(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)December 8, 2010

(MAHWAH, NJ) – The award-winning director Eric Friedler screened the English version of “Aghet: A Genocide,” a highly creative and polished documentary on Armenian Genocide, at Ramapo College of New Jersey on December 8 under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Armenian National Committee of New Jersey. At the conclusion of the film, the 200 plus people in the audience gave Friedler a standing ovation.

Originally aired on German public television (NDR) last April, Friedler and his cast bring to life the original texts of German and U.S. diplomatic dispatches and eyewitness accounts that documented the annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians from 1915-1923. Interspersed among these mesmerizing readings, that derive their power from impeccable performances of the actors and the texts’ uncanny power, were never-before-seen footage of the Genocide and its political aftermath. Aghet (which means in Armenian, catastrophe) also depicts the Turkish government’s international campaign of genocide denial that continues unabated to this day.

As remarkable is Friedler’s candor about the involvement of his own country, Germany, in abetting Turkey’s assault on the Armenians. There is the chilling pronouncement of German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg: “Our only goal was to keep Turkey on our side until the end of the war, regardless of whether or not Armenians perished.” He also shows how it was the German Government that whisked the Turkish ruling triumvirate into exile and beyond the jurisdiction of post-war justice. Taking Germany’s connection with the Genocide into the Nazi era, the film for the first time ever includes footage of the ceremonial 1943 reburial in Turkey of the remains of Talaat Pasha, who was assassinated in Berlin in 1921. On the other hand, in bringing to life the dispatches of horrified German diplomats and army officers, Friedler shows that the encounter of his fellow countrymen with the Genocide was by no means one-sided.

The screening was followed by a Q&A session that lasted for about an hour. In addition to heaping praise on Friedler, among other topics audience members asked him about the reception of his film among Turks. While there an official wall of silence about Aghet in Turkey, he is hopeful that the underground distribution of the film will eventually help to break government intransigence and encourage open discussion among the population at large. Friedler has been heartened, he indicated, that the film has already been seen by many of the millions of Turks who live Germany and other European countries.

Eric Friedler lives in Hamburg, where he is a Commissioning Editor for Norddeutscher Rundfund (North German Radio). His film credits include “Shattering Silence,” the 2007 award-winning exposé about of the role of Germany’s richest family, the Quandts, in the Third Reich and the Holocaust. In 2000, he made “Sklaven der Gaskammer – Das Jüdische Sonderkommando in Auschwitz,” which tells the story of the Jewish male prisoners at the infamous killing center whose job was to dispose of corpses from the gas chambers or crematoria.

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