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TWO GERMANIES: RESEARCHER LOOKS INTO ROLE OF GERMAN MISSIONS IN HELPING OTTOMAN ARMENIAN KIDS
GENOCIDE | 14.04.15 | 10:42
Hayk Martirosyan
By SARA KHOJOYAN
ArmeniaNow reporter
An Armenian researcher has spent the last five years looking into
how German missionary organizations helped Armenian children during
the last two decades of the Ottoman Empire.
Hayk Martirosyan, who has a PhD in history and now a researcher at
the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, says members of the
Christian organizations that had missionary stations in the Ottoman
Empire since 1896 often provided assistance at the risk of their own
lives and sometimes even died while on their missions.
"Since Germany was an ally of Ottoman Turkey it has co-responsibility
or to say in other words its own complicity in the Armenian Genocide.
My objective, however, is to show that there were two Germanies:
imperial Germany and humanitarian Germany," Martirosyan, 35, told
ArmeniaNow in a Skype interview from Bavaria.
The historian has been in Germany since last year working on an
encyclopedia which will contain biographies and photographs of German
missioners from four German missionary organizations who were helping
Armenian children in the territory modern-day Turkey from 1896 to
1919. Martirosyan hopes his book will be not just an encyclopedia
but a stone to be removed from the wall of denial.
He believes the book he is working on will be an important contribution
to the Genocide recognition process. Martirosyan has already spent
more than three months researching activities of four German missionary
organizations' stations and substations.
"I've found bios and photos of over 100 people who were working in
Turkey at the time, a country that was an ally to their own, but who
had to act counter to the relations established between these allies.
Fifteen of them even died in the areas populated by Armenians,
essentially dying alongside them. They did very noble work,"
said Martirosyan, who believes that the main goal of the people
he is collecting information about was not spreading a word about
Christianity but helping Armenians and children in particular.
"It is interesting that the missionary organizations were writing
in their records that their missioners were visiting Armenia and not
Turkey. This is a very important diplomatic and political nuance.
Organizations have their own publications and they even contain
information and details on the implementation of the Armenian
Genocide," said the researcher.
Martirosyan was able to visit Germany thanks to a grant he received
from the Fund for Armenian Relief's Armenian National Science and
Education Fund (ANSEF) in December last year. He was chosen from
among hundreds of other applicants, something that he says doubles his
responsibility and reassures him about the importance of his research.
"It is important to show that the Germans have done positive things
throughout the horrors of the Genocide. Although official Germany had
its own complicity in the Armenian Genocide their society also had
many individuals, clergymen, missioners, who were ready to risk their
lives to help Armenian orphans and widows. By reading the records of
each missioner I was somehow feeling guilty that we would blame all
Germans for blindly contributing to the Genocide," said Martirosyan.
http://armenianow.com/genocide/62316/armenia_genocide_germany_research_christian_missio n
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
GENOCIDE | 14.04.15 | 10:42
Hayk Martirosyan
By SARA KHOJOYAN
ArmeniaNow reporter
An Armenian researcher has spent the last five years looking into
how German missionary organizations helped Armenian children during
the last two decades of the Ottoman Empire.
Hayk Martirosyan, who has a PhD in history and now a researcher at
the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, says members of the
Christian organizations that had missionary stations in the Ottoman
Empire since 1896 often provided assistance at the risk of their own
lives and sometimes even died while on their missions.
"Since Germany was an ally of Ottoman Turkey it has co-responsibility
or to say in other words its own complicity in the Armenian Genocide.
My objective, however, is to show that there were two Germanies:
imperial Germany and humanitarian Germany," Martirosyan, 35, told
ArmeniaNow in a Skype interview from Bavaria.
The historian has been in Germany since last year working on an
encyclopedia which will contain biographies and photographs of German
missioners from four German missionary organizations who were helping
Armenian children in the territory modern-day Turkey from 1896 to
1919. Martirosyan hopes his book will be not just an encyclopedia
but a stone to be removed from the wall of denial.
He believes the book he is working on will be an important contribution
to the Genocide recognition process. Martirosyan has already spent
more than three months researching activities of four German missionary
organizations' stations and substations.
"I've found bios and photos of over 100 people who were working in
Turkey at the time, a country that was an ally to their own, but who
had to act counter to the relations established between these allies.
Fifteen of them even died in the areas populated by Armenians,
essentially dying alongside them. They did very noble work,"
said Martirosyan, who believes that the main goal of the people
he is collecting information about was not spreading a word about
Christianity but helping Armenians and children in particular.
"It is interesting that the missionary organizations were writing
in their records that their missioners were visiting Armenia and not
Turkey. This is a very important diplomatic and political nuance.
Organizations have their own publications and they even contain
information and details on the implementation of the Armenian
Genocide," said the researcher.
Martirosyan was able to visit Germany thanks to a grant he received
from the Fund for Armenian Relief's Armenian National Science and
Education Fund (ANSEF) in December last year. He was chosen from
among hundreds of other applicants, something that he says doubles his
responsibility and reassures him about the importance of his research.
"It is important to show that the Germans have done positive things
throughout the horrors of the Genocide. Although official Germany had
its own complicity in the Armenian Genocide their society also had
many individuals, clergymen, missioners, who were ready to risk their
lives to help Armenian orphans and widows. By reading the records of
each missioner I was somehow feeling guilty that we would blame all
Germans for blindly contributing to the Genocide," said Martirosyan.
http://armenianow.com/genocide/62316/armenia_genocide_germany_research_christian_missio n
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress