An Open Letter to Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres

By Sarkis Atamian

Two or three days after our forces liberated Dachau, I went there on my own to see for myself. A back road cornering out of sight about a mile away was crowded with about twenty or thirty huge, horse drawn, wooden wagons in caravan. They were loaded above their tops with corpses, grotesquely twisted into stiffened abstract shapes. I thought they looked like wooden marionettes, minus the strings, fallen to the ground into a broken jumble. It seemed like a cruel cartoon, except for the wagon drivers whose kerchiefs, tied across their noses, signaled that a short while ago the ghastly cargo had been human beings like you and me.

I went to the crematorium and opened the doors to three ovens to take a photo to understand later what my reeling senses could not grasp at the moment. I had never seen glowing embers of human remains turning into ashes and stench. I went past the barbed wire enclosure whose living cadavers, with shriveled heads and sunken eyes, tried to smile. One of them must have recognized my uniform. In a feeble smile, through blackened teeth, he barely uttered the single word, "American." They were all awaiting their delousing to be set free and brought back to resemble what they had been.

I reached the bath house. Some shadow of a human being in prisoner's uniform let me in to where the shower heads had released their Zyklon B gas which killed all those forced inside. I silently thanked God for their merciful death, since the poison did its work in about five minutes.

That was a long time ago. I am now 77-years old and have never forgotten those images of my youth. I don't need the constant imposition of Holocaust victims on the television screen almost on a daily basis for a reminder. I have seen the real thing, which was so meaningful to me. It has lasted a lifetime. Does what I have seen have no meaning to you? If it does, how could you have told the Turkish press that the genocide of my people was "meaningless"?

I was born in this country of immigrant Armenian parents who barely survived the first and worst Genocide (please get familiar with that word) of the 20th century inflicted on my people by the Turkish government of 1915. As a boy, I saw the pictures in books and newspapers my parents tried to hide from me of my slaughtered ancestors who looked so much like the marionettes in those wagons, only they did not die merciful five minute deaths. They were force-marched for days and weeks through the desert of Der-el Zor where they died a slow and torturous death through hunger, thirst, brutal beatings, and rape before the eyes of their children who were sold into slavery. The remains of those killed were not carted away for the decency of burial. They perished where they fell without a trace.

Their cities, towns, and villages were hatefully demolished to the last stones and timbers and will never rise again as yours do in Palestine. Come to think of it, I already had my share of such meaningful sights before you did, I'm sure. If all this is not meaningful to you, then in God's name, to whom else can it have meaning?

The world today finally admits this horror despite a "modern" Turkey's denial. You, who rightly denounce the Jewish Holocaust deniers, are now a denier of the Armenian Genocide because it is "meaningless" to you? Mr. Prime Minister, you make it sound as meaningless as it did to Talaat Pasha who masterminded that genocide. De Nogales says that when Talaat was asked why he was doing this to the Armenians, he replied, "It amuses me." Surely, you can grasp the meaning of this. Where do you stand on it?

There are many Jews, worldwide, who as individuals do not dismiss the mountainous evidence of the racist Turkish barbarism of that government, which was the prototype for the Nazis your people faced. Such Jews as J.E. Lewis, Yair Auron, Israel Charny, and many others have stood in defense of truth and conscience. Like countless Armenians, I, too, am humbled with gratitude for their integrity, courage, and compassion. But where is the understanding, courage, and integrity of Israeli statesmen, like yourself, who do not speak out in an official capacity to redress injustice in this case which they do so often, otherwise? Why do they remain silent now while condemning the rest of the world for "silence" on the Holocaust?

Mr. Foreign Minister, there are even Turks who will not go as far as you did. How often have I seen you on television with your soft-spoken, dignified appearance as a wise leader and statesman of your people. How could you be of your people and say what you did of mine? You revealed the other side of your character to the Turkish press, didn't you. As an icon of world leadership and moral stature, your sanctimonious imposture did you little good and great harm to the cause of our respective peoples and, in fact, to all humanity. You now appear to be a common variety politician who has shamed your Nobel Peace Prize one step ahead of the devil himself. How else can I see you in the light of your infamy? What can anyone else honestly call it? Mr.Peres, look into the morality of your conscience, not the expediency of your politics. That is the sign of greatness of your people's legacy to the world.

Sarkis Atamian joined the Tzeghagrons, which became the AYF, in 1933. He was a long-time correspondent for the Armenian Weekly and a contributing editor to the Armenian Review. He was called to active duty in World War II, trained as a field surgical technician, and served in four battle campaigns in North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany. He attended the University of Rhode Island, Brown University, and the University of Utah, and published The Armenian Community in 1955. He held an Instructorship at University of Rhode Island and was invited to head the Department of Psychology and Sociology at the University of Alaska. He guided student tours to Egypt and was a member of the Egypt Exploration Society, and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Cairo, the University of Mysore India, and the Austrian Ludwig von Mises School of Economics.