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Peabody ceremony memorializes Armenian Genocide victims

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  • Peabody ceremony memorializes Armenian Genocide victims

    Peabody ceremony memorializes Armenian Genocide victims
    By Brad Harrison /

    The Daily Item of Lynn, MA
    April 22 2005

    PEABODY -- More than 100 people filled the Wiggin Auditorium at City
    Hall Thursday to observe the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide,
    which began in 1915.

    The annual event was started in the mid-1980s by then-mayor Peter
    Torigian, who was the son of two survivors of the decimation of the
    Armenians by the Turks.This year's event was the first that included
    a Requiem service to memorialize the victims, and also to remember
    the late Mayor Torigian.

    The event is usually held the Thursday prior to April 24, which is the
    actual date in 1915 that the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians began.

    Speaking for the Torigian family, Mary Torigian Foley described her
    parents' experiences.

    Mary recounted the story of how her mother, Sara, had last seen
    her father chained to a cell wall. At that time, he told her to
    never visit him again and to find the money he had buried behind
    their house and go to live with a Turkish neighbor, who had agreed
    to care for the children. Sara stayed with her brother, Megurdich,
    at the neighbor's house, and Lucia, her younger sister, was sent to
    live with another family.

    The three were then sent on to an orphanage and spent the next seven
    years being shipped from city to city, country to country, starving
    and watching those around them die. She finally reached an orphanage
    in Greece, which received help from actor Jackie Coogan's Armenian
    Relief Society.

    "My mother would sing 'We welcome you Jackie Coogan' to us often,"
    Foley recalled. Andon Torigian, Sara's husband, had suffered in another
    way.Already a family man, he traveled to America to save money and
    bring his family to the United States.Working in the tanneries, he
    was not able to save money fast enough, and his family - parents,
    his wife and his young son, and his brother, Bedros, for whom the
    late mayor was named. "My father never spoke about his family. Now,
    I regret not asking more questions about it," Foley said. "We're
    down to two survivors in this area. This has become more and more
    important to me the older I get."

    The purpose of the event, in addition to honoring the families of
    Peabody residents who died during that time, is to remind the world
    that it happened - the Armenian genocide is not often remembered,
    nor has it been acknowledged by the government of Turkey.


    In fact, in 1939, a week before the German invasion of Poland, and
    the start of World War II in Europe, Adolph Hitler justified his
    orders "to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children
    of Polish race or language," by saying: "Who still talks nowadays of
    the extermination of the Armenians?"

    Jeanne Burbridge and Sara Runnals, daughters of the late mayor,
    read the proclamation signed by Mayor Michael Bonfanti, declaring
    April 21, 2005 a Day of Remembrance of the 90th anniversary of the
    Armenian Genocide, 1915-1923.

    Absent from the commemoration was U.S. rep John Tierney and his wife,
    Patrice, who are ardent supporters of the efforts to get the Armenian
    genocide recognized.

    Tierney has introduced a resolution to Congress formally recognizing
    the Armenian genocide, which has yet to be assigned a House Resolution
    number.

    This week, Tierney signed a letter to President George W. Bush asking
    that he acknowledge the genocide in his next speech this month.
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