Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Musa Dagh Photo Collection To Be Part Of The Armenian Genoicde Museu

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Musa Dagh Photo Collection To Be Part Of The Armenian Genoicde Museu

    MUSA DAGH PHOTO COLLECTION TO BE PART OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MUSEUM OF AMERICA

    AZG Armenian Daily
    02/06/2009

    Armenian Genocide

    Rare and historically significant photographs of the Armenians of Musa
    Dagh will be among the Genocide-era images featured in the Armenian
    Genocide Museum of America (AGMA), thanks to the generosity of a
    private collector who is providing the museum with exclusive access
    to the photos.

    Very few families survived the Armenian Genocide without loss of
    life. Pictured is the family of Krikor Boursalian of Yoghunoluk
    village, Musa Dagh. The picture was taken at the Port Said refugee
    camp in Egypt sometime between October 1915 and summer 1916.

    This unique collection of black-and-white photographs, dating from
    1915 to 1939, is the life's work of Dr. Vahram Shemmassian, a Los
    Angeles-based historian who is the world's leading expert on the
    Armenians of Musa Dagh.

    "We are profoundly grateful to Dr. Shemmassian for allowing the museum
    to use his priceless photo collection to help tell the heroic story of
    the Musa Dagh Armenians against the backdrop of the larger and much
    more tragic story of the Armenian Genocide," said Van Z. Krikorian,
    AGMA Board Trustee and Building and Operations Committee Chairman. "In
    addition, as the foremost authority on the subject of Musa Dagh,
    Dr. Shemmassian is able to provide authentication of the evidence
    documented in these photographs."

    Krikorian said the Musa Dagh photo collection is the fourth significant
    collection of Genocide-era visual materials which, in the past year,
    have been made available for use by AGMA. AGMA has been granted access
    to the archives of the Near East Foundation and the Armenian Genocide
    Museum-Institute in Yerevan, Armenia, and has received a donation of a
    privately-held research library containing books, maps, photographs and
    other materials focused on the Armenian Genocide and its documentation.

    Dr. Shemmassian has also undertaken pioneering research on the fate
    of Armenian women and children during and in the aftermath of the
    Genocide, another focus area of the museum. Shemmassian, who is
    currently Director of the Armenian Studies Program at California
    State University, Northridge, said the Armenian Genocide Museum in
    Washington, DC is a "perfect match" for his collection.

    "The thousands of people who will visit the museum will be able to look
    into the faces of those brave Armenians of Musa Dagh and learn of their
    unique story," Dr. Shemmassian said. "They resisted and most of them
    survived, but they were forced to leave their homes. These photographs
    document the trying conditions and difficult challenges that the
    displaced Musa Dagh Armenians faced as survivors and refugees."

    According to Dr. Rouben Adalian, Director of the museum's research
    arm, the Armenian National Institute, "The story of Musa Dagh is one
    of the rare instances during the Armenian Genocide era where Armenian
    villagers, who were targeted for annihilation by the Ottoman Turkish
    Army, put up an organized resistance for 49 days and were eventually
    rescued by Allied warships patrolling the Turkish coast."

    Adalian said, "There are no known photographs of the actual defense
    of Musa Dagh, however, the rescue and delivery to safety in Egypt of
    over 4,000 survivors made headline news." The Austrian author Franz
    Werfel also immortalized the gripping events in his "Forty Days of
    Musa Dagh," which became a best-seller upon its release in 1933 and
    was subsequently translated into numerous languages.

    The AGMA recently received a copy of the Dutch edition of "Forty Days
    of Musa Dagh" from a Canadian donor whose family had lived through
    World War II. Adalian added, "The book is important supplemental
    material to the Musa Dagh photo collection, and points to the
    world-wide impact of the story of the resistance of the Armenians of
    Musa Dagh."

    "Franz Werfel's book was widely read in Europe and made the Jewish
    author unpopular with the Nazi regime, prompting Werfel to flee
    Austria in 1938," Adalian said. He noted that according to Professor
    Yair Auron of the Open University of Israel, Werfel's novel was a
    source of inspiration and reflection for Jews who were trapped by the
    Nazi occupation of Europe. In one historical account, a Holocaust
    survivor from the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania stated: "Our analysis
    of the book indicated that if the world did not come to the rescue
    of the Armenians, who were Christians after all, how could we, Jews,
    expect help? No doubt Hitler knew all about those massacres and the
    criminal neglect by the free world, and was convinced that he could
    proceed with impunity against the helpless Jews."
Working...
X