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The following is the speech made by Mr. Peter Koutoujian.
My name is Peter Koutoujian and I am honored and humbled to stand with you today as – together – we mark this tragic day – the Pontian Genocide -- in our world’s history. I thank the Pan-Pontian Federation of Greece for this invitation and for the opportunity to be here with you today.
I am an American by birth – from Massachusetts – but my spirit is never far from Armenia, where family once lived.
I may be from America, and I may be Armenian, but I feel like home here with you. And because of that, I know and understand too well the anger and sadness that accompany this day of remembrance for you and your families, but also I know and understand the importance of today as well. Because just as my father taught me, and his father taught him before that – and what I teach my children today – is that we cannot forget.
As George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
It is our way to honor those who perished and just as important - those who survived.
I come from the United States – a country of immigrants – and the story of my family embodies that. My grandparents Abraham and Zarouhi fled their home village of Marash, Turkey, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, to flee the genocide that took the lives of 1.5 million people in Armenia – and took hundreds of thousands of Pontian Greek lives at the same time.
They saw acts and sights that were so unspeakable, that they did just that – after fleeing their home country – they did not speak of what they saw.
This was not uncommon during this time in history - their generation kept silent about their horrific witness so that others, including their children, like my father, would not suffer.
My grandparents immersed themselves, as did so many Greeks, in everything American when they came to the United States. They worked hard - attended church and sent their daughter and three sons to school - and each of their sons served in the US military - they loved everything about their new lives.
My grandparents told my father: "My son, America is the greatest country in the world because you can be anything you want to be."
This sounds trite because it is both overused and simple, but coming from my grandfather these words were pure and profound given the horrors he experienced in his lifetime. Yet these words and this experience are not unique to Abraham and Zarouhi Koutoujian - nor are they to Armenians - they have been experienced and shared by immigrant families and communities throughout the world.
History of the Pontian Genocide
My grandfather’s story is only one of a million stories told by Pontian & Anatolian Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians - all survivors of Ottoman genocide. Because in the early 20th century, the Ottoman genocide perpetrated against our ancestors during and following the First World War binds us together in history forever.
As you know, it began in 1908, when Turkish nationalists, also known as “the Young Turks”, took over leadership in the Ottoman Empire, only to watch it quickly fall apart through lost wars waged between then and 1913.
During that time, historians estimate that the Ottoman Empire lost 500,000 miles of land. As a result, in 1913, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), an extreme nationalist group of Young Turks, took control of government and began a movement to victimize and target those who were not of Islamic or Turkish decent.
By 1914, Pontian Greeks were being executed, and a year later in 1915 the Armenian genocide commenced. By 1923, millions of humans had died by force or hunger.
Shared History
This heinous time that we share brought us together – our heritage mirrored each other then and continues today. The native Pontian Greeks and Armenians were neighbors geographically and remain close in proximity in the United States in the after many migrated to the United States. Many Armenians immigrated to the town of Watertown in Massachusetts.
Many Pontian Greeks immigrated to the same county in the neighboring city of Lowell, Massachusetts. I believe we continue to have an unspoken kinship, and as Sheriff of Middlesex County, I have the honor and distinction of representing both communities.
We also share the same Christian faith, similar food delicacies and the importance of preserving family traditions. And for both of our nationalities, this time of year is one of the most sacred for Pontian Greeks as well as Armenians.
It is about calling attention to an incredible injustice – a horrific time in our world history when our ancestors where victim to a systematic massacre of our people perpetrated because of who we were. Not for a crime committed or an injustice on our part – but rather because of our religion.
It is about a generation taken by genocide – taken from not only mothers and fathers, but from children and grandchildren. From your children. From my children.
Henry Morganthau, the American Ambassador to Turkey from 1913 – 1916 wrote in The Murder of a Nation:
“The Armenians are not the only subject people in Turkey which have suffered from this policy of making Turkey exclusively the country of the Turks. The story, which I have told about the Armenians, I could also tell with certain modifications about the Greeks and Assyrians. Indeed, the Greeks were the first victims of this nationalizing idea.”Senseless, merciless and horrific only begin to describe this time in world history – genocide – as declared by the International Association of Genocide Scholars in as late as 2007, that “the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.”
As Armenians and Pontian Greeks, we often call upon our faith as Christians to understand events that have taken place in our history as a way to cope and understand how to move on. In doing so, we look to the Bible for stories and passages that exemplify the challenges and struggles of our heritage.
For example: the book of John says:
“For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.”And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith.
As Christians, we recently celebrated the Lenten season when we reflect on the persecution and death of Jesus Christ. On Easter, we celebrate Christ’s resurrection into Heaven where he joined God, his father. It represents an end to his suffering and his ascension in to Heaven. I think this analogy is important because it mirrors the life experiences of so many of our ancestors.
For a small number of genocide survivors, they successfully fled persecution only to be resurrected in another land to begin anew. They owned businesses, they attended the church, they got married, they started families and sent their children to be educated and they became pillars in their communities.
These unsung heroes of history didn’t give up despite the atrocities they encountered and the horrors they saw. They experienced a rebirth, were resurrected, revived and given a second chance at life.
I stand before you today as a product of that human resiliency. Because my grandfather did not give up hope – didn’t give up on humanity - or the capacity of the human spirit - I am able to speak to you today as a survivor’s descendant. As a survivor myself. And I’m not the only one - there are millions of me - millions of us.
That’s why today is so important - we are maintaining a legacy for those who perished - but also for those who survived. We have been given the chance to live - we must keep those who were robbed of this forever in our hearts. And live our lives - each and every day - with passion and in memory of those who perished in our hearts.
Live our lives as they would live theirs. Because as is evidenced by my grandfather’s experience - life has many chapters. Some tragic, some inspirational. But all are worth living to their fullest.
We, as survivors of genocide, can never be divided from our experience. It will always be a part of who we are as a people and as individuals. But we, as a Christian people, will also never be defined by it.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that “an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” And, as it has been stated that those who failed to learn from history are doomed to repeat those same terrible acts. What a tragedy that the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur among others have occurred since our Christian genocide.
Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians, we must work together not only to ensure that we, as survivors, realize the long dreamed of recognition and acknowledgement of what happened to our people, but that we use our terrible experience in order to help prevent other peoples who are and will suffer the same fate from doing so.
Thank you very much.
And may God bless Greece,
may God bless Armenia,
may God bless America
and may God bless the victims and all us as survivors of Christian Genocide.
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