Richard Hovannisian lectures about rescuers and “righteous” Turks and Armenians

Participates in world’s largest commemoration of the Shoah

Published: Thursday December 18, 2008

Prof. Richard Hovannisian.

Prof. Richard Hovannisian .

Toronto - At the invitation of the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (IIGHRS), Professor Richard Hovannisian spoke at the 28th annual Holocaust Education Week in Toronto. His topic was "Righteous Turks and Armenian Righteous among Nations: Rescuers in the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust."

The week is known as the world's largest commemoration of the Shoah, with some 160 events and 30,000 participants. The events include exhibitions, films, musical performances, book readings, survivor testimonies, panel discussions, and public lectures.

Professor Hovannisian holds the Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He conducted a wide-ranging discussion of one of the most human and personal issues in genocide: what motivates individuals to risk their lives and often those of their families to save others who have been targeted by the state for annihilation.

There are cases of Armenians who saved Jews during World War II, both anecdotal and documented by Yad Vashem and entered in the official rolls of the Righteous among the Nations. Did the genocidal experience of the Armenian people during World War I make those individuals more sensitive to the plight of others?

The speaker made a detailed presentation on Turks and other Muslims who saved Armenians during the Armenian Genocide. The presentation was based on oral-history testimonies of Armenian survivors.

The motivations of these rescuers were varied and complex, ranging from financial gain, to free labor, to concubinage, to religious belief, to altruism.

Even though the Armenian survivors harbor hatred against the Turkish state for what it had done to them, they felt affection for the Turkish families that took them in and took care of them.

"We are just beginning to try to understand all of this. What I find is that the denial of the Armenian Genocide has prevented it," Prof. Hovannisian remarked. Unlike Jews, who have the solace of knowing who their rescuers were, Armenians, generally, have been deprived from knowing who the Turks, Kurds and other Muslims were who helped save them.

Prof. Hovannisian raised the question, "What would I do in such a situation?" Since genocide is not a thing of the past, the question takes on an added poignancy, he said.

Prof. Hovannisian concluded by saying, "Your presence here today tells us that we are here to remember and to recommit, and so long as you remember, the struggle continues, and all is not lost, but there is hope to be gained."

The lecture, held at the Sephardic Kehila Centre one evening and the Armenian Community Centre a second evening, was organized by the IIGHRS, with the participation of the Armenian Community Centre the Armenian General Benevolent Union of Toronto, and the Canadian Jewish Congress-Ontario Region. IIGHRS is a division of the Zoryan Institute.