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Ha'aretz, Israel
April 25 2005
90 years on, Armenian recalls the ordeal
By Amiram Barkat
Events were held around the world and in Israel on Sunday and
yesterday to commemorate the Armenian genocide 90 years ago. Between
1 million and 1.5 million Armenians perished in 1915-1916, around a
third of the Armenian people. Some died of hunger, thirst and disease
during the expulsion from their communities in Turkey to Aleppo in
Syria. Others were murdered by Turkish soldiers or bandits.
The last of the genocide survivors in Israel says she forgives the
Turks and does not bear a grudge.
Beatrice Kaplanian recalls the summer day in 1915 when an official
poster appeared in her hometown of Nevshehir, in the Cappadocia
region in central Turkey. The poster announced that all Armenians
must leave their homes immediately. Along with her parents, little
sister, and thousands of Armenian residents, Kaplanian set out on
foot for the long journey to the Syrian city of Aleppo. Her father,
an elderly and sick man, died of exhaustion en route. Shortly after
reaching Aleppo with her mother and sister, Kaplanian was adopted by
a Turkish couple. After the war she was removed from her new home
and, like other adopted Armenian children, moved between several
orphanages in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, eventually ending up in the
1930s in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, where she
still lives.
Kaplanian is close to 100, though she cannot recall her year of
birth, or her original surname. She remembers that her given name was
Filomena, and that her father was redheaded and freckled, just like
her. Some experiences from the journey to Aleppo remain profoundly
etched in her memory. She remembers the terrible thirst and fear at
night. "We would hear horrible screams by girls. When we walked in
the daytime, the men walked on the outside columns to conceal the
girls from the guards, who lusted after them."
In the 1920s and 1930s, the small Armenian community in Palestine
took in thousands of refugees, many of them orphaned children like
Kaplanian. George Hintilian, an Armenian historian, says genocide
survivors had no special standing in Armenian society. "The general
feeling was that everyone had gone through this calamity, and
nobody's special. I remember being surprised when I saw Israelis
treat Holocaust survivors reverently."
Professor Yair Oron, a historian who researches the Armenian
genocide, says there are generational differences in Armenians'
attitudes toward the genocide: "Members of the first generation were
preoccupied with existential struggle. They didn't recount their
experiences much to the second generation. Members of the third
generation made the issue a public priority, but before that happened
we lost valuable time."
Academic research on the genocide only began in the 1960s. In the
1970s, the Armenians sought attention through terrorist attacks on
Turkish targets in Western countries. Countries such as the United
States and Israel still refuse to ascribe the term "genocide" to the
Armenian disaster. "What characterizes the second and third
generations is the profound sense of humiliation and frustration, to
an obsessive degree, at the world's ignoring their people's
calamity," says Oron.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
April 25 2005
90 years on, Armenian recalls the ordeal
By Amiram Barkat
Events were held around the world and in Israel on Sunday and
yesterday to commemorate the Armenian genocide 90 years ago. Between
1 million and 1.5 million Armenians perished in 1915-1916, around a
third of the Armenian people. Some died of hunger, thirst and disease
during the expulsion from their communities in Turkey to Aleppo in
Syria. Others were murdered by Turkish soldiers or bandits.
The last of the genocide survivors in Israel says she forgives the
Turks and does not bear a grudge.
Beatrice Kaplanian recalls the summer day in 1915 when an official
poster appeared in her hometown of Nevshehir, in the Cappadocia
region in central Turkey. The poster announced that all Armenians
must leave their homes immediately. Along with her parents, little
sister, and thousands of Armenian residents, Kaplanian set out on
foot for the long journey to the Syrian city of Aleppo. Her father,
an elderly and sick man, died of exhaustion en route. Shortly after
reaching Aleppo with her mother and sister, Kaplanian was adopted by
a Turkish couple. After the war she was removed from her new home
and, like other adopted Armenian children, moved between several
orphanages in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, eventually ending up in the
1930s in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, where she
still lives.
Kaplanian is close to 100, though she cannot recall her year of
birth, or her original surname. She remembers that her given name was
Filomena, and that her father was redheaded and freckled, just like
her. Some experiences from the journey to Aleppo remain profoundly
etched in her memory. She remembers the terrible thirst and fear at
night. "We would hear horrible screams by girls. When we walked in
the daytime, the men walked on the outside columns to conceal the
girls from the guards, who lusted after them."
In the 1920s and 1930s, the small Armenian community in Palestine
took in thousands of refugees, many of them orphaned children like
Kaplanian. George Hintilian, an Armenian historian, says genocide
survivors had no special standing in Armenian society. "The general
feeling was that everyone had gone through this calamity, and
nobody's special. I remember being surprised when I saw Israelis
treat Holocaust survivors reverently."
Professor Yair Oron, a historian who researches the Armenian
genocide, says there are generational differences in Armenians'
attitudes toward the genocide: "Members of the first generation were
preoccupied with existential struggle. They didn't recount their
experiences much to the second generation. Members of the third
generation made the issue a public priority, but before that happened
we lost valuable time."
Academic research on the genocide only began in the 1960s. In the
1970s, the Armenians sought attention through terrorist attacks on
Turkish targets in Western countries. Countries such as the United
States and Israel still refuse to ascribe the term "genocide" to the
Armenian disaster. "What characterizes the second and third
generations is the profound sense of humiliation and frustration, to
an obsessive degree, at the world's ignoring their people's
calamity," says Oron.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress