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THE BOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE HOLOCAUST & GENOCIDE. BOOK ONE; THE CONFERENCE PROGRAM & CRISIS. Edited by Israel W. Charny & Shamal Davidson; P.O. Box 50006, Tel Aviv 61500, Israel; 1983. 348 pp.
The International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide was held between June 20-24, 1982, in Tel Aviv. Book One outlines the conference program and discusses the international crisis which ensued because of the inclusion of the Armenian Genocide as a subject on the conference. Book Two, titled Towards Understanding, Intervention & Prevention of Genocide, when published, will present a selection of outstanding papers delivered at the conference.
I will begin by outlining the Armenian content in the conference, and then discuss the crisis. I counted a total of 104 presentations on the program, out of which 11 were made by Armenian scholars on matters related to the Armenian Genocide. There are four abstracts - one by a non-Armenian - which were not included on the program, presumably because of non-attendance. The Armenian presentations, in the order by which they appeared, are as follows:
1. Why remember? Suffering as a Link Between Two People, Shahe Armenians Archbishops Armenian Patriarchate, Jerusalem. (Presented during the opening plenary session.) No abstract available; however, the following quote is attributed to the Archbishop: "Because the Holocuast is not a fact of the past, but a possibility in our world of violence and nuclear armament, to remember is not only a moral obligation towards the memory of the martyrs but a duty towards the coming generations." Archbishop Ajamian was the sole Armenian on the organizing committee.
2) A Psychological Report: Armenian Genocide Survivors - 67 Years Later, Alan J. Salerian, M.D., Psychiatric Institute, Washington, D.C. (Presented during the session on Long Term Effects on Survival.) Examined Armenian survivors living in the United States and the possible long-term psychological impact of the Genocide on them.
3) Deportation, Civil War or Genocide? Documentary Refutation of Turkish Denials of the Planned Extermination of the Armenians During WW I, Vahakn N. Dadrian, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, State University of New York, Genesco. (Presented during the session on The Price of Indifference.) Provided an evidentiary framework based on official and unofficial data in five languages refuting Turkish denials of the...