L’agenda du musée Eskijian : “Restitution des propriétés volées en Turquie…”
7 avril : Omer Kantik
« La fin des sivas arméniens : extermination des dévots » Zoom 18 avril 2022 , conférencier Robert Sukiasyan Ph.D.
"Une maison dans la patrie: pèlerinages arméniens de la mémoire des ancêtres" Zoom conférencier Carel Bertram Ph.D.
photo D.R.
"Turkish authorities have confiscated assets belonging to non-Muslim foundations and individuals—
from the beginning of the 20th Century until the 2000s—thereby eroding their capacity to serve and
support their communities. There have been some positive developments since 2000.
ÖMER KANTIK, a member of the Turkey’s Armenian community, who aims to reverse a more than
century-long practice of administrative and judicial confiscation, is currently involved in over 100
restitution cases with attorneys Destina Kantik and Arda Kantik. Some properties have already been
recovered through legal and administrative processes. He will share the little-known story of legal
reform in contemporary Turkey, the ways in which the claims process affects minority communities,
the impact of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, pending judicial actions, and other
developments.
ÖMER KANTIK represents various Armenian—Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox—foundations
including Surp Haç Tibrevank Ermeni Lisesi Vakfi. He also represents the various Jewish, Greek and
Chaldean Foundations in Turkey, and numerous individuals.
Attorney DESTINA KANTIK will join and translate for her father. She is a graduate of Harvard Law
School, Robert College, and Istanbul University Law Faculty summa cum laude. She works on
minority issues and matters of commercial law and arbitration.
The presentation will be in Turkish and English.
THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2022 | 7:45 P.M. (ET)
St. Leon Armenian Church | Abajian Hall | Masks Recommended | Registration Required
12-61 Saddle River Road, Fair Lawn, NJ / For information, call 201-791-2862
Register for Zoom and Abajian Hall at https://bit.ly/Restitution-After-100-Years.
Click on https://bit.ly/StLeonEvents at the beginning of the program.
This event is jointly sponsored by
AGBU Ararat
Ararat-Eskijian Museum
Armenian Bar Association
Armenian Network of America-Greater NY
Constantinople Armenian Relief Society
(C.A.R.S.)
Daughters of Vartan—Sahaganoush Otyag
Knights of Vartan–Bakradouny Lodge
NAASR—Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Lecture Series on Contemporary Armenian Issues
St. Leon Armenian Church
Tibrevank Alumni Inc.
THE EVENT IS FREE.
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" Deportation and massacres were the principal methods of
exterminating the Ottoman Armenians. In the case of Sivas
province, which had one the largest Armenian populations
in the empire, the vast majority of the deportees were killed
on the way to the Syrian desert. The study of survivor
memoirs sheds light on this process while at the same time
describing the administration of deportation. The
deportation stations had specific tasks such as killing
community leaders, men in general, plundering and
coordinating attacks against the deportees with the local Kurdish population. Gendarmes and the members
of the so-called Special Organization (Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa) were in
charge of atrocities. The deportation stations of Kötü Han
and Hasançelebi will form the focus of the presentation. "
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"the Ottoman Empire, now in eastern Turkey, “memory”
ended with the genocide in and around 1915. For them, no
more “homeland” memories could originate or take place
there. But the children and grandchildren of genocide
survivors who travel “home” from their various diasporas, are
giving new meaning to historical memory by inserting
themselves in its arc. Between 2007 and 2015, Carel Bertram
traveled with many self-described pilgrims on dozens of
home-coming trips led by Armen Aroyan, and A House in the
Homeland chronicles what she saw. In this talk, Dr. Bertram
describes how, with luggage filled with stories heard from
their own family members, including those transmitted
through the songs they sang, the dances they danced, the
foods they made, and even through their screams in the night,
pilgrims understood that they were visiting a sacred
landscape, albeit one violated by the profane. In this fraught
yet transcendent place, pilgrims invent a series of rituals so
that village by village, town by town, or even house by house,
they ritually connect with their own ancestors, and, as they
stand on their own ancestral land, allow them to be a part of
their personal story in the present. Through these rituals, the
pilgrims themselves are deeply changed, but so too is their
own memory of homeland and even the meaning of homeland
itself."