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Bohjalian: Shining a Light on the Shadow of Denial
By Chris Bohjalian
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2013/05/13/bohjalian-shining-a-light-on-the-shadow-of-denial/
May 13, 2013
The Armenian Weekly April 2013 Magazine
One night in November 2009, I heard Gerda Weissmann Klein speak in
Austin, Texas, at the Hillel chapter at the University of Texas. Gerda
is not only one of the most charismatic women I've ever met, she is
also an immensely gifted writer and speaker. She is also a Holocaust
survivor. Her 1957 memoir, All but My Life, chronicles her harrowing
ordeal in labor camps and death marches during World War II. Cecile
Fournier, the concentration camp survivor in my 2008 novel, Skeletons
at the Feast, owes much to her and to her story. Gerda is, pure and
simple, one of the wisest and most inspirational people I know.
Chris Bohjalian (Photo by Tom Vartabedian)
During the question and answer period of her speech that night three
and a half years ago, someone asked Gerda, `What do you say to
Holocaust deniers?'
She shrugged and said, `I really don't have to say much. I simply tell
them to ask Germany. Germany doesn't deny it.'
I recalled that exchange often this past year. The Sandcastle Girls,
my novel of the Armenian Genocide, was published in North America last
summer, and the reality is that outside of the diaspora community,
most of the United States and Canada knows next to nothing of this
part of our story. If you trawl through the thousands of posts on my
Facebook page or on Twitter, for example, you will see hundreds of
readers of the novel remarking that:
1) They knew nothing of the Armenian Genocide; and
2) They could not understand how they could have grown to adulthood in
places such as Indianapolis or Seattle or Jacksonville and not heard a
single word about the death of 1.5 million people.
Sometimes these readers told me they were aghast. Sometimes they told
me they were ashamed. And very often they asked me why: Why did no one
teach them this part of world history? Why did their teachers skip
over the 20th century's first genocide?
And the answer, pure and simple, is denial.
Imagine if I had answered my readers who wanted to learn more about
the Armenian Genocide by saying, `Ask Turkey. They'll tell you all
about it. They don't deny it.' But, of course, Turkey does deny it - as,
alas, do many of Turkey's allies. Now, these readers were not
disputing the veracity of the Armenian Genocide. They were not
questioning the history in my novel. My point is simply this: There is
a direct connection between the reality that so few Americans know of
the Armenian Genocide and the Turkish government's nearly century-long
effort to sweep into the shadows the crimes of its World War I
leaders.
As anyone who reads this paper knows, the Turkish government's tactics
have varied, ranging from denial to discreditation. They have, over
the years, blamed others, and they have blamed the Armenians
themselves. They have lied. They have bullied any historian or
diplomat or citizen or journalist or filmmaker who's dared to try and
set the record straight.
Now, in all fairness, there might be a small reasonableness trickling
slowly into Turkish policy on this issue. Earlier this year, on the
anniversary of Hrant Dink's assassination, the editor of this paper
gave a speech in Turkey - in Turkish - about justice for the genocide. You
can now read Agos, the Armenian newspaper in Ankara, while flying on
Turkish Airlines.
Nevertheless, it is a far cry from these baby steps and Ankara
following Berlin's lead anytime soon and building - to use the name of
the poignant and powerful Holocaust monument near the Brandenburg
Gate - a Memorial to the Murdered Armenians of the Ottoman Empire.
And the reality remains here in the United States that we as Armenians
actually have to struggle to get our story into the curriculums of far
too many school districts. We often have to create the curriculums
ourselves.
How appalling is this issue? My own daughter went to a rigorous high
school just outside of Boston, no more than 10 or 15 minutes from the
Armenian community in Watertown and the Armenian Library and Museum of
America. I saw the school had an elective course on the history of the
Ottoman Empire. When I ran into a student who had taken the semester
long class, I asked, `How much time was devoted to the Armenian
Genocide?' He looked at me, perplexed. He had no idea what I was
talking about. `I guess we never got to it because the course only
went as far as the end of the First World War.'
Oh.
Consequently, this past year I wound up as far more of an activist
than I ever expected I'd be about...anything. The reality is that
activist artists - or at least activist novelists - sometimes seem more
likely to embarrass themselves than affect social change. (Exhibit A?
Norman Mailer's campaign for mayor of New York.) But with every one of
those posts on my Facebook wall, as one reader after another asked me
how it was possible that they had never heard of the Armenian
Genocide, I found myself growing unexpectedly, uncharacteristically
angry. Make no mistake, I wasn't angry with Turkish citizens or
Turkish-Americans. But I was furious with a government policy that has
allowed a nation to, in essence, get away with murder - to build a
modern, western state and a civilized reputation on the bones of my
ancestors. And I found myself energized at every appearance in ways I
never had been before, whether I was speaking at a little library in
central Vermont with exactly zero Armenian-Americans in attendance or
on Capitol Hill, under the auspices of the Armenian National Committee
of America.
So, will more Americans know our story two years from now, when the
centennial of the start of the slaughter arrives? Darned right they
will. We will see to it.
Chris Bohjalian's novel of the Armenian Genocide, The Sandcastle
Girls, was published in paperback in April by Vintage Books.
By Chris Bohjalian
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2013/05/13/bohjalian-shining-a-light-on-the-shadow-of-denial/
May 13, 2013
The Armenian Weekly April 2013 Magazine
One night in November 2009, I heard Gerda Weissmann Klein speak in
Austin, Texas, at the Hillel chapter at the University of Texas. Gerda
is not only one of the most charismatic women I've ever met, she is
also an immensely gifted writer and speaker. She is also a Holocaust
survivor. Her 1957 memoir, All but My Life, chronicles her harrowing
ordeal in labor camps and death marches during World War II. Cecile
Fournier, the concentration camp survivor in my 2008 novel, Skeletons
at the Feast, owes much to her and to her story. Gerda is, pure and
simple, one of the wisest and most inspirational people I know.
Chris Bohjalian (Photo by Tom Vartabedian)
During the question and answer period of her speech that night three
and a half years ago, someone asked Gerda, `What do you say to
Holocaust deniers?'
She shrugged and said, `I really don't have to say much. I simply tell
them to ask Germany. Germany doesn't deny it.'
I recalled that exchange often this past year. The Sandcastle Girls,
my novel of the Armenian Genocide, was published in North America last
summer, and the reality is that outside of the diaspora community,
most of the United States and Canada knows next to nothing of this
part of our story. If you trawl through the thousands of posts on my
Facebook page or on Twitter, for example, you will see hundreds of
readers of the novel remarking that:
1) They knew nothing of the Armenian Genocide; and
2) They could not understand how they could have grown to adulthood in
places such as Indianapolis or Seattle or Jacksonville and not heard a
single word about the death of 1.5 million people.
Sometimes these readers told me they were aghast. Sometimes they told
me they were ashamed. And very often they asked me why: Why did no one
teach them this part of world history? Why did their teachers skip
over the 20th century's first genocide?
And the answer, pure and simple, is denial.
Imagine if I had answered my readers who wanted to learn more about
the Armenian Genocide by saying, `Ask Turkey. They'll tell you all
about it. They don't deny it.' But, of course, Turkey does deny it - as,
alas, do many of Turkey's allies. Now, these readers were not
disputing the veracity of the Armenian Genocide. They were not
questioning the history in my novel. My point is simply this: There is
a direct connection between the reality that so few Americans know of
the Armenian Genocide and the Turkish government's nearly century-long
effort to sweep into the shadows the crimes of its World War I
leaders.
As anyone who reads this paper knows, the Turkish government's tactics
have varied, ranging from denial to discreditation. They have, over
the years, blamed others, and they have blamed the Armenians
themselves. They have lied. They have bullied any historian or
diplomat or citizen or journalist or filmmaker who's dared to try and
set the record straight.
Now, in all fairness, there might be a small reasonableness trickling
slowly into Turkish policy on this issue. Earlier this year, on the
anniversary of Hrant Dink's assassination, the editor of this paper
gave a speech in Turkey - in Turkish - about justice for the genocide. You
can now read Agos, the Armenian newspaper in Ankara, while flying on
Turkish Airlines.
Nevertheless, it is a far cry from these baby steps and Ankara
following Berlin's lead anytime soon and building - to use the name of
the poignant and powerful Holocaust monument near the Brandenburg
Gate - a Memorial to the Murdered Armenians of the Ottoman Empire.
And the reality remains here in the United States that we as Armenians
actually have to struggle to get our story into the curriculums of far
too many school districts. We often have to create the curriculums
ourselves.
How appalling is this issue? My own daughter went to a rigorous high
school just outside of Boston, no more than 10 or 15 minutes from the
Armenian community in Watertown and the Armenian Library and Museum of
America. I saw the school had an elective course on the history of the
Ottoman Empire. When I ran into a student who had taken the semester
long class, I asked, `How much time was devoted to the Armenian
Genocide?' He looked at me, perplexed. He had no idea what I was
talking about. `I guess we never got to it because the course only
went as far as the end of the First World War.'
Oh.
Consequently, this past year I wound up as far more of an activist
than I ever expected I'd be about...anything. The reality is that
activist artists - or at least activist novelists - sometimes seem more
likely to embarrass themselves than affect social change. (Exhibit A?
Norman Mailer's campaign for mayor of New York.) But with every one of
those posts on my Facebook wall, as one reader after another asked me
how it was possible that they had never heard of the Armenian
Genocide, I found myself growing unexpectedly, uncharacteristically
angry. Make no mistake, I wasn't angry with Turkish citizens or
Turkish-Americans. But I was furious with a government policy that has
allowed a nation to, in essence, get away with murder - to build a
modern, western state and a civilized reputation on the bones of my
ancestors. And I found myself energized at every appearance in ways I
never had been before, whether I was speaking at a little library in
central Vermont with exactly zero Armenian-Americans in attendance or
on Capitol Hill, under the auspices of the Armenian National Committee
of America.
So, will more Americans know our story two years from now, when the
centennial of the start of the slaughter arrives? Darned right they
will. We will see to it.
Chris Bohjalian's novel of the Armenian Genocide, The Sandcastle
Girls, was published in paperback in April by Vintage Books.