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Documenting 100 Years of Displacement Among Syrian-Armenians: An Interview with Anoush Baghdassarian Conducted by Lauren Broidy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2019

Anoush Baghdassarian
Affiliation:
Columbia University
Lauren Broidy
Affiliation:
Claremont McKenna College

Extract

On February 7, 2018, Anoush Baghdassarian (Claremont McKenna College ‘17) conducted a presentation of her undergraduate research on Syrian refugees in Armenia called “Coming ‘Home’: Documenting 100 years of Displacement of Syrian-Armenians.” This interview was lightly edited for clarity.

Type
Research: Bridging Boundaries
Copyright
Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America, Inc. 2019 

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Footnotes

1

Lauren Broidy, a current undergraduate at Claremont McKenna College (‘19), conducted this interview on February 7, 2018 at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum at Claremont McKenna College.

References

2 Anoush Baghdassarian is earning her M.A. in Human Rights Studies at Columbia University. She recently interned at the Office of the Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia, and currently serves as an advisor to the Permanent Mission of Armenia to the United Nations.

3 This quote is, debatably, from Adolf Hitler's speech to Wehrmacht commanders at his Obersalzberg home on August 22, 1939, a week before the German invasion of Poland. A brief summary of the debate on the reference to the Armenian Genocide and its legitimacy can be found in Bardakjian, Kevork B. “Letter to the Editor.” New York Times. June 18, 1985. https://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/06/opinion/l-hitler-s-armenian-extermination-remark-true-or-false-103469.html

4 This statistic, reportedly provided by Armenian officials, varies between 20,000 and 22,000 and refers to the number of refugees that passed through. It was reported in 2017 that 15,000 remained in Armenia while others relocated, according to a report, Economic Integration of Syrian Refugees in Armenia: Needs Assessment Report, published under the “Private Sector Development South Caucasus” program implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

5 Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-born lawyer who fled Europe for the United States in 1941, published Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1944. On page 79 he coins the word genocide as “a new term and a new conception for destruction of nations.”