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Lowell High Hosts Panel On Armenian Genocide

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  • Lowell High Hosts Panel On Armenian Genocide

    LOWELL HIGH HOSTS PANEL ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

    Lowell Sun (Massachusetts)
    April 5, 2015 Sunday

    The Lowell Sun

    LOWELL -- Lowell High School hosted a scholarly panel recently
    to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the Armenian
    Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, during which, between 1 million and
    1.5 million Armenians died.

    The panel was conceived and organized by LHS Social Studies teacher
    Lisa Menasian Colloca, who participated in the panel along with
    2014 UMass Lowell graduate Julianne Tavitian and Asya Darbinyan,
    an internationally acclaimed scholar of the Genocide.

    Darbinyan has been deputy director of the Armenian Genocide Museum
    and Institute in Yerevan, Armenia, and has held fellowships in Paris
    and Los Angeles.

    The event began with a welcome from LHS alumnus Aram Jeknavorian
    (Class of 1956), who, with his four siblings, is a first-generation
    Armenian American. His father, Abraham, survived the Genocide and
    made his way to Lowell, along with many other Armenians who formed
    an important community in the city.

    Abraham became a fixture of the community, founding the Post Office
    Locksmith Shop, which is still run by his son, Armen.

    Aram Jeknavorian drew parallels between his family's experience and
    the later experience of other refugee immigrant groups, especially
    the Cambodian community.

    Menasian Colloca teaches Advanced Placement courses at LHS, has
    traveled to Armenia, and is a board member of the Boston branch of
    the Society for Orphaned Armenia Relief. She conceived the panel in
    early 2014 as a way to honor her grandparents and other survivors
    and victims of the Genocide. She also hoped that the lessons of the
    Genocide would find resonance for students at LHS who have experienced
    similar horrors in places like Burma and Iraq.

    In her talk, Menasian Colloca gave a geography and history lesson
    that sketched the early history of Armenia, pointing out that it was
    the first country to formally accept Christianity in 301 A.D.

    She showed some of the impressive architecture and art of medieval
    and present-day Armenia, and mapped out the position of Armenians in
    the Ottoman and Russian Empires.

    Darbinyan went into great detail about the mechanics of the Genocide,
    which began with government edicts that set in motion multiple waves
    of oppression, massacres and large-scale death marches from April
    1915 until 1918. Her presentation also focused on the politics of the
    Armenian Genocide in Turkey (the successor state to the Ottoman Empire)
    and independent Armenia today, as well as the Armenian diaspora to the
    United States and the role of Americans in response to the Genocide.

    Americans, led by the child movie star Jackie Coogan, gave $110 million
    (the equivalent of $5 billion today) in relief aid to surviving
    Armenians during and after WWI.

    Finally, Darbinyan noted that the Genocide is not specifically an
    Armenian event, but an event against humanity, a fact that she said
    must be understood for every genocide, no matter where it occurs.

    Tavitian passionately spoke about her experience as a second-generation
    Armenian American and how her travel in Armenia has transformed
    her understanding of the Genocide and what it means to be Armenian
    American. She also spoke out strongly against Genocide deniers,
    noting the experience of many members of her family.

    One LHS student said Tavitian's emotional discussion of how she was
    shaped by her grandparents' experiences in the Genocide resonated
    strongly with what he feels from his own parents' experience with
    the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

    During the question-and-answer period, the issue of "crimes against
    humanity" and genocide law was raised. Darbinyan had already noted
    that the first recorded use of the term was made during the Genocide,
    when it was mentioned in an international memorandum.

    She further spoke about how Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew who coined
    the term "genocide" and is considered the father of modern human
    rights and genocide law after WWII, had begun his work in the area
    after the trial of an Armenian charged in the assassination of one
    of the three Ottoman architects of the Genocide.

    The audience comprised a large number of students, educators and
    members of the Greater Lowell Armenian American community. The panel
    was part of Lowell High School's Occasional Series on Contemporary
    Issues, which was instituted last spring and seeks to bring scholars
    of significant standing to the school, as well as to showcase the
    expertise of faculty at LHS.

    GRAPHIC: Panelists for Lowell High's recent discussion of the Armenian
    Genocide include, from left, LHS teacher Lisa Menasian Colloca,
    Genocide scholar Asya Darbinyan and 2014 UMass Lowell graduate Julianne
    Tavitian.COURTESY PHOTO Sun staff photos can be ordered by visiting
    our SmugMug site.



    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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