Armenian Genocide

Between 1915 and 1916, 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Empire. Today is the 89th anniversary of the start of this massacre. John Kerry has recently recognized the Armenian Genocide which has upset Turkey. They still deny that it happened.

A group of Armenians recently gathered in DC asking for official U.S. recognition of the Genocide. It's doubtful it will happen right now. I wonder if that will change if Kerry becomes President. I had never realized how strongly Turkey lobbies against recognizing the Genocide until I read Peter Balakian's Black Dog of Fate. It's alarming.

My family left Armenia before 1915 for Aleppo, Syria. They left Aleppo when it was clear that Armenian boys were being drafted into the Turkish Army and not coming back. My great grandfather Bedros Manoogian came to America and found work in a Nashua, NH shoe factory. His wife, Armenouhi and daughter Azadouhi came to be with him once he was settled.

While in Nashua they heard from a man from their village back home who was now in America. Mr Thomasian told them to come to Watertown, MA and work in the Hood Rubber Factory--there was a growing community of Armenians in Watertown. They did and my grandmother was born there in 1923. Now 80 years later a lot of us are still either in Watertown or nearby.

In an odd twist of fate, I've volunteered a bit for Project Save, an archive of Armenian photographs founded and run by Ruth Thomasian, the niece of the man who told my family about Watertown when they first came over.

The Armenian National Committee of America makes it very easy to contact your Senators and Representatives and urge them to speak out on the Genocide. There are Genocide survivors who are still alive. I have a great uncle who watched his mothers and sisters be rounded up and taken to a church that was set on fire and his father stabbed to death by soldiers. 89 years is a long time for something like this to go unrecognized.