Musa Dagh photo collection to be part of AGMA

PanARMENIAN.Net - Rare and historically significant photographs of the Armenians of Musa Dagh will be among the Genocide-era images featured in the Armenian Genocide Museum of America (AGMA), thanks to the generosity of a private collector who is providing the museum with exclusive access to the photos.



As PanARMENIAN.Net came to know from AGMA, this unique collection of black-and-white photographs, dating from 1915 to 1939, is the life's work of Dr. Vahram Shemmassian, a Los Angeles-based historian who is the world's leading expert on the Armenians of Musa Dagh.





"We are profoundly grateful to Dr. Shemmassian for allowing the museum to use his priceless photo collection to help tell the heroic story of the Musa Dagh Armenians against the backdrop of the larger and much more tragic story of the Armenian Genocide," said Van Z. Krikorian, AGMA Board Trustee and Building and Operations Committee Chairman.





Krikorian said the Musa Dagh photo collection is the fourth significant collection of Genocide-era visual materials which, in the past year, have been made available for use by AGMA. AGMA has been granted access to the archives of the Near East Foundation and the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan, Armenia, and has received a donation of a privately-held research library containing books, maps, photographs and other materials focused on the Armenian Genocide and its documentation.





Dr. Shemmassian has also undertaken pioneering research on the fate of Armenian women and children during and in the aftermath of the Genocide, another focus area of the museum. Shemmassian, who is currently Director of the Armenian Studies Program at California State University, Northridge, said the Armenian Genocide Museum in Washington, DC is a "perfect match" for his collection.





"The thousands of people resisted and most of them survived, but they were forced to leave their homes. These photographs document the trying conditions and difficult challenges that the displaced Musa Dagh Armenians faced as survivors and refugees," Dr. Shemmassian said.





According to Dr. Rouben Adalian, Director of the museum's research arm, the Armenian National Institute, "There are no known photographs of the actual defense of Musa Dagh, however, the rescue and delivery to safety in Egypt of over 4,000 survivors made headline news." The Austrian author Franz Werfel also immortalized the gripping events in his "Forty Days of Musa Dagh," which became a best-seller upon its release in 1933 and was subsequently translated into numerous languages.





The AGMA recently received a copy of the Dutch edition of "Forty Days of Musa Dagh" from a Canadian donor whose family had lived through World War II. Adalian added, "The book is important supplemental material to the Musa Dagh photo collection, and points to the world-wide impact of the story of the resistance of the Armenians of Musa Dagh."





"Franz Werfel's book was widely read in Europe and made the Jewish author unpopular with the Nazi regime, prompting Werfel to flee Austria in 1938," Adalian said. He noted that according to Professor Yair Auron of the Open University of Israel, Werfel's novel was a source of inspiration and reflection for Jews who were trapped by the Nazi occupation of Europe. In one historical account, a Holocaust survivor from the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania stated: "Our analysis of the book indicated that if the world did not come to the rescue of the Armenians, who were Christians after all, how could we, Jews, expect help? No doubt Hitler knew all about those massacres and the criminal neglect by the free world, and was convinced that he could proceed with impunity against the helpless Jews."