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Ararat Eskijian Museum Hosts Lecture On Aintab

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  • Ararat Eskijian Museum Hosts Lecture On Aintab

    ARARAT ESKIJIAN MUSEUM HOSTS LECTURE ON AINTAB

    September 21, 2013 - 11:58 AMT

    PanARMENIAN.Net - The Ararat Eskijian Museum in Mission Hills, CA, wore
    the image of Old Aintab earlier this month as fifty or more Aintabtsis
    and supporters gathered to hear a lecture by Umit Kurt, PhD candidate
    in the department of History at Clark University, Asbarez reports.

    The lecture, titled The Emergence of the New Wealthy Class Between
    1915-1922: The Seizure of Armenian Property by Local Elites in Aintab,
    focused on the importance of acquiring Armenian wealth and material
    possessions to the local Kurds and Turks in Aintab before and during
    the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

    As to the lust for Armenian property that could act as a motive for the
    killings, Kurt described a "link between the role of stolen Armenian
    assets in the integration and stabilization of Turkification, which
    makes confiscation of Armenian properties a social process". The fate
    of the Armenians was not only linked to the Committee of Union and
    Progress party (CUP) orders, but behavior of the local elites.

    Material rewards were given for collaboration at the regional level.

    In Kurt's words, "the large distribution of Armenian property provided
    a useful incentive that strongly reinforced Armenian hatred and other
    political and personal issues."

    Besides the local elites, many other state companies were also involved
    in the seizure of Armenian properties including auction houses,
    property assessors, trustees, and transportation companies in support
    of Turkish anti-Armenian policies in Aintab. The opportunities for
    success and growth facilitated the removal of Armenians, whereas the
    effects of the loss of properties to the victims were demoralizing and
    stigmatizing. Additionally, the deportation of Armenians to the Syrian
    Desert proved effective in separating them from their properties as
    they were made not to return. A new local wealthy class emerged and
    prospered through the obtainment of Armenian wealth and property.

    After the lecture, Umit Kurt displayed a short film called My Father's
    Aintab and old and recent images of the Armenian quarter in Aintab.

    The evening followed with a Q&A session where one of the audience
    members asked Kurt why he chose to research the destruction of Aintab's
    Armenians and their properties.

    As a native of Aintab, when Kurt was younger, he did not know about
    the presence of Armenians or about the Armenian quarter in Aintab.

    When one of his friends invited him to a unique coffee shop to meet,
    his life and interests changed forever. When he reached the coffee
    shop, he first noticed the intricately carved, monumental front door
    of the coffee shop and was amazed at the internal beauty and homey
    design, which contained every feature of an Armenian home. He asked
    the owner, who was Turkish, to show him around the place and the
    upstairs section composed of many rooms aesthetically extrinsic to
    his eyes. Kurt noticed the numbers "1894" (when the first Hamidian
    massacres took place) on the wall and asked about the previous owner.

    The man replied, "I don't know, Armenians were here." Later, he
    discovered that a man named Nazaret Agha of the Kimia family owned the
    house, before it became a coffee shop. It became the groundbreaking
    point in his life where he sought out to research the history of the
    Aintab Armenians and in the meanwhile, also write his own story.

    Umit Kurt is of Kurdish descent maternally, but is not certain of his
    father's side. He is a PhD candidate at Clark University and student
    of Taner Akcam, a prominent scholar on the Armenian Genocide. During
    the Q&A session, Kurt was asked if he received any objections or had
    been tried for "insulting Turkishness", in which he responded that
    he has not yet encountered any objections from the Turkish government
    regarding his research on the stolen Armenian properties.

    In the last minutes, Kurt spoke words that made everyone smile. He
    said, "I don't work for Armenian people; I work for my own people to
    reckon their own historical wrongdoings."


    From: Baghdasarian
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