New Armenian Genocide Museum in Wash DC

LadyEagle · Apr 13, 2008

New Armenian genocide museum

Several blocks from the White House, Armenian-Americans are building a genocide museum. Like the US Holocaust Memorial Museum down the street, its location will make it impossible to ignore.

Genocide is a word that the White House avoids each April 24, when the Armenians commemorate the horrific event, which traditionally is dated from 1915. The US government acknowledges the atrocity without naming it, so as not to offend Turkey, which vehemently denies there was a genocide.

"Each year on this day, we pause to remember the victims of one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century, when as many as 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, many of them victims of mass killings and forced exile," President George W. Bush said in a statement last April 24. "I join my fellow Americans and Armenian people around the world in commemorating this tragedy and honoring the memory of the innocent lives that were taken. The world must never forget this painful chapter of its history."

Memory is part of the mission of the Armenian Genocide Museum of America. The museum, to be constructed in the landmark building that was once the National Bank of Washington, is intended to commemorate the victims and educate the public about the Armenian genocide and subsequent crimes against humanity.

Many Armenians see the rescue of the survivors largely as an American endeavor, and as an American story. "This is the story of what Americans did for another people - saving them from starvation, bringing them back to life, creating the foundation for a community that wants to thank the United States for bringing it here, giving it its liberty and the security that allows for this expression in the museum," said Dr. Rouben Adalian, a historian and the museum's project coordinator.
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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1207649994342&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

Matt Black · Apr 14, 2008

Good. Doubtless it will embarrass the Turks, much as the escapades of the Olympic Torch are embarrassing the Chinese. Good. They should both be embarrassed, in fact 'embarrassed' is far too weak; 'downright ashamed' should be the emotion they feel about it.

LadyEagle · Apr 14, 2008

Amen, Matt Black.

StefanM · Apr 14, 2008

Well said, Matt.

My great-grandfather stowed away on a ship as a young teenager to escape the genocide (yes, the genocide). He came to America by himself. I have no idea what happened to the rest of the family. As far as I know, no one ever heard from them again.

It infuriates me whenever I hear the Turkish denial machine in high gear (which is pretty much all the time). It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to keep me from hatred on this issue.

Matt Black · Apr 15, 2008

I suppose I should in all fairness declare an interest too: my mother's side of the family had homes in Smyrna (now Izmir) which were either repossessed or burnt by the Turks in September 1922. My family history in that regard is better laid out in an article I wrote here:

The origin of the name Elise in our family

To trace the origin of this name, we have to go back “a long time ago, far, far away”, as the saying goes. The “long time ago” is the early 19th century and the “far, far away” place is Smyrna (now Izmir) in Turkey. A few words about Smyrna and the people who lived there first.

The defeat of the Ottoman Turks by the Habsburgs and various other European powers following the siege of Vienna in 1683 opened up the Ottoman Empire to trade with western Europe on a scale unseen before. Merchants, traders and diplomats were quick to take advantage of this and to set up shop in various Ottoman cities. Smyrna was a popular location after Constantinople itself since, although in Asia Minor, it had a majority Greek population stretching back to antiquity. Consequently, over the course of the next hundred years or so, a number of families made the move from western Europe to Asia Minor: from Britain came the Barkers, the Whittalls, the Maltasses, and the Moriers (originally French Huguenots but naturalised Brits by that time); from France the Girauds, Arlauds, Dunants (via Vaud, Switzerland), Belhommes and de la Fontaines; from the Netherlands the de Hochepieds and the van Lenneps. Most, if not all, were diplomats or merchants of some description, and frequently both, using their contacts in the one area of work to further their interests in the other.

These merchant-trader-diplomats tended to live in the Smyrnean suburbs such as Seydikoy and Bornova, the main reason being that these areas were pleasant and cool in contrast to the torrid heat of Smyrna town itself in the summer, and an effective way of avoiding the various epidemics which swept through the town periodically such as plague and cholera. In these suburbs, with their large detached villas, particularly Bornova, they formed a closely-knit ex-pat, largely Protestant (those of French origin tended to be Huguenots), European enclave, and frequently intermarried. They are to be partly at least distinguished from the Smyrnean Levantine community, which was older and consisted of more ‘Mediterranean’ nationalities such as Italians, Greeks, Armenians, Lebanese Maronites and Palestinian Christians, who tended to base themselves in another fashionable suburb, Boudjah (now Buca), as well as Seydikoy. There was however still a degree of intermarriage between the westerners and the Levantines, as we shall see.

The marriages between the various families above were usually not just out of love but were designed to cement and promote diplomatic and commercial ties between them. There was also the factor that the Bornovan ex-pats were quite a small population and for religious and cultural reasons they tended to marry within their own mainly Protestant and western community; thus romance (such as it was) was limited to quite a small fishing pond, unless they wanted to venture further afield to the Orthodox or Catholic Levantines for a spouse, which they sometimes did (marrying a Muslim Turk, however, would have been absolutely out of the question). The de Hochepieds and van Lenneps were particularly assiduous in contracting these matrimonial alliances with each other, in some cases creating a rather twisted skein when it comes to trying to assemble any kind of family tree (as we shall see), and it is to one such wedding that we must now turn our attention.

The wedding in question took place on 10th June 1810. The groom was Richard van Lennep (1779-1827), the youngest son of the ‘patriarch and matriarch’ of the van Lennep clan, David George van Lennep (1712-1797) and Anna-Maria Leidstar (1738-1802). Richard’s bride was Adele Marie von Heidenstam (1789-1867), daughter of the late Swedish ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Balthasar Johann Petersen, Count Gerhard von Heidestam (1747-1803) and Catherina Anna, Countess and Baroness de Hochepied (1767-1855). After Count von Heidenstam’s death, Catharina Anna had married Richard’s older brother, Jacob van Lennep, so she was Richard’s sister-in-law before she became his mother-in-law! Thus were the ties between the two families further strengthened.

Richard and Adele Marie, like Richard’s parents, went on to have a large family. A couple of their sons emigrated to the US where they became missionaries. We are concerned however with their first daughter, Adelaide Elise van Lennep (1813-1886); this is the first mention in the family annals of the name Elise. This young lady married Paul Emmanuel Homere, the son of a Levantine Greek, Emmanuel Homere, and Anna Catharina’s younger sister, Anna Henrietta de Hochepied (1770-1832) so, in a sense, Paul and Adelaide’s marriage was yet another de Hochepied-van Lennep union.

Paul and Adelaide Elise had two daughters, named after their mother and grandmothers: Adele Anna Homere (‘Anna’; 1837-1923) and Elise Caroline, born in 1840. Both made good marriages, Anna to William Barker (1828-1890) in Smyrna in 1863 and Elise Caroline Homere to Jacques Gerard Edmond de Hochepied (1839-1887), the grandson of Catharina Anna de Hochepied’s brother Jacques and hence her second cousin, on 17th May 1866 in Smyrna. Both Anna and Elise had had their first child, Anna a girl and Elise a boy, Edmond Jacques Paul de Hochepied (1867-1931), and Anna was pregnant with her second child, when tragedy struck in October 1868: Elise Caroline de Hochepied died (we don’t know what of but probably one of the Smyrnean epidemics). A month later Anna Barker gave birth to her second daughter, whom she named Elise Caroline in memory of her sister. This Elise Caroline Barker (1868-1949) went on to marry Colonel Clarence Garratt in 1897 and thus became Granny Garratt.
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(my great-grandmother, for whom my daughter Elise is named)

BaptistBarb · Apr 15, 2008

i hope to be able to go there this summer

New Armenian Genocide Museum in Wash DC

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