a
healthy free enterprise sign for Armenia’s future.
"When I was there we stood in line for bread, and thankful for
what we got – which was barely enough to survive," said Mooradian, now
a retired suburban Detroit newspaper reporter.
In his memoir "The Repatriat," now in its second printing since
last October when the powerful paperback was published, Mooadian
admits that basketball "kept me alive with the ability to survive 13
years trapped behind the Iron Curtain."
When quizzed at a meeting of the St. Sarkis Fellowship Club,
Mooradian said his "nighmare" experience was brought on by a foolish
young activist who only had himself to blame . "I am just thankful I
survived. when I hear someone bad mouth America, I cringe because the
freedom we have as Americans is priceless. I know. I learned with 13
years of my life."
At a meeting of the Detroit Armenian Women’s Club, Mooradian also
shared the pain and suffering repatriats with small children were
forced to live in then Soviet Armenia while fearful "a knock on the
door at night meant they were being taken away for speaking out
against the communist-run country."
While at an afterglow book signing at Edgar Hagopian’s popular
World of Hagopian Rugs outlet in suburban Birmingham, Mooradian said
his skill on the basketball court is what saved him, mentally and
physically. "After we beat the highly touted team from Red China, I
was placed on the national Soviet team."
As a high school basketball star at Detroit Southwestern,
Mooradian was captain of his team that won the public school crown in
1946. His goal as a repatriat was to go to college in Armenia and
introduce the American style of basketball. "But it was basketball
that saved me in a society that denied people their civil rights," he
told the Detroit Armenian community in a series of talks about "life
behind the Iron Curtain."
Though present-day Armenia, free of communist rule since the 1991
collapse of the Soviet Union is but 12,000 square miles with a
population numbering over three million, Mooradian said the districts
of Kars and Ardahan that Turkey seized from the independent Armenian
republic of 1918 should be returned to the Armenians. "Those lands
belong to Armenia and were so recognized in 1920 by the United States
and President Woodrow Wilson. "
When asked if he ever plans to visit Arrmenia now that it is free,
and practicing economic freedom, Mooradian smiled: "Hey, the Armenians
are great. They also suffered under the tyranny of Lenin and
Stalin. But today they are free to guide their own destiny. As for
going to Armenia, if I did, I would go as a tourist, with a round-trip
ticket and never surrender my American passport," he stressed
adamantly.
When told the diaspora conference in Yerevan also deliberated on
the feasibility to conduct another large repatriation movement to
Armenia, Mooradian was blunt: "Look, I love the Armenian people. If
you want to help Armenia you do it with support for groups dedicated
to help Armenia. You send money, medical supplies and make sure the
U.S. Congress supports Armenia’s foreign policy – and tells the Turks
to condemn the Ottoman government of the 1915 Armenian genocide."
Mooradian, a graduate of Wayne State University, and his wife,
Jan, a retired Detroit public school teacher, now live in upstate
Hubbard Lake. "The Repatriat" is available from Wayne State
University Press, Amazon.com, and from the website
_www.tommooradian.com_ ()
(Editor’s Note:Mitch Kehetian is a contributing columnist for
Observer-Fracassa Publications in Detroit and retired editor of the
Macomb Daily.)