More than 70 years after Hitler asked “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?", the voices of Armenians who survived the Genocide that began in 1915 will join the testimonies of those who survived the Holocaust of World War II, as part of a collaboration between the Shoah Foundation Institute and the USC Institute of Armenian Studies Leadership Council, dailynews.com reports.
"These testimonies exist because (the survivors) wanted the world to know that this happened," said Stephen Smith, executive director for the Shoah Foundation Institute, at the University of Southern California.
“The voices and images not only strengthen evidence that such atrocities occurred, but also will show how crimes against humanity are born out of bigotry, prejudice, and intolerance if gone unnoticed,” Smith said.
Founded by Steven Spielberg in 1994, the Shoah Foundation Institute includes more than 52,000 digitized testimonies of the survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust. It took more than 15 years not only to record the accounts, but also to index them properly so that scholars, journalists and those serious about learning could find specific stories by name, birth place or experience.
The foundation is now conducting a similar project with more than 400 films made by J. Michael Hagopian (October 20, 1913 – December 10, 2010). He was a small child when his mother hid him in a well from Turkish soldiers who raided the village of Kharberd in what was then Western Armenia, now part of Turkey.
He survived and migrated to the United States and became a filmmaker who recorded the experience of Genocide survivors and witnesses.
"The evidence against Turkey is enormous," Hagopian had said. "The Germans have admitted what had happened (during the Holocaust). The Turks have to admit it so that there is remorse, and after that atonement and then forgiveness. They can't kill babies and take wives and not face retribution."
Hagopian's first film that related to the genocide was an interview with Wegner.
Both of their contributions, as well as the Shoah Foundation, will be honored at a gala and fundraiser on April 15 by the USC Institute of Armenian Studies' Leadership Council. Funds raised will go toward the continued work of digitizing Hagopian's footage.
The Shoah Foundation Institute also is working to archive witness accounts of the massacres in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia.
