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Zerunyan's family history feeds passion for public service
January 3, 2013 | By Mary Scott, Peninsula News
Frank Zerunyan became the mayor of Rolling Hills Estates during the
City Council's reorganization in December. This is his second term as
mayor since being first elected to council in 2003. (photo by Mary
Scott)
RHE - Frank Zerunyan's journey into public service began long before
he was born. It started in Turkey in 1915, when his great-grandfather
and great-uncle were among hundreds of prominent Armenian politicians
and civic leaders who were rounded up and executed. As a descendent of
the Armenian genocide, Zerunyan's desire to rebuild what is family
lost is great.
`I wasn't born to be who I am,' he told the News during a recent
interview. `But my parents knew very well that my ancestry was so that
we were in public office, we were educated.'
Armenians had lived in relative peace for 500 years under the Ottoman
Empire. On April 24, 1915, members of the Turkish nationalist reform
party (the Committee of Union and Progress, more commonly known as the
Young Turks) arrested more than 200 prominent Armenian community
leaders in Constantinople - hundreds more soon after - and slaughtered
them.
`Every member of Parliament, every doctor, every poet, every newspaper
writer of Armenian descent - several hundred, maybe a little over a
thousand of them - were never seen again,' Zerunyan said.
Armenian women and children, and the elderly and sick were also
rounded up and sent on death marches to the deserts of what is now
Syria. It is estimated that between 1915 and 1918, 1 million to 1.5
million Armenians were murdered in what is known as the first genocide
of the modern day.
`It was an atrocity. It was absolutely an atrocity that wiped out a
very educated, a very successful and public-oriented population in the
Ottoman Empire,' the mayor said.
Zerunyan's grandparents were left in the ashes.
`Genocide is not just a slaughter of one generation. ... The power of
man's inhumanity to man is just unbearable for that generation,' he
said. `My mother speaks of my grandfather always depressed, and crying
his eyes out about his father and brother, who were slaughtered.'
His parents' generation did what they could to restore the life
Armenians once knew and to bring back the level of education they
wanted for their children. For Zerunyan's parents it meant sending him
to a boarding school run by Armenian Catholic priests in Paris when he
was 11 years old.
`In retrospect, we all knew it was for a cause greater than us. My
mother knew. My father knew. But that didn't stop us from having human
emotions of separation. My mother was devastated as they dropped me
off in Paris,' he recalled.
Zerunyan attended the school until his graduation at the age of 18.
Rather than stay in Europe, Zerunyan came to the United States,
staying with his godparents in Palos Verdes.
`The choice was to stay in Europe ... or come here to pursue what used
to be the norm in our family, in attempting to be a productive member
of society,' he said.
Zerunyan's parents, giving up a manufacturing business in Turkey,
followed him to Palos Verdes a few years later.
Fueled by his family's past, Zerunyan went on to become a successful
lawyer. He left law a few years ago and entered the academic world,
teaching leadership classes at the master's level at the University of
Southern California, helping to prepare the next generation of
leaders.
In 2003, he restored the family's legacy of public service and pursued
and won a seat on the RHE City Council. In 2007, he made city history
by becoming RHE's first mayor of Armenian descent.
`I am so blessed to be able to play out or execute what was intended
for me or what was in the plan to bring back an honor for those who
could not,' he said. `I love my city - we are so blessed to be in a
city like we are.'
It's rare, he said, to have cohesive, passionate and caring people
sitting on a city council.
`Not one vote they cast is based on an agenda or some political
persuasion. Not one vote is cast because their heart is not in the
right place,' he said. `I have never, ever questioned - I may have
disagreed with my colleagues and they may have disagreed with me - but
not one day have I questioned their hearts. They believe always they
are doing the right thing.'
In his second term as the city's mayor, Zerunyan said he has no
personal agenda to pursue. He is but one of five votes on the City
Council.
It was a hard road from Turkey to Palos Verdes, but one Zerunyan said
his family would travel again because it was for a greater purpose
larger than themselves.
`The ashes of the genocide make me every day. Every day,' he said.
`When people get upon a daily basis and sometimes wonder what they're
doing, I am laser-beamed focused every day when I get up. ... It's a
passion that is a fire that always burns.'
[email protected]
From: A. Papazian
January 3, 2013 | By Mary Scott, Peninsula News
Frank Zerunyan became the mayor of Rolling Hills Estates during the
City Council's reorganization in December. This is his second term as
mayor since being first elected to council in 2003. (photo by Mary
Scott)
RHE - Frank Zerunyan's journey into public service began long before
he was born. It started in Turkey in 1915, when his great-grandfather
and great-uncle were among hundreds of prominent Armenian politicians
and civic leaders who were rounded up and executed. As a descendent of
the Armenian genocide, Zerunyan's desire to rebuild what is family
lost is great.
`I wasn't born to be who I am,' he told the News during a recent
interview. `But my parents knew very well that my ancestry was so that
we were in public office, we were educated.'
Armenians had lived in relative peace for 500 years under the Ottoman
Empire. On April 24, 1915, members of the Turkish nationalist reform
party (the Committee of Union and Progress, more commonly known as the
Young Turks) arrested more than 200 prominent Armenian community
leaders in Constantinople - hundreds more soon after - and slaughtered
them.
`Every member of Parliament, every doctor, every poet, every newspaper
writer of Armenian descent - several hundred, maybe a little over a
thousand of them - were never seen again,' Zerunyan said.
Armenian women and children, and the elderly and sick were also
rounded up and sent on death marches to the deserts of what is now
Syria. It is estimated that between 1915 and 1918, 1 million to 1.5
million Armenians were murdered in what is known as the first genocide
of the modern day.
`It was an atrocity. It was absolutely an atrocity that wiped out a
very educated, a very successful and public-oriented population in the
Ottoman Empire,' the mayor said.
Zerunyan's grandparents were left in the ashes.
`Genocide is not just a slaughter of one generation. ... The power of
man's inhumanity to man is just unbearable for that generation,' he
said. `My mother speaks of my grandfather always depressed, and crying
his eyes out about his father and brother, who were slaughtered.'
His parents' generation did what they could to restore the life
Armenians once knew and to bring back the level of education they
wanted for their children. For Zerunyan's parents it meant sending him
to a boarding school run by Armenian Catholic priests in Paris when he
was 11 years old.
`In retrospect, we all knew it was for a cause greater than us. My
mother knew. My father knew. But that didn't stop us from having human
emotions of separation. My mother was devastated as they dropped me
off in Paris,' he recalled.
Zerunyan attended the school until his graduation at the age of 18.
Rather than stay in Europe, Zerunyan came to the United States,
staying with his godparents in Palos Verdes.
`The choice was to stay in Europe ... or come here to pursue what used
to be the norm in our family, in attempting to be a productive member
of society,' he said.
Zerunyan's parents, giving up a manufacturing business in Turkey,
followed him to Palos Verdes a few years later.
Fueled by his family's past, Zerunyan went on to become a successful
lawyer. He left law a few years ago and entered the academic world,
teaching leadership classes at the master's level at the University of
Southern California, helping to prepare the next generation of
leaders.
In 2003, he restored the family's legacy of public service and pursued
and won a seat on the RHE City Council. In 2007, he made city history
by becoming RHE's first mayor of Armenian descent.
`I am so blessed to be able to play out or execute what was intended
for me or what was in the plan to bring back an honor for those who
could not,' he said. `I love my city - we are so blessed to be in a
city like we are.'
It's rare, he said, to have cohesive, passionate and caring people
sitting on a city council.
`Not one vote they cast is based on an agenda or some political
persuasion. Not one vote is cast because their heart is not in the
right place,' he said. `I have never, ever questioned - I may have
disagreed with my colleagues and they may have disagreed with me - but
not one day have I questioned their hearts. They believe always they
are doing the right thing.'
In his second term as the city's mayor, Zerunyan said he has no
personal agenda to pursue. He is but one of five votes on the City
Council.
It was a hard road from Turkey to Palos Verdes, but one Zerunyan said
his family would travel again because it was for a greater purpose
larger than themselves.
`The ashes of the genocide make me every day. Every day,' he said.
`When people get upon a daily basis and sometimes wonder what they're
doing, I am laser-beamed focused every day when I get up. ... It's a
passion that is a fire that always burns.'
[email protected]
From: A. Papazian