[Editor’s Note: Here, in two parts, is a poignant address that Dr. Cohen will deliver this evening to a U.C. San Diego audience, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, committed by Turkey, that began April 24, 1915.]
Thank you for inviting me this evening to celebrate together the lives of today’s Armenians, and at the same time to remember and honor our martyrs after one hundred years.
My book, The Survivor, already has been translated into Farsi and published in Iran, into Eastern Armenian, published at Yerevan University, into Western Armenian and published by the Prelacy of Tehran, in Turkish, and now in French.
Tonight I am not going to read from my book, The Survivor. It is published and written in a simple language so that everyone can read it. I have been told many times that once people start reading the book, they do not want to put it down until the last sentence is read.
Instead, I would like to start off by asking you two questions. In order to answer them, please show your hands.
How many of you have met and know your grandfathers?
Ok, many of you.
Now, let me see your hands if you have ever seen or known your uncles and cousins.
You are lucky. I never saw my grandfather. He does not have a grave to visit. We do not even have a picture of him to see how he looked.
Growing up, I did not have any uncles, cousins, or aunts, or many close or distant relatives.
Our relatives consisted of three individuals: my grandmother’s younger sister and her two brothers, who had stayed alive because they were in Russia in 1918. They became like my own aunt and uncles, and their children my cousins.
Yes, you are guessing right. It is because in 1918 the Ottoman government ordered that all of our family members and the entire Armenian population were to be killed. For centuries, all of these people had lived peacefully in the northwest of Persia.
But by the will of God, my 3-year-old mother and my 18-year-old grandmother were saved, so that I can be here today to tell everyone their story.
My grandmother, a delicate looking, soft speaking woman, was strong as most of the Armenian survivor women were supposed to be.
She never complained. She never asked for favors. She never cried. However, she also never laughed like other women her age.
She always had a sweet smile on her face. She was peaceful and helpful. She offered unconditional love.
She looked like a queen whose crown had been stolen by evil persons. God’s glory and light enveloped her being.
This is how most of the survivors looked. They had experienced hell, but they had been pushed toward heaven.
The tradition and the education of my time was to separate the adults’ world from the children’s because the parents wanted their young ones to live a happy childhood. So I was kept away from all of my family’s painful, tragic past.
Children are wise, though. They discover secrets very fast.
The questions that I used to ask myself were:
- Why didn’t I have a grandfather?
- Why did my grandmother and mother always wear black dresses?
- Why were my grandmother’s few friends all widows?
- Why didn’t I have uncles and relatives like most of my friends and neighbors?
Relationships in our home were built on respect and silence. Somehow, I knew that if I asked my questions, I would cause too much pain to my grandmother. I loved her very much. So I respected the silence that was her protective shell.
Even though no one had told me anything about the massacre, I kept seeing visions of war. Every time I spiked a fever, I would see images of soldiers plucking children from the arms of their mothers on the walnut armoire door in the bedroom. I would cry. I would scream: “Help them! Please help them.” Then my mother would rush in with a cold compress for my forehead.
As time passed, I learned to penetrate my grandmother’s silence.
I took advantage of her short absences and by asking questions from the talkative ones.
Later I learned that she was not only protecting me from the cruel truth of the genocide, but that she was trying not to poison my young spirit. She did not want me to grow up hating or discriminating against others, even the Turks. She had seen good and evil in every group of people. She understood that personal goodness and peace were important in life.
In time, I learned that I did not have the power to forgive. Forgiveness is a profound word that needs a deeper knowledge and action. Only God knows the truth in everyone. He is the only one who can forgive.
Not I. Who am I? A handful of dust!
To function in this world, I had to go over the tragedies and bad events. Certainly, I did not have the right to forget them, either.
I asked more questions later, but it was very hard to pull words out of the closed mouths of the survivors.
Yes, we have to remember the past. For me, writing was the only way I could keep alive the memories of my grandmother and mother.
I could pay back all the sufferings and goodness of my grandmother and mother. I had to tell their story to keep their memories alive.
It was painful to write. I had to live through all the events and tragedies again.
While writing, I felt the ache in my heart, the tears in my eyes. I lived with them. I went through their hell. And I lost them again.
Since we did not have any pictures of our relatives, I decided to make a small family album. I made 12 oil paintings.
This time, my fingers ached but my paintings solved the past — unknown psychological fears and problems that my mother had carried for over 80 years.
(To be continued)
Dr. Rosemary Hartounian Cohen, who lives in the Fairfax District, earned her Ph.D in sociology from the Sorbonne in Paris. She lived in two other countries before moving with her husband and children to Los Angeles in 1984. She has published four books in America. Since 1985, Dr. Cohen has operated Atelier de Paris, an international art business, on Robertson Boulevard. She may be contacted at rosemary@atelierdeparis.com and www.licopublishing.com
