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BALAKIAN LAUNCHES ILLINOIS HOLOCAUST MUSEUM 2015 PROJECT
http://asbarez.com/109676/balakian-launches-illinois-holocaust-museum-2015-project/
Monday, April 29th, 2013
Balakian addresses the Illinois Holocaust Museum
SKOKIE, Ill.-Peter Balakian spoke Sunday, April 20 to an audience of
more than 250 people at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education
Center in Skokie, a suburb of Chicago, and a town that is still
remembered for the controversial march of neo-Nazi groups there
in 1979. The Museum is the second largest of its kind after the US
Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Washington, DC.
Balakian lectured for the occasion of the 98th anniversary of the
Armenian genocide, traditionally commemorated on April 24th. He
also commenced his work with the Museum as Senior Scholar for the
Armenian genocide exhibit it will mount in 2015 for the genocide's
100th anniversary.
In his opening remarks, Museum Executive Director Rick Hirschhaut said:
"Our young people - our future - must be a bridge to the future,
and ensure that we realize the lessons that were set forth by us,
by the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, and all such terrible
atrocities. We must speak for those whose voices were silenced and
for those who survived so we may remember and pledge never to forget.
Today," Hirschhaut continued, "at this gathering, we are reminded of
a history that must be recognized, and remembered, and calls to the
importance of lighting the torch of truth for the world community."
Nairee Hagopian of the ANCA then introduced Balakian and expressed
her gratitude to the Museum for initiating such an important and
timely project.
Balakian thanked Hirschhaut and the Illinois Holocaust Museum for
their leadership in partnering with the ANCA to build an Armenian
genocide exhibit for the 2015 anniversary, "a project," he said,
"that will serve as a model for others to come."
Balakian also noted how crucial the ongoing support and intellectual
work of the Jewish community has been, and continues to be, "from
Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Franz Werfel, and Raphael Lemkin to the
work and support of so many superb scholars in our time including
Elie Wiesel, Deborah Lipstadt, Robert Melson, Robert Jay Lifton,
Andrew Goldberg, and many others, Jews who have made a decisive
difference in clarifying our understanding of what happened to the
Armenians in 1915."
For the April 24th commemoration of the Armenian genocide, Balakian
then gave a lecture, "Raphael Lemkin, Cultural Destruction, and the
Armenian genocide." He discussed Lemkin's deep thinking about what
happened to the Armenians in 1915 as a seminal case of genocide, noting
how Lemkin's intellectual commitment to what he came to call genocide
was heavily influenced by his study of the Turkish mass killing of
Armenians. It was Lemkin, he said, who first coined the term Armenian
genocide in the 1940s, and explained the concept on a special CBS
Television broadcast about the UN Genocide Convention, in February
1949. Balakian also explored how the destruction of Armenian culture
(intellectuals and artists, churches, schools, libraries, forced
conversions to Islam, etc.) constituted a key component of genocide.
In an extensive PowerPoint presentation, Balakian showed arresting
images of magnificent, thriving Armenian churches before 1915, and
those same churches, in Turkey, that are in ruins today. He concluded
by observing that this kind of cultural destruction still has complex
reverberations, and impacts on Armenians in Armenia, in the diaspora,
and in Turkey.
A reception and book signing followed.
http://asbarez.com/109676/balakian-launches-illinois-holocaust-museum-2015-project/
Monday, April 29th, 2013
Balakian addresses the Illinois Holocaust Museum
SKOKIE, Ill.-Peter Balakian spoke Sunday, April 20 to an audience of
more than 250 people at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education
Center in Skokie, a suburb of Chicago, and a town that is still
remembered for the controversial march of neo-Nazi groups there
in 1979. The Museum is the second largest of its kind after the US
Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Washington, DC.
Balakian lectured for the occasion of the 98th anniversary of the
Armenian genocide, traditionally commemorated on April 24th. He
also commenced his work with the Museum as Senior Scholar for the
Armenian genocide exhibit it will mount in 2015 for the genocide's
100th anniversary.
In his opening remarks, Museum Executive Director Rick Hirschhaut said:
"Our young people - our future - must be a bridge to the future,
and ensure that we realize the lessons that were set forth by us,
by the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, and all such terrible
atrocities. We must speak for those whose voices were silenced and
for those who survived so we may remember and pledge never to forget.
Today," Hirschhaut continued, "at this gathering, we are reminded of
a history that must be recognized, and remembered, and calls to the
importance of lighting the torch of truth for the world community."
Nairee Hagopian of the ANCA then introduced Balakian and expressed
her gratitude to the Museum for initiating such an important and
timely project.
Balakian thanked Hirschhaut and the Illinois Holocaust Museum for
their leadership in partnering with the ANCA to build an Armenian
genocide exhibit for the 2015 anniversary, "a project," he said,
"that will serve as a model for others to come."
Balakian also noted how crucial the ongoing support and intellectual
work of the Jewish community has been, and continues to be, "from
Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Franz Werfel, and Raphael Lemkin to the
work and support of so many superb scholars in our time including
Elie Wiesel, Deborah Lipstadt, Robert Melson, Robert Jay Lifton,
Andrew Goldberg, and many others, Jews who have made a decisive
difference in clarifying our understanding of what happened to the
Armenians in 1915."
For the April 24th commemoration of the Armenian genocide, Balakian
then gave a lecture, "Raphael Lemkin, Cultural Destruction, and the
Armenian genocide." He discussed Lemkin's deep thinking about what
happened to the Armenians in 1915 as a seminal case of genocide, noting
how Lemkin's intellectual commitment to what he came to call genocide
was heavily influenced by his study of the Turkish mass killing of
Armenians. It was Lemkin, he said, who first coined the term Armenian
genocide in the 1940s, and explained the concept on a special CBS
Television broadcast about the UN Genocide Convention, in February
1949. Balakian also explored how the destruction of Armenian culture
(intellectuals and artists, churches, schools, libraries, forced
conversions to Islam, etc.) constituted a key component of genocide.
In an extensive PowerPoint presentation, Balakian showed arresting
images of magnificent, thriving Armenian churches before 1915, and
those same churches, in Turkey, that are in ruins today. He concluded
by observing that this kind of cultural destruction still has complex
reverberations, and impacts on Armenians in Armenia, in the diaspora,
and in Turkey.
A reception and book signing followed.