[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 77 (Wednesday, May 21, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E798-E799]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 A TRIBUTE TO HAGOP AND KNAR MANJIKIAN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ADAM B. SCHIFF

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 21, 2014

  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Hagop Jack Manjikian 
and Knar Rita Manjikian for the books they have published on the 
Armenian Genocide. An estimated 1.5 million Armenians perished between 
1915 and 1923, but the statistics only tell part of the story. The 
first person accounts of the Genocide, which the Manjikians had 
translated to English in order to reach a broad audience, put a human 
face on the violence and suffering experience by the Armenians, as well 
as their unflagging will to survive.
   ``The Fatal Night''--(Volume 2) Mikayel Shamtanchian was among the 
hundreds of Armenian intellectuals rounded up on the night of April 24, 
1915, and deported to the interior of Turkey, where the Turkish 
genocide of Armenians began. The author beat the odds and survived the 
first genocide of the 20th century. His memoir, The Fatal Night, is a 
detailed account of the extermination of Turkey's Armenian cultural and 
civic leadership in 1915. Shamtanchian recorded the fates of the 
innocent Armenian luminaries who perished in Anatolia--the echoes of 
``Lord, Have Mercy,'' the last hymn sung by the Armenian priest and 
music ethnologist Komitas and a throng of exiles held in a Turkish 
military fort, and the pangs of authors Daniel Varuzhan and Sevak as 
they were slaughtered in the field of death called Ayash. The book 
provides a partial list of the Armenian intellectuals, civic leaders 
and priests who were martyred during the Genocide.
   ``Death March'' (Volume 3)--Shahen Derderian was barely eight years 
old when the Ottoman Turkish government deported his family, along with 
the entire Armenian community of his native Sebastia (now Sivas). The 
uprooting was part of an elaborate Turkish plan to exterminate the 
Armenian population of Anatolia. In the ensuing forced marches, the 
Sebastia caravan--one among countless others--was subjected by the 
Turkish police and hired criminals to a systematic spree of murder, 
robbery, rape, and death by starvation and disease. Young Shahen 
Derderian survived the carnage through sheer miracle. In Death March, 
he tells a harrowing story of dehumanization and loss, whose enormity 
would eventually be matched only by the Armenian survivors' spirit of 
renewal.
   ``The Crime of the Ages'' (Volume 4)--In 1919 Sebuh Aguni chronicled 
the large-scale plunder, deportations, and massacres that were 
systematically perpetrated by the Turkish government in its effort to 
exterminate the Armenian population of Turkey. The Crime of the Ages--
the first English translation of Aguni's study--is an invaluable work 
of historiography as it encompasses not only firsthand victim accounts 
of the Turkish atrocities, but a wealth of evidential information 
culled from Turkish, European, and American official sources. Brimming 
with the eloquent, vivid narrative of a journalist and survivor, The 
Crime of the Ages portrays, in prodigious documentary detail, one of 
history's most heinous crimes, the Genocide of the Armenians.
   ``Defying Fate'' (Volume 5)--For the fifth volume of the Genocide 
Library, we chose the memoirs of Mr. and Mrs. Aram and Dirouhi Avedian, 
both of whom were survivors of the Genocide of Armenians by the Turks. 
Aram Avedian's writing consisted of a small book of handwritten notes 
titled ``The dark days I've lived.'' Dirouhi Avedian's memoirs 
comprised a relatively longer, though still compact, handwritten diary 
titled ``My life.'' Originally written in Armenian and translated to 
English, their memoirs reveal a childhood of sorrow and anguish as they 
relate how they lost their families and how they survived thanks to the 
kindness of strangers. Their infrangible faithfulness toward their 
cultural identity leads them to risk their lives and escape their 
circumstances. Amidst the tragedy, a happy ending emerges.

[[Page E799]]

   ``Our Cross'' (Volume 6)--Our Cross is a collection of 
autobiographical short stories about survivors of Mets Yeghern, the 
1915 Genocide of the Armenians. M. Salpi (Aram Sahakian) was a medical 
officer in the Turkish army during the First World War. In the course 
of his service, he met many Armenian soldiers and officers who 
recounted to him the plight of their families following the 
deportations and massacres of their communities by the Turkish 
government. After his capture by the British, Sahakian was appointed 
resident doctor at an Armenian refugee camp in Port Said, Egypt. Here, 
as well as during his sojourns in Syria and Lebanon, he met numerous 
Genocide survivors who struggled to rebuild their lives. Sahakian found 
their experiences at turns heartbreaking and inspiring, and went on to 
portray them in his writings. Complementing the laser-sharp 
observations of a man of science with the compassion and sensitivity of 
someone who himself had walked the path of devastation, Sahakian's 
stories pulsate with unforgettable images and characters, each a 
microcosm of a nation's cataclysm but also its irrepressible will to 
endure.
   I hereby ask all Members to join me in honoring Hagop Jack Manjikian 
and Knar Rita Manjikian for their efforts to keep the memories of those 
who experienced the Armenian Genocide alive.

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