Kaligian said that a mandate is necessary because the teachers, forced to teach the subject, need to learn about it themselves. “The sheer number of teachers that say they know nothing about the genocide” is not reassuring, he said.
Kaligian characterized the hearing as showing “overwhelming support for the bill.” He noted the effect of the “very powerful” testimony by Holocaust survivors and their children.
He cautioned, however, that it is too early to tell what will happen. “That doesn’t guarantee the bill going through.” He noted not many bills get reported out of committee during a calendar year and suggested that voters call their represenatives in support of the bill as they often take calls into consideration.
Wedding in Marash
Koutoujian, in an interview after the session, said, “Those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. We have to teach our children so perhaps we can avoid” similar tragedies again.
Koutoujian said he went to Germany with the Vera Institute of Justice and helped create a young adult offender program in Massachusetts based on the German model. While in the country, they visited the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. “As a human, it was very powerful. As an Armenian it was very personal,” he said.
As he had done at the hearing, he recalled the story of his grandparents from Marash who had been married in the early 1900s, part of a traditional Armenian culture. “A few short years after this, their lives were torn apart,” he said. His grandmother was stranded in Syria and his grandfather in France. Eventually, through sheer luck, they found each other again and started their new lives in the US. “They didn’t speak of the horrors that the experienced. They were the greatest of patriots. They came as refugees and found opportunities for their children.”
Now, it is his turn, Koutoujian said, to put his children front and center, this time to make sure they know what happened not only to their family but to the families of so many others.
Their wedding photo, which took its place next to him during the testimony, came courtesy of Project Save.
Koutoujian was happy with the public hearing. “They were very warm. They were getting it. A lot of different cultures that had suffered a genocide and didn’t ant any other people to suffer that grim fate.”
Already, Rhode Island, California and Michigan mandate the teaching of genocides.
The ANC of Eastern Mass., the Anti-Defamation League of New England and the Jewish Community Relations Council are leading a coalition of 25 organizations and religious institutions that are advocating for passage of the Genocide Education Act.
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