Eyewitness accounts

[Joseph]

"ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: EVIDENCES OF EYE-WITNESS SURVIVORS" BOOK OF VERJINE SVAZLIAN TO BE PUBLISHED IN TURKEY AND U.S.

Noyan Tapan
Mar 20 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 20, NOYAN TAPAN. Verjine Svazlian's "Armenian Genocide:
Evidences of Eye-Witness Survivors" voluminous collection will be
published in Turkey and U.S. with English and Turkish translations
till the end of the year.

As V. Svazlian informed the Noyan Tapan correspondent, evidences of
660 eye-witnesses of the genocide as well as Armenian and Turkish
language songs describing those massacres are presented in the
collection, for the first time published in 2000. It was mentioned
that evidences of other 100 eye-witnesses were gathered in different
colonies of Diaspora during the recent 7 years.

In V. Svazlian's words, the evidences gathered in the collection
present the whole clear picture of the Armenian Genocide, mobilization
of Armenians organized by the Young Turkish government, mass removals
of Armenians as well as heroic struggles of Musa Dagh, Urfa, Ayntap,
Marash, Izmir.

To recap, another "The Armenian Genocide and People's Historic Memory"
work of V. Svazlian which was translated into English, German, French,
Russian and Turkish, was presented to U.S. President George Bush,
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, House of Lords of England,
etc. V. Svazlian recently got a letter from Lord Eric Avebury in
which it is particularly said: "I think that we start fixing success
in the direction of arising awareness about the Armenian Genocide
among parliamentarians of Western Europe and North America.

Though there is still a long way to pass till the Turk people will
be ready to stand face-to-face with its past."

[Joseph]

Memoir Detailing Armenian Intellectuals'
Arrests on April 24, 1915, Published in English

TOLUCA LAKE, Calif. - The Fatal Night, an eyewitness account of the arrest
and extermination of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and civic leaders in
Istanbul, Turkey, starting on April 24, 1915, has been translated to English and
is available by mail and in Armenian bookstores.

Originally written in Armenian by renowned journalist, educator and community
leader Mikayel Shamtanchian (1874-1926), one of the imprisoned Armenians who
succeeded in escaping from an Anatolian death camp, The Fatal Night offers a
psychological portrait of innocent men who experienced the indignities and
uncertainty of exile before being massacred.

"Whether through luck or an intense will to live, Shamtanchian survived the
carnage and went on to bequeath to future generations the moving image of
Siamanto as the latter sat dejectedly across the desk of a deceitful Turkish police
chief; the haunting echoes of 'Lord, Have Mercy,' the last hymn sung by
Komitas and a throng of exiles held in a Turkish military fort; the harrowing pangs
of Varuzhan and Sevak as they were slaughtered in the field of death called
Ayash=80¦"

Shamtanchian's memoir includes a partial list of names of the Armenian
intellectuals, civic leaders, and priests who perished during the Armenian Genocide.
Historians estimate that some 1,200 such individuals were massacred.

H. and K. Manjikian Publications had the book translated on the occasion of
the 92nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. It is the second in what will
become a series of memoirs in the Genocide Library established by Manjikian
Publications. The first book, Passage Through Hell, was published in 2005. Ishkhan
Jinbashian translated both books.

The English version of The Fatal Night includes a page in memorium for Hrant
Dink, the Armenian journalist and human rights advocate who was slain by a
Turk in Istanbul earlier this year, "the first known Armenian victim in the21st
century of Turkey's ongoing genocidal project."

To order The Fatal Night, send $15 to H. and K. Manjikian, P.O. Box 2734,
Toluca Lake, CA 91610-0734. The book is also available at the Sardarabad, Abril
and Berj bookstores in Glendale and at the St. Vartan bookstore in New York.
For further information, e-mail [email protected].