German Officer Photo Evidence Of Armenian Genocide At Moscow Expo

[Tongue]

GERMAN OFFICER PHOTO EVIDENCE OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AT MOSCOW EXPO


/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armin Wegner and the Armenian Genocide exhibition, organized by the Russian-Armenian Commonwealth and Directorate of the Presidential Programs of the Russian Fund of Culture will open in Moscow May 31, reported the Yerkramas newspaper of Armenians of Russia. As Russian-Armenian Commonwealth Chairman Yrui Navoyan stated, the exposition is arranged on the basis of materials of a book of Italian author Giovanni Guaita of the same name. The exhibition presents unique materials from the personal archive of one of the main witnesses of the Armenian Genocide, German officer Armin Wegner. In spite of the strict prohibition of the Turkish and German authorities, he managed to penetrate into the Armenian death camps and gather unique photo materials, evidence proving the monstrous crime committed by Turkey against the Armenian population. The materials presented at the exhibition provide a notion of the horrible pages of the human history. Russian and Armenian political and public figures will participate in the opening of the exhibition.

[Gavur]

Giovanni Guaita says Genocide was a crime against him too

15.12.2005 18:38

YEREVAN (YERKIR) - Well-known Italian author and scholar Giovanni Guaita is visiting Armenia on the invitation of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Supreme Body of Armenia.

His book “ A Cry from Ararat: Armin Wegner and the Armenian Genocide,” recently published in Moscow, was presented at the Gevorgian Gallery on Thursday.

The presentation was attended by politicians and intellectuals.
National Assembly’s ARF faction leader Levon Mkrtchian mentioned that the book and an exhibition were previously presented in Moscow.

“The emphasize is made on a high scientific leverl,” Mkrtchian said. “The presentation of this book in Armenia is a significant cultural and political event. It is alos important that the book was published in Russian. Often is seems that everyone know everything, but then new generations emerge who need such book.”

Levon Ananian, the chairman of the Armenian Writers’ Union, said this book is valuable not only because it contains Wegner’s diaries, letters and photos Wegner had taken but also because of the author’s exclusive introduction to the book where Guaita brilliantly explores the Genocide in terms of human rights.

Guita himself said he was happy the book was presented in Yerevan. “The fact of the Armenian Genocide is a crucial issue for Armenians and we should always speak about it,” Guaita noted. “This is why I wrote this book. But another important reason was that as an Italian I believe this is a crime against the entire mankind and thus against me too.”

“Every Armenian knows Armin Wegner,” he continued. “They know him as a brave man whose evidence is crucial becease he was German which was Turkey’s ally in the World War I. And what he documented in 1915 are very important.”

He is also the author of the books “The Man’s Life, the Meeting of the Heaven and the Earth: Interviews with Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin I,” and “1700 Years of Devotion: the Story of Armenia and its Church.”

[Gavur]

Patriarch Of All Armenians Receive Giovanni Guaita

13:15 20/12/05





On December 19 the Patriarch of All Armenians Garegin the Second received the Italian scientist and writer Giovanni Guaita.

Congratulating Mr. Guaita on the publishing of the book “A Cry from Ararat: Armin Wagner and the Armenian Genocide” the patriarch expressed his appreciation to the writer for the respect and devotion expressed by constant works on the Armenian people and the Armenian Church.

During the meeting the problems of the Armenian Saint Apostolic Church and war-calls were also touched upon. The patriarch introduced the present activity of the Church. The information was received from St. Echmiadzin.

http://www.panorama.am/index.asp?sel=2369&l=e

[Alexandros]

Armin Theophil Wegner
Intellectual, doctor in law, photographer,
writer, poet, civil rights defender and
eyewitness to the Armenian Genocide


Armin T. Wegner was born on October 16, 1886 in the town of Elberfeld / Rhineland (Wuppertal) in Germany. At the outbreak of World War I, he enrolled as a volunteer nurse in Poland during the winter of 1914-1915, and was decorated with the Iron Cross for assisting the wounded under fire. In April 1915, following the military alliance of Germany and Turkey, he was sent to the Middle East as a member of the German Sanitary Corps. He used his leave to investigate the rumors about the Armenian massacres that had reached him from several sources. Disobeying orders intended to stifle news of the massacres, he gathered information on the Genocide - collected notes, annotations, documents, letters and took hundreds of photographs in the Armenian deportation camps - visible proof of the first systematic genocide of the twentieth century. At the request of the Turkish Command, Wegner was eventually arrested by the Germans and in December of the same year he was recalled to Germany. Hidden in his belt were his photographic emulsions with images of the Armenian Genocide .

In an open letter, which was submitted to American President Woodrow Wilson at the peace conference of 1919, Wegner protested against atrocities perpetrated by the Turkish army against the Armenian people, and appealed for the creation of an independent Armenian state. The tragedy of the Armenian people to which he had been eyewitness in Ottoman Turkey haunted him for the rest of his life. In the 1920s Wegner reached the height of his success as a writer. He became a celebrity with his Russian book, Five Fingers Over You, which foresaw the advent of Stalinism.

Wegner was also one of the earliest voices to protest Hitler's treatment of the Jews in Germany. He was the only writer in Nazi Germany ever to publicly protest against the persecution of the Jews. In 1933 he was arrested by Gestapo, a few weeks after he sent an open letter to Hitler protesting the state-organized boycott against the Jews of Germany. He would suffer incarceration in seven Nazi concentration camps and prisons before he could make his escape to Italy.

In 1956 Wegner was awarded the Highest Order of Merit by the Federal German government. The city of Wuppertal, where he was born, decorated him with the prestigious Eduard-Von-der-Heydt prize in 1962.

Armin T. Wegner dedicated a great part of his life to the fight for Armenian and Jewish human rights. In 1967 he was awarded the title “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem in Israel, and in 1968 he received an invitation to Armenia from the Catholicos of All Armenians and was awarded with the Order of Saint Gregory the Illuminator. Furthermore, a main street in Yerevan was named after him in his honor.

He died in Rome at the age of 92 on May 17, 1978. In 1996 part of his Ashes were taken to Armenia, where a posthumous state funeral took place near the perpetual flame of the Armenian Genocide Monument.

In 2003 the Armin T. Wegner Award was created by the Arpa Foundation for Film, Music and Art in Hollywood, as a humanitarian honor, awarded to a motion picture that contributes to the fight for social conscience and human rights, a struggle to which Armin T. Wegner devoted his life.

source

[Gavur]

May he rest in peace