This ruined my day

[wh00t]

Did anyone else know about this? Agence France Presse reported today:

 

 

This was not the first time that Israeli agents went abroad to collect

historic artifacts. It is reported that agents working on behalf of

Israel and Turkey have been smuggling large amounts of Armenian collections

out of Armenia. Many of these items, including pictures, videos, yet

unpublished manuscripts of books documenting the Armenian genocide,

and even left over weapons and uniforms, were taken out of museums,

publishers offices and government agencies.

 

This pisses the hell out of me... Israel would guard Holocaust artifacts with their life, and us, we just let them take large amounts of our evidence... even though we have yet to prove the Genocide occured to the entire world. I tell you, we are our own worst enemy for letting things like this occur.

[MosJan]

images/smiles/converted/icon_mad.gif

[nairakev]

Do you have a link or a reference to that article? Where was it published?

[nairakev]

Sorry, I can't find any AFP depeche on this issue. Are you sure that it was Agence France Press?

[wh00t]

You can find the article here: http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg33117.html

[nairakev]

I can't understand how Groong does justify the appereance of Armenians in that article , but here is the original article taken from Yahoo! France Agence France Press report on that issue. I still cannot trust the Groong article until it doesn't give any resources to original online sources.

AFP has a very well established online services. While referring to AFP, Groong could provide more details on this "touchy" issue. But it didn't (mistake or intention, I have no idea). So I'll abstain from further commentaries. But I would take more care before publishing the paragraph above.

-------------------- http://fr.news.yahoo.com/010607/1/1c8bw.html

 

Fresques de Bruno Schulz emportés

VARSOVIE, 7 juin (AFP) - La polémique s'envenime en Pologne autour de l'opération de l'institut Yad Vashem de Jérusalem qui a sorti clandestinement d'Ukraine des fresques de Bruno Schulz, célèbre écrivain et dessinateur juif polonais mort pendant l'Holocauste, relèvaient les médias jeudi.

 

Après un silence initial sur cette affaire, le président polonais Aleksander Kwasniewski a critiqué mercredi soir les méthodes employées par l'institut Yad Vashem qu'il a qualifiées de "raid" et de "geste désagréable".

 

Les fresques, peintes par Bruno Schulz peu avant sa mort en 1942 dans la maison d'un officier allemand sur l'ordre de celui-ci, ont récemment été découvertes par des chercheurs polonais et ukrainiens.

 

Plusieurs peintures, en cours de restauration, ont été enlevées avec des morceaux de mur par des émissaires de Yad Vashem qui les ont transportés en secret à Jérusalem le 21 mai dernier, apparemment sans l'accord des autorités ukrainiennes, selon des témoignages cités par la presse polonaise.

 

"Je ne soutiens pas ce genre de méthodes", a dit M. Kwasniewski devant la presse. "Je pense qu'il n'y a pas et qu'il ne peut pas y avoir aux XXIe siècle de questions que nous ne serions pas en état de résoudre par la voie pacifique et la conciliation", a-t-il ajouté.

 

Le quotidien polonais Gazeta Wyborcza a publié jeudi une lettre ouverte de la communauté juive de Drokhobitch (ouest de l'Ukraine) adressée au ministre israélien de la Culture et au directeur de l'institut Yad Vashem, demandant de prendre des mesures pour prévenir "le vol d'autres oeuvres de Bruno Schulz".

 

"Nous juifs polonais, qui sommes restés sur cette terre impregnée du sang de nos concitoyens, voulons sauvegarder les traces de la culture grande et unique créée par les juifs vivant en Ukraine", dit cette lettre signée par la vice-présidente de la communauté juive de Drokhobitch Dora Katznelson.

 

Le président Kwasniewski a indiqué qu'il s'était entretenu de l'affaire avec l'ambassadeur d'Israël en Pologne, Shevah Weiss, et qu'une initiative réunissant la Pologne, l'Ukraine, l'Israël et l'institut Yad Vashem était en cours d'élaboration.

 

Cette initiative permettrait de "protéger ce genre de patrimoine qui témoigne de la présence juive et de la culture juive surtout en Ukraine où la situation économique est encore difficile", a-t-il dit.

 

Selon une déclaration de l'institut Yad Vashem publiée par les media polonais, "les fresques de Schulz, un artiste juif", ont été "offertes" à l'institut par les propriétaires actuels de la maison avec l'accord des autorités locales.

 

Souvent comparé à Franz Kafka, Bruno Schulz est l'auteur notamment des "Boutiques de cannelle" et du "Sanatorium au croque-mort". Il a été abattu d'une balle dans la tête par un officier SS dans la rue de Drokhobitch (Drohobycz en polonais avant la guerre), en novembre 1942.

[MJ]

Naira,

 

For those of us who don't read French, your comments were not understood, here.

 

For the rest of us, the "paragraph" referenced above from the France Press appears to be fabrication by the translator of the article. It appears that there is no such paragraph in the original text.

What a shameful and dirty tactics of some homophobes …

[Karine]

Pisses me off as well!

 

I was in Armenia about two years ago. At the vernisages, every Saturday, they would gather old armenian carpets, antics, wich instead should be hanging in national museums, beeing sold - to foreigners. Dollar$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[armine-1]

I don't think this article is true because who would let a Jew or a Turk to enter to a museum with empty hands & exit with their arms full of Armenian anthiques from the museum? I never heard such a thing. There was no one to stop them or something?

I mean, who would let them to take anything from there, especially a Turk.

There's something wrong with the article. Plus if the Turks & the Jews took anything from the museums in Armenia, they had to have the approval to get those antiques out of Armenia & who would give them the right to do so.

In my opinion if they tried to do it, they would get shot by Armenians in Armenia.

[armine-1]

One more thing

What would be the point of taking ARmenian antiques out of our museums? IF they are trying to get rid of the evidence that the genocide occured, that's very stupid. The antiques don't get rid of the evidence, since they don't really show any evidence, there are the documents in European parlaments which prove that the genocide occured, so i don't see any point of taking those antiques out of Armenia.

[MJ]

Dear Karine and Armine,

 

What Naira was trying to convey in her material was that the material about smuggling Armenian artifacts out of Armenia by the Jewish organizations was a forged one. The original text of the article in France Press contains no such allegations. Apparently, the paragraph related to Armenia referenced above is fabricated either by the translator of the article or by those who have demonstrated excessive creativity out of whatever considerations.

 

Hope this clarifies. No need to be alarmed.

[raja]

Not in an organised way,but on an individual basis smuggling of antiques from Armenia to Turkey exists and it is done by the Armenians themselves.For more then ten years I had my own shop selling antiques in Istanbul.My shop was located in an antiques mall consisting of seventyfive shops.From time to time we would have people come in the mall and try to sell some pieces that they have with them.Some of them were Armenians and they came on a regular basis.And since I was the only shopowner of Armenian origin first they would come to me.The pieces wouldn't be of any museum quality,but gathered from the fleamarkets in Armenia and brought to Turkey to be sold for a profit for the market in Turkey is higher.I bought many pieces from them.I don't know how they took them out of Armenia,but bribing the customs officers would be the first that comes to mind.Not only from Armenia,but we had people coming from Russia,Ukraine,Azerbaijan too.

Antiques smuggling is nothing new.Happens all over the world and Armenia is not an exception.

[Kazza]

yeah, but it's still pretty sick though!

[bellthecat]

I would not call this sort of activity "antique smuggling" - it is just a trade in cultural artifacts, the sort of thing that has gone on since trade began. Not everything Armenian belongs in Armenia!

Real antique smuggling is on a different scale, involving rich dealers and collectors in Europe and especially America. American looter-dealers have had carte-blanche to plunder Iraqi museums because US sanctions
against Iraq mean that nothing can be returned to Iraq once it has left the country - someone who deals in stolen artifacts from Iraq can do it openly in America - yet someone who tries to stop such a transaction and get the artifacts returned to Iraq could face arrest under US laws against sanction breaking!

Steve