[Editor’s Note: The 95th anniversary of the genocide of about 1.5 million Armenians by Turkey will be observed worldwide on Saturday, and notably in the Los Angeles area in Glendale, where many stores will be closed (http://www.genocide1915.info/) See Dr. Cohen’s most recent essay, “I Have Looked into the Faces of the Armenian Genocide Survivors”]
Some of you know me through my articles.
A few of you may know I have been blessed to be born, grow up, study and live in different countries and communities, as my name may indicate.
I either have been doomed or blessed by life’s events because I have been touched with many tragedies from childhood.
Some individuals in my place may feel the sorrow of the events, and would live in depression and tears their entire lives.
I am not one of them. I believe any path that G-d offers me is a blessing. For sure, I wish I had a different destiny.
But since I do not have a choice, I prefer to look at its brighter side.
Don’t think that I do not get sad over tragedies. On the contrary, my experiences have turned me into a more sensitive person toward any human tragedies.
From the most distant time I can remember, I knew we were different.
Frequent Intrusion of Tragedy
My family as riddled by the Armenian Genocide.
I did not have grandfathers, aunts and uncles. Even when their faces were filled with large smiles, my mother and my grandmother reminded me constantly of their tragedy.
I learned another type of tragedy when my innocent 39-year-old brother-in-law, Haim, was kidnapped in Beirut.
He was held hostage just because he was a Jew. After nine months, he was killed, and his tortured body was thrown into a church on Christmas Eve!
Find out the relation?
After 11 months, my mother-in-law died from the anguish and the sorrow of losing her innocent son. But I understood the true meaning of loss and sadness with the death of my 18-year-old daughter. Liana was killed by a drunken driver, a day before she would leave to start college in Boston.
I do not believe in lawsuits and monetary punishments (that we never took actions for).
The only action that would have lightened my sorrow was to hear a true apology and regret from the drunk driver.
It never happened.
Looking back to our family history, I am aware that no one can ever correct what happened 95 years ago.
My family members, by now, have become earth themselves. But still I am waiting for a word of apology from the grandchildren of those responsible for the Genocide.
I am surprised at the way democratic governments can hold back the truth and their words even as they are sending a brave young new generation to different countries to protect and install democracy, to be killed or injured, all in the name of democracy.
As a mother and teacher, we always ask a child to apologize when he makes a mistake.
Then we remind him not to repeat the mistake.
This has been my expectation from the Turkish government and all world’s leaders who have not yet recognized the Armenian Genocide.
Studying the Comparable Dates
Just a reminder — I was looking at the calendar this year. We have different memorials following one to another in the month of April.
Passover is the celebration of freedom from slavery. It also demonstrates the struggle of a nation over evil. Unfortunately, many pogroms and tragedies have taken place on this same night for the Jewish people.
On Good Friday, Christians spend the day in fasting and prayers on the agony and suffering of the Christ on the cross.
Yom Hashoah: Remembrance Day for the six million Jews who were killed by Nazis.
The Armenian Genocide — on the evening of April 24,the Ottoman government detained and killed or later deported 800 of the most educated Armenians in Constantinople.
Later, one and half million Armenians, not counting most of the population of the border cities of Turkey, were killed. Don’t all these dates teach us that we are in a constant fight for the betterment of humanity and justice?
For thousands of years we have not strongly enough condemned the injustice.
In every struggle there has been a group withn the society who were profiting from the created situation.
But they have forgotten that those people are probably their and our next door neighbors.
Evil repeats in any form and in almost every nation.
Yesterday was against Armenians.
Later, it was the turn of the Jewish people.
It continues in Darfur, Congo and other countries in Africa, Asia, almost everywhere. Why haven’t we decided to talk loud and stop the evil words, actions or thoughts?
Dr. Cohn may be contacted at rosemary@atelierdeparis.com
