Myrtle Beach area residents to mark 100th anniversary of Armenian Genocide

Tigran Hovhannisyan’s maternal great-grandmother was less than 10 years old in 1915 when her family was ordered to leave their homeland during the Turkish Ottoman Empire’s deportation of Christian Armenians.

While she survived, most of her family was among the estimated 1.5 million Armenians persecuted and massacred from 1915 to 1923 in what has been called one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century.

Friday marks the centennial anniversary of the initial banishment and slaughter of ethnic Armenians by the Young Turk government and although 100 years have passed, the battle to get the Mets Yeghern or “great catastrophe” labeled genocide continues with Turkey refusing to recognize the mass slaughter as genocide.

To commemorate the sacrifice of their ancestors and as a way to bring light to the continuing efforts to get Turkey to accept that there was a specific plan for Armenian extermination, a group of local Armenian immigrants has planned a memorial for Friday. April 24 is the date recognized as the time Armenian leaders were gathered for deportation and has become the annual date of remembrance of the Armenian Genocide.

“We just want to make a statement that Turkey is not accepting there was a genocide,” Hovhannisyan said. “Turkey says it was just war and just a deportation but there are 1.5 million dead between 1915 and 1923 because of deportation.”

Joining Hovhannisyan for a 10 a.m. memorial at St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church in Myrtle Beach is Mikael Mkhoyan, Ararat ‘Aro’ Tiratsvyan and about 200 invited guests that include local officials and Armenian families from several other states and Washington, D.C.

The Armenian immigrants are local businessmen who have organized the event as a commemoration of the attempted annihilation of their ancestry as well as the massacre of many Greeks, Syrians, Bulgarians, and others during World War I.

They are among the hundreds of Armenians pressing to get the atrocities against the Armenian nation declared genocide. The Turkish government has long since denied use of that term in reference to the massacres, saying the deaths were a result of warring Armenian Christians and Turkish Muslims.

The White House this week announced that following a long internal debate, official language used for the centennial anniversary would “urge a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts” but would not use the word “genocide” with President Obama backing away from language he used as a senator and presidential candidate in 2008. The Armenian-American activists were informed of the decision at the White House on Tuesday. Politics has played a continuing role in shunning the term over the last century with the U.S. fearful of disrupting diplomatic relations with Turkey, a NATO ally.

However, more than 20 countries and 43 of the 50 United States have passed legislation or proclamations recognizing the Armenian Genocide. In 1999, South Carolina passed House Bill 3678 to recognize April 24 as “South Carolina Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923.” Additionally, Pope Francis in Sunday mass last week used the term genocide describing the atrocity.

Mkhoyan said an estimated 90 to 95 percent of Armenians living abroad had ancestors murdered at the hands of the Turks. All of his paternal grandfather’s family was killed when he was 5 years old. So, his grandfather was raised in an orphanage and lived until 1987, remaining friends throughout his life with others raised in the orphanage.

“I remember him telling all the stories,” said Mkhoyan, who came to the U.S. in 2001 as a student. “All the stories [from survivors] were similar.”

While the men agree that many of the older generation still avoid discussing the genocide, their generation feels it is important to keep the history alive to help ensure no similar atrocities occur in the future.

“We are the new generation, carrying on this project,” Tiratsvyan said. “This thing should never be forgotten and should be recognized by the world.”

Mkhoyan agreed adding, “It is pretty much the Armenian goal to say it like it is, recognize it and keep it from happening again.”

While the men agree that the Turkish government’s refusal to accept responsibility for a “well planned killing of an entire Christian country,” stirs their anger, Tiratsvyan said he now feels more sadness than anger as the centennial anniversary approaches.

“No person should die by this,” he said. “Not by being wiped off the face of the earth; in one day millions wiped from the planet.”

This story was originally published April 23, 2015 at 10:39 AM with the headline "Myrtle Beach area residents to mark 100th anniversary of Armenian Genocide."