Berlin Mosque Honors Genocide Perpetrators

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Berlin Mosque Honors Genocide Perpetrators

 

 

An interview with Dr. Tessa Hofmann

 

The below interview with Dr. Tessa Hofmann was conducted by Hamo

Moskofian for Keghart.com on October 2, 2012 in Berlin. Dr. Hofmann

is a long-time scholar of Genocide.

 

HM.- You recently published an important book that was presented in Greece.

 

TH.- It is the first academic collective mo - - nograph in English

dealing with the Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks. I had always felt,

when I began to study the Armenian Genocide 40 years ago, that it was

the tip of the iceberg, that the real dimension of this state crime

was much larger than against the 2.5 million Armenians of the Ottoman

Empire. It was a genocide against the Christian nationals of the

Ottoman Empire. This holistic approach is necessary to understand that

the Young Turk perpetrators of the Genocide of the Armenians, their

Kemalist successors, and the serial perpetrators committed this crime

to rid the Ottoman Empire of a quarter of its population, every

resident who was Christian. Now the percentage of the Christian

population in Turkey is less than one percent! The Greek-Orthodox

community has 1,200 members only. The Armenian community is the

largest, with 40,000 to 60, 000. So what the Young Turk perpetrators

planned after the revolution of 1908 materialized in the extermination

of the Christians in their second homeland in the Middle East, after

Palestine which is the first homeland of Christianity.

 

HM.- What are your plans regarding further academic studies and in

publishing books in various languages?

 

TH.- Besides Genocide studies, I have done related Armenian studies,

including migration studies. It was conducted in an international

research project, which took place in Armenia, Russia and Georgia. It

was a comparative research about migration from Armenia and

neighboring Georgia. This is an urgent issue...the loss of people and

why?

 

Second, I published in Armenia a long essay on identity. The Armenian

identity is unique and diversified, depending where Armenians are

living and to which generation they belong to. The Armenian identity

in the U.S or France differs from that of Armenians in Moscow, Turkey,

Syria and Lebanon. Of course, it differs from the identity of

Hayasdantsiner, Karabaghtsiner also. I did research on the Armenian

identity. Usually there are five and are differently focused in

different communities: religion, language, Genocide awareness,

culture. In Turkey we have a slightly different, but unique, picture.

 

Third, I certainly will continue my studies in philology and in

migration issues.

 

Regarding the Genocide, I am focusing on four groups of participants,

plus the cult of the perpetrators which is acute in Turkey. Imagine,

for comparison, in Germany the main street would be named after Hitler

or Goebbels; or the churches be named after Holocaust perpetrators. In

Ankara a mosque is named after Tal'aat *****. Likewise schools and

kindergartens. There's a regional and nationwide cult of Genocide

perpetrators in Turkey. In the Turkish diaspora, in Berlin for

example, you can visit the `Shehidlik Jami' (Martyrs' Mosque), where

two of the Genocide perpetrators--Jemal Azmi and Dr. Behaedin

Shakir--are buried. The Turkish community, with the support of a

Berlin Azeri organization `donated' richly-decorated tombs with marble

and golden inscriptions in three languages which say: `Here are the

martyrs ('shehids') that the Armenian terrorists shot'. They present

these Genocide criminals as martyrs killed by Armenian `criminals'.

 

Berlin authorities have not responded to complaints about the Turkish

glorification of these mass murderers. The authorities have told

journalists that the mosque is extraterritorial land, like an embassy!

This is the background to the situation: Long ago the Prussians gave

the land, as a gift, to the Ottomans. We have no way of stopping the

cult of these two mass murderers. We don't have a memorial for the

Christian victims of the Ottoman Genocide. We are working on it, but

it seems it is much easier in Berlin to build a memorial for the

Genocide perpetrators.

 

A second focus will be on the "Oscar Schindlers of the Ottoman

Genocide"-- civilians or administrators, who tried to save victims,

sometimes, successfully. Their names must be commemorated as the true

heroes of Ottoman history...so as to give positive role models for

young people in Turkey and outside.

 

http://www.keghart.com/Moskofian-Hofmann