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Rep. Adam Schiff
with Genocide survivor Haroutioun Andonian and family.
WASHINGTON—After meeting with Armenian Genocide Survivor
Haroutioun Andonian, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) submitted his story
to be included in the Congressional Record—one of many
submissions into the national record as part of Rep. Schiff’s
Armenian Genocide Congressional Record Project.
“This
summer, I had the opportunity to meet with Haroutioun Andonian,
a 101-year-old survivor of the Armenian Genocide living in our
community,” Rep. Schiff said. “Today, I submitted his survival
story into the Congressional Record, and I hope that it will
contribute to a better understanding of the nature of the
genocide, raise awareness of the issue, and help educate the
Members of Congress on the imperative of recognizing the
Armenian Genocide.”
The
Armenian Genocide Congressional Record Project, pioneered by
Rep. Schiff, is part of an ongoing effort to parallel H. Res.
252, the Congressional resolution he sponsored to recognize and
commemorate the genocide carried out against Armenians by the
Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923. Rep. Schiff continues to
encourage survivors of the Genocide and their families from
throughout the country to participate in the project by sending
in the stories of what happened to their family during the
Genocide.
Please send your family’s story to Mary Hovagimian in Rep.
Schiff’s Pasadena office at mary.hovagimian@mail.house.gov.
Below
please find the story submitted as included in the Congressional
Record:
Hon.
Adam Schiff
California
Thursday, June 15, 2010
Rep. Adam B. Schiff
Mr.
SCHIFF. Madame Speaker, I rise today to memorialize and record a
courageous story of survival of the Armenian Genocide. The
Armenian Genocide, perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire from 1915
to 1923, resulted in the death of 1.5 million Armenian men,
women, and children. As the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman
Empire Henry Morgenthau documented at the time, it was a
campaign of “race extermination.”
The
campaign to annihilate the Armenian people failed, as
illustrated by the proud Armenian nation and prosperous diaspora.
It is difficult if not impossible to find an Armenian family not
touched by the genocide, and while there are some survivors
still with us, it is imperative that we record their stories.
Through the Armenian Genocide Congressional Record Project, I
hope to document the harrowing stories of the survivors in an
effort to preserve their accounts and to help educate the
Members of Congress now and in the future of the necessity of
recognizing the Armenian Genocide.
This
is one of those stories:
Submitted by Nareg Krumian, the grandson of Haroutioun Andonian:
“Haroutioun Andonian was born in Gurun Turkey in 1909 and grew
up with his father, mother, grandmother and younger sister. At
the age of 6, his father and mother were separated from him, his
sister and his grandmother. His father was arrested by Turkish
soldiers and his mother was taken away. He still remembers a
line of people bound to each other at their wrists and being
marched away from his village. Among them was Haroutioun’s
father, whom he never saw afterwards. He never saw his mother
again either. He was rounded up with his sister, grandmother and
other neighbors by another group of soldiers and taken away to
various cities and villages. By the time they reached Aintab
(presently called Gaziantep), his sister and grandmother were
too weak from hunger and the forced marches that they lost their
lives as well.
“In
Aintab, various Armenian, American and European aid workers
tried to contain the situation of children left without family.
The orphans were disbursed to various Armenian and Turkish homes
throughout the villages of Aintab. Haroutioun remembers the name
of Balaban Khoja, a teacher, who was instrumental in placing the
orphans with families who wanted children. After going through
several homes, Haroutioun lived with a lady who would later
become his mother-in-law.
“Around the time he was 10 years old, American and Danish
missionaries began taking the children to orphanages in Lebanon
and the U.S. Haroutioun was sent to Jbeil, a city in northern
Lebanon, where he stayed until around 1925 when he was sent to
France through the aid of the American charity Near East Relief.
For a few years, he worked on a farm and later went to Paris to
work at the Renault factory where he was responsible for
chroming metal components.
“In
the early 1930s, Haroutioun found out that the lady who had
cared for him last as a child in Aintab had herself been forced
to evacuate her village with her family and was living in
Aleppo, Syria. He went to Syria, began working in various fields
such as trading in cloth and yarn, and managing Turkish baths
that were still prevalent during that period. He also married
his host mother’s daughter, Marie, with whom he had one
daughter, Alice.
“Haroutioun and Marie left Syria for the last time in 1987 and
came to Los Angeles to join their daughter and her family. In
2002, he became a US citizen and shared a letter with the judge
presiding over the procedure that he had kept for over 70 years.
The letter was from the Near East Relief thanking Haroutioun for
paying back funds he had borrowed during his journey to France.
Though not obligated to do so, Haroutioun had felt that
re-paying into the fund would allow other unfortunate people
with the opportunity to rebuild their lives. To this day, he
maintains that the government of Turkey and its soldiers took
away his ability to know what it was to have a family but that
today, living in the United States at the age of 101 amid his
two grandchildren and six great grandchildren, he has become a
king who has everything.”
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