NEW YORK — The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation and the Kaloosdian/Mugar Chair at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University join forces in a major research effort under the supervision of Professor Taner Akcam.
This ambitious research project aims at identifying Turks and Kurds that reached out to the victims of the Armenian Genocide. The main mission of the IRWF is to unveil untold stories of rescue and solidarity. The issue of the Muslim rescuers who went out of their way to save Armenians at the beginning of the 20th century was not properly studied yet and, thus, is an unchartered territory
waiting to be discovered.
Professor Taner Akcam is a world-renowned Turkish historian and sociologist who has devoted his efforts to try and reconcile the narratives of the Armenian and Turks, and his chair at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University.
This is a unique attempt to identify and honor the many Turks and Kurds that lent a hand to their Armenian neighbors in one of the darkest periods of mankind. The Wallenberg Foundation does the same concerning the Holocaust. Rather than focusing on the evil, the Foundation strives to highlight the spirit of solidarity of the women and men who, like Raoul Wallenberg, oftentimes risked their own lives to save others.
The research work conducted in this regard was undertaken in a in-depth and painstaiking manner in Muslim (Turkish and Kurdish) provinces where most of the killings occurred, and where most of these stories have been passed on verbally from generation to generation.
The research is now published and presented to the public light in order to be examined and
commented by experts and lay readers as well.
1 comment
This article says that “Professor Taner Akcam is a world-renowned Turkish historian and sociologist who has devoted his efforts to try and reconcile the narratives of the Armenian and Turks …”
Do Akcam and the Wallenberg Foundation agree that he has tried to “reconcile” two different “narratives”?
If so this, this is a disappointment.
The Turkish “narrative” is one of denial and is false.
Would the Wallenberg Foundation say that the Nazi and Jewish versions of the Holocaust should be “reconciled”?