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How Do You Explain 200,000 Orphans? Remembering Genocide

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  • How Do You Explain 200,000 Orphans? Remembering Genocide

    'HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN 200,000 ORPHANS?'; REMEMBERING GENOCIDE

    The Daily News of Los Angeles
    April 24, 2012 Tuesday

    They held their children in their arms and carried whatever else they
    could into the desert.

    Bibles that had been in families for centuries. Handmade lace
    handkerchiefs made for weddings and baptisms. Documents that listed
    their names and where they were born.

    Nearly 100 years after the Armenian Genocide began in the Ottoman
    Empire, some of those very same items can be found carefully preserved
    in glass cases and in frames in the San Fernando Valley, a testament
    of survival.

    "People have sudden emotional reactions when they walk in," said Nora
    Nalbantian, treasurer and interior designer for the Ararat Eskijian
    Museum in Mission Hills. "It's historical, but not so far back that
    people can't relate to it."

    Founded and designed by Luther Eskijian, himself a child survivor of
    the Armenian Genocide, the museum was opened in 1996 near the Ararat
    Home of Los Angeles, a senior care facility that opened in 1949. The
    museum houses historical maps, coins, crafts, medals, sketches, musical
    instruments and a library. While the Armenian Genocide is its focus,
    the museum also pays tribute to Armenian-Americans who are or have
    served in the U.S. Armed Forces, and to contemporary writers, such
    as William Saroyan.

    Many children come for field trips to the museum, as well as scholars,
    said Maggie Mangassarian-Goschin, who is the curator. But she called
    the museum a gem that the public at large may not know about.

    Although usually only open on Saturday and Sundays, the museum
    also will be open today - the international day of remembrance of
    the genocide.

    Several events - including lectures and demonstrations - will be held
    throughout Los Angeles today as Armenians commemorate the genocide.

    Glendale, as well as parts of the San Fernando are home to the largest
    diaspora of Armenians outside of Armenian.

    An estimated 1.5 million Armenians died from 1915-23 in what has been
    called the first genocide of the 20th century.

    The Turkish government maintains the deaths were a consequence of
    betrayal and civil unrest in what was then the Ottoman Empire. Even the
    genocide has become politicized with both the United States and Turkish
    governments refusing to call it such. Armenian-American activists have
    said the U.S. government won't officially recognize the killings as
    genocide because it would hurt relations with Turkey, a NATO ally.

    "Turks believe it was a civil war within a world war, engineered,
    provoked, and waged by the Armenians with active support from Russia,
    England, and France, and passive support from the U.S. diplomats,
    missionaries, media and others with anti-Turkish agendas, all
    eyeing the vast territories of the collapsing Ottoman Empire," said
    Ergun Kirklikovali, president of the Assembly of Turkish American
    Associations, based in Washington.

    Armenians, however, say the killings involved the systematic cleansing
    of Christians, which included Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. Priests
    and intellectuals were beheaded. Women and children were terrorized
    as they were marched out of their homeland and into the Middle East.

    "How do explain 200,000 orphans?" asked Nancy Eskijian, whose father
    built the museum. "Where were their parents?"

    Her grandfather, the Rev. Hovhannes Eskijian, a protestant pastor,
    dedicated himself to helping those orphans who were left behind after
    their parents were killed. His prayer robes, which survived after
    more than a century, also can be seen at the museum.

    Rose Garjian, who will turn 104 on May 1 and who lives at the Ararat
    Home, lived in Killis, Turkey. She remembers when her father told
    her and her sisters and brother they had to leave home. He did not
    tell them why, only that they should hurry.

    "We left our home and went to the desert," she said. "I was 10 years
    old. My father took us to hide. He tried to take us away from the
    Turks."

    Tucked in a corner of the museum is a glass case filled with shattered
    bones, remnants of those who died in the Dez Zor desert of Syria.

    Nalbantian and others said the museum stands as proof of what happened
    to Armenians. And though the survivors such as Garjian are now few,
    those who came after must not be afraid to speak out.

    "Once fear sets in, then there is silence, and when there is silence,
    that means the enemy has won," Nalbantian said.

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