April 24th marks the 97th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Armenians mark this date in 1915, when several hundred Armenian leaders were rounded up, arrested and later executed as the start of the Armenian genocide and it is generally said to have extended to 1917. In total, over 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by the Turks in what is known as the Armenian Genocide. It was the first Holocaust of the 20th century. This, the world knows for sure. Turkey still denies this and whenever another country -- as so many have -- stands up and recognizes what happened to the Armenians as a genocide, they flex their political muscle and governments cave.
The reasons for their denial are simple. They want to be members of the European Union. The reasons governments such as the U.S. always promise the Armenians they will do something and never do is equally political. They are a key NATO ally, they are in a strategic geographic location for the U.S. and we have a military base there.
The thing is, Turkey can deny what they did over and over again but there are men and women who survived the reprehensible atrocities they inflicted on the Armenian people. They've told their stories.
We know them and we know what you did.
One such person was my grandfather, whom I knew as Marcel Cachat. Let me tell you about his life as it was told to me by him.
I can't tell you when he was born, because when he lost his entire family in the infamous death marches. He was just a little boy. After all, who else could survive countless days without food or water marching into the Syrian desert? Only young, strong children. He was rescued by Greek missionaries who raised him in an orphanage in Greece. As a young man, he made his way on a boat and went to the South of France where many Armenians had gone. There, he went to work for a farm family because that is what he knew how to do. He needed to learn the language. As a a kid, I visited that farm family with him and my father. Soon after his arrival, local authorities got wind of his presence and he was called down to the local office. The French naturalized him, but suggested he change his name, as to assimilate into French society a little easier.
His name was changed from Missak Kachadurian to Marcel Cachat. Date of birth: unknown.
Eventually, through the Armenian community in Marseille, he met my grandmother Ardemis Tashjian. They married, started a little business and had my father, Marc.
During World War II, my grandfather fought for the French army and was captured right away without ever firing his gun. He was kept a German prisoner of war for several years while my grandmother raised my father back in France. Till the day he died, the very little English he spoke was with a heavy German accent. Not only did he speak fluent German, but he spoke fluent Turkish, Armenian, Greek, French and enough English later in life to hold a job in New York.
My father came to New York as a young man and started his life here in America. After my grandmother passed away in 1969, he followed him to New York, as well. He never knew his birthday and he had no known blood relatives besides us. He told me he remembered lots of people in his home growing up, but the memories were sketchy, at best.
I remember him as kind man who possessed a level of intelligence that was mind boggling, given his obvious lack of formal education. He was generous, too. He would buy us frivolous gifts and cook us wonderful dinners on Sundays. My mother told me he used to send donations in to PBS because he appreciated the educational shows they aired. He was a painter and had a garden that would make people stop their cars and ask him who his gardener was. He was humble, hard-working and very funny.
Pepe Marcel eventually went back to Marseille after several years in New York. He was happiest there, I believe. After all, it was practically his country. He raised his family there and most of my cousins still live there today. He remained active, walking four miles a day on the Corniche, one of the most beautiful streets in Marseille. He ended every day with a glass of red wine, how very French. He was very French, but he was always an Armenian man. With no roots, very little memories of a childhood and no place to go back home. Nevertheless, he married an Armenian woman, remained active in the Armenian community and raised his family in the Armenian Church. My husband is also Armenian and we will raise our children with the same values instilled in most Armenians. We work hard, we value family, education and are widely considered as high achievers in business. And no matter what happens to us, we will endure as my grandfather did.
A famous quote comes to mind today:
I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia. -- William Saroyan
So to anyone who denies the Armenian Genocide ever happened I say only this. We know you did it and the world does, too. It will always be the stain you cannot remove from your history, no matter how hard you try to silence the truth.
More importantly, the survivors like Missak Kachadurian know you did it.
À la mémoire de mon Grand-Père Missak "Marcel" Cachat.
We will always remember.
Follow Courtney Cachet on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CACHETLIFESTYLE
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Yes, they can ban the books of the makers of their history, they can buy politicians by their votes and urge them to accept historical resolutions and memorial laws in their parliaments, they can threaten the historians who do not support their thesis, they can sue them, they can even bomb their houses as they did before (http://209.232.239.37/gtd1/ViewIncident.aspx?id=56624) but they can never ban scholar thought and silence the historians of the world!
(http://www.lph-asso.fr//articles/46.html, . http://www.lph-asso.fr//tribunes/49.html)
Now do you understand why the Armenians vehemently resist the establishment of historical joint commissions made up of historians from Armenia, Turkey and other countries?
Do you understand why Prof Richard Hovannisian from California University (the father of the first Foreign Minister of Armenia) said: ‘It is very dangerous to establish such an historical commission…’ in an interview with Armenian Reporter? http://www.kophaber.com/news_detail.php?id=4726
Do you understand why the Armenians have not admitted to International Court of Justice for more than 90 years and why they urge politicians to write their history as they want?
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And they also are very frightened of the question how the Ottoman Government eradicated 1,5 million of Armenians but in spite of this it was the Ottomans who first conceived the idea of founding an independent Armenia, and recognized it first. Moreover, it was the Ottoman Sultan who first wished not only the development of Armenian Republic, but that she be strong in order to retain her independence! Astonishingly, it was the Ottoman Sultan, who stated that friendly relations would always exist between the two neighboring countries
That is, the Armenian ancestors who created their history (the top representatitives of the Ottoman Armenians, Dashnags and prime ministers of Armenia), the Armenian historians and poets who wittnessed this period and even the Armenian murderers of Turkish diplomats are the main deniers!
So, it is not surprising that both the book of Hovannes Katchaznouni, the first prime-minister of the Armenian state, ‘Dashnagzoutiun Has Nothing to do Anymore’ and the book of K.S.Papazian ‘Patrionism Perverted’ are banned in Armenia. It is also a fact that all the copies of the book of Hovannes Katchaznouni, in all languages were collected from the libraries in Europe by Dashnags. The book is included in the catalogues but no copies can be found in the racks.
It is not surprising either that, the Armenians even claim that nobody called A.A. Lalayan, the Soviet-Armenian historian, ever lived!
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The Armenian poet Mikael Nalbandyan who wrote these lines in his poem ‘The March of People of Zeytun, was another denier, another IDIOT and Turkish nationalist:
‘..Şad ısdrugner yeğan azad/Miyayin menk mnank hılu hıbadag/Zeytuntsiner mer zposank/E baderazm yev arşavank/ Sur, tur, kıntag yev hıratsan/ Mer khağalikın en havidyan….’
(A lot of slaves were set free/ Only we were left who were obedient/Amusements of us, people of Zeytun are/ War and raid/ Our inexhaustible toys are/ Sword, saber, bullet and gun…….) (Nor Knar, p99). Zeytun was one of the places where the Armenians rebelled and massacred the Turks and Muslims.
KS Papazian the writer of ‘Patriotism Perverted’ published in 1934, in Boston was also a denier and an IDIOT. Because:
Papazian critized A. Khatisian and the then prime minister S.Vratzian for not publishing the text of Treaty of Gümrü which they signed on December 2, 1920 to put an end to the war between Turkey and the Armenian Republic on December 2, 1920, which coincided with the entrance of Bolsheviks in Armenia.
Papazian also stated that the Armenian prime minister Simon Vratzian applied to the Turkish government on March 18, 1921 and asked military help of the Turks against the Bolsheviks!
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The Armenian Soviet historian A.A.Lalayan who stated that the Dashnaks displayed extreme courage to massacre Turkish women, children and ill and old people (Contrarevolyutsionnıy ‘Daşnaktsutyun’ İ İmperialisti-çeskaya Voyna 1914-1918 gg.’, Revolyutsionnıy Vostok, No.2-3, p.92, 1936) and who also quoted the following report of a Dashnag officer, Aslem Varaam written in 1920, in Beyazit-Varan was an Armenian denier and he was also hired by the Turkish government and another IDIOT. The report of Armenian Aslem Varaam was:
"I exterminated the Turkish population in Bashar-Gechar without making any exceptions. One some times feels the bullets shouldn't be wasted. So, the most effective way against these dogs is to collect the people who have survived the clashes and dump them in deep holes and crush them under heavy rocks pressed from above, not to let them inhabit this world any longer. So I did accordingly. I collected all the women, men and children and extinguished their lives in the deep holes I dumped them into, crushing them with rocks."
A.Lalayan, Revolutsionniy Vostok (Revolutionary East) No: 2-3, p.92 vd, Moscow, 1936; Istoricheskie Zapisky No 2, p.101, 1928
Armenian T. Haçikoğlyan who told that the Dashnaks eradicated thousands of Turks with their bloody hands (T. Haçikoglyan, 10 Let Armyanskoy Sttrelkovoy Divizii,p4-6. İzdatelstvo Polit. Uprav. KKA, Tiflis, 1930) was also a denier, agent of Turkish government and a denier
My grandmother and her siblings witnessed pregnant women who had their wombs cut open, and the fetus fell onto the ground.
Teenage girls were raped as their helpless mothers watched.
Young children were forced to march for weeks on end until their feet could no longer walk.
Mothers gave away their babies to Kurdish villagers to avoid seeing the death of their children.
She told that many babies were buried neck deep in dirt, and the Turkish soldiers ran over them with their horses.
I don't speak much of the men. The Turks did not want any interruptions during the Genocide, so they killed off most of them.
(Our Memorial Day is on April 24th because many intellectuals were killed that day. But, the Genocide began mid 1890's all the way to the early 1920's.)
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Foolish people, how do you teach your children the truth, when your own history is a LIE!
The blood of my ancestors flow through my veins, how do you expect me to forgive and forget?
Rest in Peace to the helpless innocent people of the world, who have fallen to their death in the hands of the Turks.
Lets be honest, this is not about rememberance. It is mostly about a medieval blood feud. If Armenians would like to remember things about their grandfathers, they should start with the stories they did not tell and the murder and destruction they sowed and what their fedayees were up to in Eastern Anatolia and Kilikya before and during WWI.
I also ackowledge that Armeinans were ethnically, if not as brutally as they would like to portray, cleansed from their ancient lands and driven to remote enclaves, away from fronts. I join them in remembering the innocent victims on this day.
To watch the documentary online visit:
http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/4823/"
Today, around 20 countries that recognized the relocation in 1915 as ‘genocide’ have no historical basis. They did not create any historical commission to investigate the issue or invite Turkish government to present their position. They declared defendant as guilty on the evidence (in this case, evidence is grandparents’ diaries) of prosecution alone. What a democracy! http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/03/2389-logical-fallacies-of-armenian.html
Jews were killed by the Nazis because of who they were; Armenians were temporarily resettled (TERESET) because of what they have done.
Jews never established Jewish armies behind German lines to create a Jewish state on German soil or killed half a million German noncombatant women and children. Armenians, on the other hand, did
all that and more in the Ottoman Empire between 1890 and 1922.
How can anyone, hold the long discredited Armenian claims of genocide equal to the silent memory of 6 million innocent Jews killed during WWII?
ISN’T IT TIME TO STOP FIGHTING THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND GIVE PEACE A CHANCE?