Memorial to prevent Turks to remember

The story makes for strange coincidences, and historical data can thus develop unexpected dynamics. 23. April in Turkey is a national holiday, it commemorates the opening of the first free Parliament in 1920. The country is sinking in a frenzy of Turkish flags. It is celebrated at the same time the "children's day", the anniversary ease, it also balloons may be hung.

Very different is the 24. April. On this day the Armenians commemorate the world to the murder and expulsion of their ancestors in the Ottoman Empire. 24. In April 1915 began in Istanbul, the arrests of Armenian Doctors, lawyers, parliamentarians, professors, and artists. We never saw her again.

An intimate, public place

In Turkey there is no official Recall on this tragedy. So far all Turkish governments, both left and conservative denied that the Armenians victims of a genocide. That there were hundreds of thousands Dead, is not disputed. But the word genocide is still taboo, such as the question of what actually happened with the property of the Murdered.

"light and Dark", wrote the Armenian-Turkish Journalist Hrant Dink, with the view on the calendar in April, "what a Dilemma." He wanted to celebrate in a day, and the next memory, but how? In a Text entitled "23,5 April," he pleaded, "to leave the world entirely to the children," for they felt no hatred. Hrant Dink was on 19. January 2007, at the age of 52 years in Istanbul by a 16-year-old ultra-nationalists on the street and shot.

"23,5 April" is now the place of remembrance, the Hrant Dink Foundation in Istanbul has set up. The former Editorial offices of Dink founded in 1996, the bilingual newspaper "Agos" were transformed into a stylishly-designed Museum, which will also be a meeting place for young people. The newspaper has moved. The Foundation has created in Turkey is something so far Unique: an intimate and yet accessible to the public, reminiscent of one of the great traumas of the country.

Dink was of Armenian genocide harshly criticized because he campaigned for the approximation.

In Sivas, for example, where in 1993, in an arson attack on a alevitisches culture festival, 35 people died, there is no memorial. The assassination was for the author Aziz Nesin, he survived. Plans to transform a torture prison in Diyarbakir in a Museum, still waiting for a realization.

The Foundation has traveled in many countries, to learn how to Remember, without the hero worship. You have found the Paris-based Armenian artist Sarkis, who has transformed with an Installation space of the former editorial Board in an evocative place of silence. In the other rooms, the archive of the "Agos", the life of Dink, and if you like, you can also record your own history with Video. For a long time it is no secret that many Armenian children were growing up after the massacres of over 100 years ago in the case of Turkish families. Dink printed often Ads from people looking for your Armenian family members.

As he wrote in 2004, Sabiha Gokcen, Turkish female combat pilot and the adopted daughter of the founder of the Republic, Kemal Ataturk, had Armenian relatives, broke a storm of protest put up to Dink's death. As Turkish media, staged a coup on the emotions in the affair high, such as Dink to the target was made, all of which you can view here. After a ultra had shown nationalist lawyer Dink because of an article, he was sentenced for "insulting Turkishness", a shock to the journalists.

Dink didn't want to be accused off

the Nobel laureate in literature, Orhan Pamuk, was due to the highly controversial article 301, but the process has been set, as well as the against the prominent author Elif Safak. Only Dink was convicted, and he asked in a bitter balance, whether that has to do with, "I am Armenian?" The Text appeared immediately before his murder in "Agos".

leave The country, in which he had always lived, wanted to Dink never. He didn't want to "into the West", because this was not his world, he said. And he did not want to resettle in the neighbouring Armenia, because he knew that he was there "as a Turk" has no place. Dink was of Armenian genocide are often heavily criticised, because he campaigned for approximation instead of attack. Simply put: Him the Living more than the dead interested: Enough for a existence between all the chairs.

force change

he was Raised in an Armenian orphanage of Istanbul, the house on the edge. There, he met his wife Rakel. The wedding was at a 23. April is celebrated, "and between 23. 24. April, we had our wedding night," wrote Dink in the Text about his problems with the calendar. Rakel Dink said at the opening of the Erinnerungsorts: "I hope Turkey will no longer try to forget", you have a Dink, Yes, well, "always before our eyes". Sibel Asna from the Foundation Board of Directors said, "we have tried to combine memory and hope". So the victims of the past could be a force of change.

The Turkey was in this respect once more. Ten years ago, dared politicians on both sides of the closed border, something like a Turkish-Armenian spring, but the courage died away in the diplomatic spat. About 60'000 Armenians still live in Turkey. For Easter some of Istanbul's municipalities have congratulated their Armenian fellow citizens with placards in Armenian. A Festival in April.

Because of the memorial calendar, they are busy now with the opening of "to 23.5". If in June the multilingual audio guides are finished, you will be open to the place of remembrance for all visitors.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 23.04.2019, 23:07 PM