ARMENIAN ANGUISH MEMORIES OF MASS KILLINGS CAUGHT FOR NEXT GENERATIONS.

Byline: Naush Boghossian Staff Writer

Samuel Kadorian shakes his head in frustration, sheepishly shrugs his shoulders and mutters ``old age, old age,'' when he can't remember the maiden name of his beloved wife, Mary.

But sitting in his Sherman Oaks apartment, the 98-year-old vividly recalls a horrific memory from 1915, when he was just 8, and Armenians were rounded up in Turkey: A baby wouldn't stop crying, he said, so one Turkish soldier threw the infant up into the air and another caught the child on his bayonet.

Those memories will never be erased, said Kadorian, one of the last survivors of what is known as the Armenian Genocide - the organized killing of 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey beginning in 1915.

``I can't take it out,'' said the frail man, pointing to his head. ``I may forgive them, but forget - never, never, never.''

For nearly 40 years, UCLA professor Richard Hovannisian has overseen a project - the largest oral history project in the Armenian community - to interview survivors and record stories like Kadorian's.

Students in his course were each required to interview 10 survivors, recording their memories on audio cassette tapes.

Just before the 90th anniversary this year of the mass killings, commemorated on April 24, the 72-year-old professor reached a landmark: He digitized all 800 interviews conducted by his students over the last four decades.

Of the hundreds of people his students interviewed, Hovannisian believes no more than 25 are still alive.

``This is an important contribution to the preservation of history and the understanding of what occurred to the Armenian people under the cover of World War I,'' he said. ``It's important especially in view of denial of genocide by the Turkish government. Fortunately, some Turkish scholars are now challenging the state, insisting there was ethnic cleansing.''

The Turkish government maintains there was no organized, systematic killing of Armenians, arguing that those slain were casualties of war.

Recent communication between the prime minister of Turkey and the president of Armenia have opened the door to dialogue between the two governments in an effort to improve relations and begin researching historical archives.

``Has Professor Hovannisian interviewed families or descendants of any of the Turkish or Muslim families killed by Armenians?'' said Engin Ansay, consul general of Turkey in Los Angeles. ``But I don't want to engage in a game of one-upmanship. That is not my intent.

``I strongly believe a dialogue is essential and also an understanding between Armenian Diasporans and Turkish-Americans.''

Life's work 

The project has been a large part of Hovannisian's life's work. The shelves in his office are stacked with books on genocide, and there are boxes and boxes of cassettes, organized alphabetically - ``Seropian-Stepanian,'' ``Kizikian-Mandroian.''

``It all started when we realized the last generation of Armenians born in the historic homeland is fast disappearing and taking with them invaluable information,'' he said.

In addition to providing a historical record of the atrocities, the interviews have sociological value, offering a glimpse into Armenian life, customs and rituals prior to 1915.

``They have a very idyllic and romanticized collective memory of life before the calamity. In relative terms they think back on their childhood of a protective extended family and excitement getting prepared for holidays,'' Hovannisian said. ``By comparison, life (before the killings) was great.''

The stories, while each unique, collectively reveal common truths, Hovannisian said.

Families were very quickly separated from the fathers, who were killed immediately. Women and children were put on death marches through the deserts of Syria.

For every survivor there was a story of a Turk or a Muslim who tried to intervene. And when people 400 miles apart have the same stories, it helps show it was an organized, premeditated operation against the Armenian people in the Turkish empire, Hovannisian said.

Students are now transcribing and translating the interviews in an expensive and time-consuming process. The ultimate goal is to collaborate with others who have video interviews of survivors throughout the world and to make them all available for research and to the public via mediums like the Internet.

Compared with the Shoah Foundation, which since 1994 has compiled 120,000 hours of video on 52,000 Holocaust survivors in 56 countries and in 32 languages, Hovannisian said their efforts are ``amateurish'' mainly due to a lack of financial resources.

The Shoah Foundation's work has cost about $100 million - $40 million of which was provided by director Steven Spielberg, said Douglas Greenberg, president and CEO of the foundation.

Priceless contribution

Hovannisian's work is invaluable both in honoring the generation that suffered and in supporting scholarship and research on the subject, Greenberg said.

``Anything is better than nothing. The challenge is for us to work together because the problem is not an Armenian problem or a Jewish problem or a Cambodian problem. It's a human problem,'' he said.

``The day is going to come where there will be no survivors alive from any genocide and once they're gone, their memory of the experience will leave with them if not for these interviews.''

Kadorian's father was shot by the Turks and his two younger sisters and brother died of starvation. His mother survived and Kadorian lived because he hid under a pile of bodies, and forced himself not to cry so the Turks would not find him.

The atrocities he experienced at such a young age have taught him a simple lesson - be nice to people and treat them with respect.

``They say you should say these stories so such things don't happen again. But I'm sorry to say, things like killing, dying, it's going to continue until doomsday,'' he said.

``Why, why can't people get along with each other and be nice to each other? We don't learn and when something like this happens, we say that's them, the heck with them.

``But if it's them today, tomorrow it'll be us.''

Naush Boghossian, [phone]

naush.boghossian(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Samuel Kadorian, 98, of Sherman Oaks has vivid memories of what is known as the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Out of his family, below, only he and his mother survived. Kadorian saved himself by hiding under a pile of bodies.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer

(3) UCLA professor Richard Hovannisian has overseen a nearly 40-year project to compile audio interviews of those who remember the mass killings known as the Armenian Genocide.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer