NORTHAMPTON — When Kate Todhunter teaches about the Armenian genocide to her high school students this fall semester, she’ll have more personal anecdotes to back it up this time.

Todhunter teaches a course on genocide studies at Northampton High School, focusing on the stages that can lead to such a mass atrocity and the dehumanization of the victims of such events. Although the Holocaust is the best known example of genocide, other instances include Rwanda in the 1990s and the genocide of Armenians in the former Ottoman Empire in the period of World War 1.

Last summer, Todhunter, along with 15 other teachers from across the United States, had the opportunity to travel to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, for a 10-day fellowship through the Genocide Education Project, a San Francisco nonprofit that promotes awareness of the Armenian genocide.

“It’s a genocide we know the least amount of,” Todhunter said. “There aren’t many witnesses and survivors left, and it happened over a century ago. But the trauma is very much real.”

It isn’t the first time Todhunter has traveled abroad to further her studies of genocide. In 2018, she went to Rwanda on a $3,000 Northampton Education Foundation grant to learn more about the genocide that took place there. Last May, Todhunter hosted various activists and genocide survivors from across the world at Northampton High to talk about their experiences, including Arlene Avakian, a UMass professor whose parents survived the Armenian genocide.

The Armenian genocide is considered to have taken place in the Ottoman Empire from the years 1915-1917, during the First World War. During that time period, more than a million ethnic Armenians were forcibly deported and killed during death marches through the desert, while others were forcibly assimilated into Turkish culture, losing their own cultural identity.

As part of the fellowship, Todhunter and the other teachers visited historical sites in the country, and met with professors to discuss Armenian history and modern day issues. Among the places she visited were a memorial site to victims of the genocide in Yerevan, the historical Khor Virap monastery near the border with Turkey and the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute.

While there, Todhunter and the other teachers were able to access archives and primary sources related to the genocide as well as talk to several professors and academics, both American and Armenian along with descendants of survivors.

“It enhanced and built upon my own understanding of the genocide,” Todhunter said. “It really echoed what I’ve learned about other genocides — a people that says ‘we are still here.’ ”

Adding to the difficulty of raising awareness of the Armenian genocide is that Turkey, the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, continues to deny that a genocide took place with regards to its Armenian population. In 2021, more than a century after it occurred, President Joe Biden became the first U.S. president to officially recognize the Armenian genocide, with past administrations wary of provoking the ire of Turkey, a NATO ally.

“To actually go to Armenia and talk directly with descendants,” Todhunter said. “All of this is to effectively counter Turkey’s denial of this genocide. It’s an enormously difficult task.”

Todhunter said Turkey’s denial of the Armenian genocide also had parallels in the United States, with recent legislation passed in several states that limit the teaching of African American history in the classroom, and lack of discussion of the fate of many Native American tribes after colonial settlement.

“I think there’s a tremendous amount of denial, and not recognizing the past,” Todhunter said. “Seeing firsthand Turkey’s campaign, it forced me to look in the mirror.”

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.

]]>