By Florence Avakian
Virtually unknown are two documented and compelling events
that are a significant part of the genocide story. Even Armenians are not aware
of them. These will be displayed together for the first time since they were
issued digitally, and will be exhibited during the Armenian Genocide Centennial
Commemoration to be held in Washington, D.C., from May 7 through May 9. They
are being released by the Armenian National Institute (ANI), the Armenian
Genocide Museum of America (AGMA), and the Armenian Assembly of America.
Dr. Rouben Adalian, director of the Armenian National
Institute, in a telephone conversation explained the important role of the
exhibit entitled, “The First Refuge and the Last Defense: The Armenian Church,
Etchmiadzin, and the Armenian Genocide.” This undertaking started 25 years ago
through an investigation of the U.S. National Archives. “We began to collect
together this photographic evidence to tell the story,” he related.
With 20 panels and over 150 historic photographs, the
exhibit details the role of Etchmiadzin during the Armenian Genocide,
especially that of Catholicos of All Armenians Gevorg Sureniants who alerted
world leaders in an “early warning” of the coming Catastrophe.
First humanitarian response to Armenian Genocide
In the Van province, after 55,000 Armenians had been
slaughtered in April 1915 alone, the more than 100,000 survivors in Van city
attempted to flee after Russian forces, who had crossed the border to rescue
them, retreated, Dr. Adalian explained. With Turkish and Kurdish killer bands
pursuing and killing a number of these helpless Armenians over mountains,
rivers, and gorges, many of the thousands that finally reached Etchmiadzin died
of exhaustion, fear, starvation, and disease. One third to one half perished,
he revealed.
The diminished resources in Eastern Armenia, which became a
huge, reeking refugee camp, were speedily overcome with this onslaught of human
desperation. Helping to galvanize the relief work were the courageous Armenians
across the Russian-Turkish border who welcomed these thousands of refugees into
their homes, schools, and hospitals, and fed, housed, and cared for them.
These Armenian volunteers were the first to aid their
people. With the Sovietization of Armenia, the story was virtually closed and
forgotten, said the scholar.
The exhibit highlights the crucial role of Catholicoses of
All Armenians Mkrtich I Khrimian, Gevorg V Sureniantz, Khoren I Muratbekian—all
three of Etchmiadzin—and Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia Garegin I
Hovsepiants. Also playing an important role in assisting Etchmiadzin during
this pivotal time were Eastern Armenian intellectuals, including legendary
writer Hovhannes Tumanian and acclaimed artist Mardiros Sarian.
New digital exhibit: the first deportation
Dr. Adalian revealed that a new exhibit, “The First
Deportation: The German Railroad, the American Hospital, and the Armenian
Genocide,” has also been released by ANI, AGMA, and the Armenian Assembly.
Based on U.S. National Archives photographs, with 128 images, 24 panels, and 7 maps,
it focuses on the localities of the self-sustaining Armenian city of Zeytun in
the Taurus Mountains, and Konya, a central Anatolian Turkish city.
Zeytun, the Armenian scholar noted, was the “first Armenian
community in Ottoman Turkey to be deported en masse in April 1915. To deprive
the Zeytun Armenians of any capacity to defy the deportation edicts, the Young
Turk government divided its population, sending one part east toward the Syrian
desert, and another part west to the barren flats of the Konya Plain.”
Forced out of their mountain homes, the Zeytun Armenians,
famed for their resistance, and who were the first Armenians to be deported
almost a month before April 24, were sent west to Konya, while a short time
later, Armenians from western Anatolia were shipped by train east to Konya, the
main terminus. Women, children, the crippled, blind, and elderly were then made
to walk down mountain passes.
An American hospital and school in Konya soon were
surrounded and became witness to the desperate plight of hundreds of thousands
of Armenian deportees, and became the nucleus of a huge concentration camp, Dr.
Adalian related. “Konya was never intended to exist as a destination camp and
was evacuated within a short time. It has been forgotten as a major site in the
trail of deportation.”
Dr. Wilfred Post became aware of both groups because they
converged in the Konya Plain. The Armenians were all subsequently deported to
the Syrian desert. Dr. Post, along with German railroad engineers, documented
this horrific reality with archival photographs. These courageous missionaries
also included Dr. William Dodd and Emma Cushman, who gave testimony about the
rail line’s deteriorating conditions and the “start of the process of
extinguishing Armenian life across the region.”
A noted scholar with a stellar record, Dr. Rouben Adalian
received his Ph.D. in Armenian history from UCLA, and has taught at the Elliott
School of International Affairs, George Washington University, and at Johns
Hopkins University. He is the author of many scientific works and articles, was
editor of the Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh Facebook, and associate editor of
the award-winning Encyclopedia of Genocide.
The nation’s capital, he said, is the appropriate venue for
the genocide commemoration, and for the world to recognize this crime against
humanity. “Though the Armenian community is small, it has galvanized and pulled
together for this unique anniversary. It speaks volumes about a people who did
not want to die. We survived, endured, and flourished. We must speak on behalf of
humanity to see that its repetition is prevented.”
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