Antovk Pidedjian

New York Armenian attorney.

Letter to NYT

LETTER

Subverting the Truth of Genocide Published: February 27, 2012

Regarding “Defuse the lexicon of slaughter” (Views, Feb. 24): David Scheffer’s proposal to avoid political conflict by labeling the murder of over 1.5 million Armenians as “atrocity crimes” amounts to an unacceptable diminution of historic and legal standards. Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide” with two mass slaughters in mind: the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust. Winston Churchill referred to the extermination of the Armenians as a “holocaust.” From the pre-Lemkin description of the killings as “race extermination” by the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, to the categorization of the elimination of the Armenians as “genocide” by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the nature of the destruction of the Armenians has been well-established for nearly 100 years. Attempts to recast the 20th century’s seminal instance of genocide only serve those who seek to subvert the truth of what happened to the Armenians.

Antovk Pidedjian, White Plains, New York

Letter to WSJ

published in mid-june, 2007

Fear Represses Discussion of Armenian Genocide

In his article about the restoration of the Holy Cross Armenian Apostolic Church in Van, Turkey, Richard Miniter states that the opening of the church as a museum reflects a spirit of compromise that differentiates Turkey from its Middle East neighbors ("Religious Compromise," Houses of Worship, Taste page, Weekend Journal, June 1). Unfortunately, Turkey does not treat its Armenian population as well as its Middle Eastern neighbors do. Indeed, the refugees of the Armenian genocide and their descendants have lived in relative peace and stability throughout the Middle East for more than 90 years. From Iran to Egypt, they maintain churches, schools, community centers and the historical truth without the restrictions imposed upon the Armenians of Turkey.

Let us not confuse the silence left in the wake of the genocide with peace. Nor should we ignore the fear of modern Turkey's Armenians to speak about the genocide at the risk of being killed like the journalist Hrant Dink. A spirit of compromise is made manifest by the reopening as a museum of a small church in Van. Sadly for Turkey, it is a compromise with the truth of its past.

Antovk Pidedjian

Letter to Boston Globe

A REAL ARMENIAN

06/10/2001

The Boston Globe

THIRD Page C.6

(Copyright 2001)

THE ARTICLE " `AMERICAN DREAM' WAS LIVED IN NEWTON" (PAGE H1, JUNE 3), MOSES H. GULESIAN, THE BUILDER OF A HOME IN CHESTNUT HILL, IS DESCRIBED AS A "TURKISH IMMIGRANT." Actually, Gulesian was an Armenian immigrant. He, like tens of thousands of other Armenians, came to the United States having fled Turkish persecution. To label him a "Turkish" immigrant is to place him among those who had denied him freedom in the land of his birth.

ANTOVK PIDEDJIAN

Letter to NYT

Armenia's Present

Published: October 9, 1998

To the Editor:

Several Armenian people quoted in an Oct. 4 Week in Review article about the burden of Armenia's history suggest that Armenians should forget the country's troubled past. Unfortunately, recent pogroms of Armenians in Azerbaijan, attempts to ethnically cleanse the Armenians, and a Turkish blockade of Armenia are reminders that the past is not so distant.

Moreover, Turkish denial of the genocide committed against the Armenians makes it morally impossible to bury the past.

No individual, group or country should be asked to speak in a noiseless tenor about crimes against humanity. The suffering of the Armenians is not a nationalistic rallying point but a universal cause to be remembered by all.

ANTOVK PIDEDJIAN Yonkers, Oct. 6, 1998

Articles that mention Antovk Pidedjian

NY Governor Pataki Honors 102 Year-Old Armenian Genocide Survivor Armenian Weekly, April 2002