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MAINTAINING THE MEMORIES OF GENOCIDE
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-hagopian-20101224,0,4147242.story
Dec 24 2010
CA
The late J. Michael Hagopian escaped the mass murder that claimed
the lives of as many as 1.5 million Armenians. Through his 12 films,
the atrocity will remain visible to all who are willing to see.
Most who suffer unspeakably at the hands of others look for ways to
forget, to resume a normal life as best they can. Some, however,
assume the duty of witness in the hope that truthful memory will
protect those who come after them. The passing of these heroic men
and women ought not to go unremarked upon.
J. Michael Hagopian, who died this month in Thousand Oaks, was one
such man. He was just 2 years old in 1915, when his parents hid him
in a well behind their home because they believed they were about to
be killed by Ottoman Turkish soldiers, who were massacring Armenians
across eastern Anatolia. The soldiers ultimately passed them by because
the boy's father, a physician, had treated his Turkish neighbors. The
Hagopians immigrated to Fresno, escaping the mass murder that claimed
the lives of as many as 1.5 million of their fellow Armenians in the
20th century's first genocide.
The toddler who'd sheltered in a well went on to earn advanced degrees
from UC Berkeley and Harvard and to become a distinguished teacher at
UCLA and Oregon State. His great contribution, though, was a series of
12 moving - indeed, heartbreaking - films documenting the attempted
genocide of his people. The most sweeping of these, "The Forgotten
Genocide," was nominated for an Emmy in 1976. He appeared in one of
his own films, "Voices From the Lake," recalling that his mother had
told him, "You can kill a people, but their voices will never die."
The voices of the Armenians still are struggling to be heard in some
quarters. Contemporary Turkey, which has no political connection to the
Ottomans, continues to defy history and decency, and denies the mass
murder was the result of anything but wartime civil strife. It is a
claim refuted by every serious observer in that period. Raphael Lemkin,
the Polish lawyer of Jewish descent who coined the term "genocide"
in 1943, began his lifetime's work on the subject by studying the
organized murder of the Armenians and that of Iraq's Assyrians in 1933.
Thanks to an agreement Hagopian reached last spring with USC's Shoah
Foundation, his vast archive of firsthand testimony by Armenian
genocide survivors and witnesses to the Ottoman atrocities will be
preserved and made available for study by scholars. Because of his
courage and the Shoah Foundation, the voices of the Armenians will
continue speaking to all who are willing to hear.
From: A. Papazian
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-hagopian-20101224,0,4147242.story
Dec 24 2010
CA
The late J. Michael Hagopian escaped the mass murder that claimed
the lives of as many as 1.5 million Armenians. Through his 12 films,
the atrocity will remain visible to all who are willing to see.
Most who suffer unspeakably at the hands of others look for ways to
forget, to resume a normal life as best they can. Some, however,
assume the duty of witness in the hope that truthful memory will
protect those who come after them. The passing of these heroic men
and women ought not to go unremarked upon.
J. Michael Hagopian, who died this month in Thousand Oaks, was one
such man. He was just 2 years old in 1915, when his parents hid him
in a well behind their home because they believed they were about to
be killed by Ottoman Turkish soldiers, who were massacring Armenians
across eastern Anatolia. The soldiers ultimately passed them by because
the boy's father, a physician, had treated his Turkish neighbors. The
Hagopians immigrated to Fresno, escaping the mass murder that claimed
the lives of as many as 1.5 million of their fellow Armenians in the
20th century's first genocide.
The toddler who'd sheltered in a well went on to earn advanced degrees
from UC Berkeley and Harvard and to become a distinguished teacher at
UCLA and Oregon State. His great contribution, though, was a series of
12 moving - indeed, heartbreaking - films documenting the attempted
genocide of his people. The most sweeping of these, "The Forgotten
Genocide," was nominated for an Emmy in 1976. He appeared in one of
his own films, "Voices From the Lake," recalling that his mother had
told him, "You can kill a people, but their voices will never die."
The voices of the Armenians still are struggling to be heard in some
quarters. Contemporary Turkey, which has no political connection to the
Ottomans, continues to defy history and decency, and denies the mass
murder was the result of anything but wartime civil strife. It is a
claim refuted by every serious observer in that period. Raphael Lemkin,
the Polish lawyer of Jewish descent who coined the term "genocide"
in 1943, began his lifetime's work on the subject by studying the
organized murder of the Armenians and that of Iraq's Assyrians in 1933.
Thanks to an agreement Hagopian reached last spring with USC's Shoah
Foundation, his vast archive of firsthand testimony by Armenian
genocide survivors and witnesses to the Ottoman atrocities will be
preserved and made available for study by scholars. Because of his
courage and the Shoah Foundation, the voices of the Armenians will
continue speaking to all who are willing to hear.
From: A. Papazian