Peter Torigian, p. 224-229
Memory Fragments from the Armenian Genocide: A Mosaic of a Shared
Heritage by Margaret Dicanio, Ph.D. , iuniverse inc, 2002.
The father of five daughters, Peter Torigian had doubts about the wisdom
of running for a special election for mayor of Peabody, Massachusetts.
He risked being out of a job eight months later in the regular election. His
wife, Jackie, predicted he would always regret it, if he didn't give it a
try. She said, "We'll manage."
Torigian took office in 1978, where he remained until 2001, when he
retired. Over the course of twelve elections for mayor, he averaged 80
percent of the vote. The longest running mayor in his city and state, he
attributed his success to the people he selected to work with him. "I
advise public officials to hire people who are a lot smarter than they are."
Torigian joked that he stayed in office by virtue of his "Armenian block" of
about fifty voters. He spoke Armenian before he spoke English and
believes "ethnic groups in America have a responsibility to their
grandparents and parents to make the world aware of the sacrifices they
made."
Because Torigian's father came to the United States in 1912, he escaped
the massacres of 1915, but his brother and other family members were
killed by the Turks. Torigian's mother suffered through the Genocide. In
the village of Pertag, when she was fourteen and her brother and sister
were about six or seven, her parents were killed in a massacre. Before
he was murdered, her father paid a Turkish neighbor to hide his children.
A year after they went to live with the neighbor, and following another
assault on the village, Torigian's mother, her brother and sister were
placed on a donkey and sent off on their own. They made their way to
the City of Kharpert, only to find it had also been pillaged. There they
took refuge in a burned and abandoned house. Without food or water,
under the guidance of one adult, a group of children slept on insectinfested mattresses on the floor. In time, they were each given a daily
piece of bread, no bigger than a child's forefinger.
From 1915 until 1928, when she came to the United States, Torigian's
mother spent time in orphanages in Greece, Beirut, and Syria. In the
United States, she thrived and lived to be ninety-four. "She was grateful
every day of the rest of her life. What she liked best about the United
States was there was no killing and there was food to eat."
But the memories of being hungry didn't go away. "In her later years, my
mother used to call my house and say, 'When you come by, would you
bring a loaf of bread?' I would say, 'Sure.' Her freezer was chockfull of
bread."
Like many other Armenian-American children whose families suffered
from the massacres, Torigian's family did not talk about the Genocide. "It
was almost as it were something they were ashamed of, or something
they were afraid to talk about, something that left some everlasting
scars." It was not until the 1950s and 1960s, as ethnic Americans began
to rediscover their roots, that the Genocide became open to
discussion. The mayor becomes upset by "those who do not understand
that we ought to be thankful for this country."
Peabody is an ethnically diverse community. As mayor, Torigian held an
annual international festival in which about 26 ethnic groups
participated. Among them were: Irish, French, Greeks, Poles, Finns,
Swedes, Hispanics, Dominicans, Chinese and Italians. The city also has
a large number of Portuguese immigrants, as well as a large Jewish
community - the city has four temples. The festival included 18 hours of
continuous entertainment and 80 booths that featured ethnic food, culture
and art. Various groups performed native dances. The festival drew abut
100,000 visitors.
While the mayor believed the performances, goods and visitors were
great, the goal of the festival was to "break down barriers and learn to
respect each other's culture." During 19 years of annual festivals, the
police made no arrests. Torigian's successor, who took office in January
2002, planned to continue the festival tradition.
In addition to the festival, the mayor saluted his city's diversity with
annual commemorations in honor of various ethnic groups. Among
Peabody's many annual commemorations was a Genocide ceremony
with a flag raising, a speaking program, a singing program, and a
luncheon. The Armenian flag flew in front of City Hall for a week to honor
the martyrs of the Genocide.
An example of the level of the city's interest in the mayor's heritage was
evident in 1999, when Reverend H. Haratounian from Belmont,
Massachusetts, a Genocide survivor, spoke to an audience of more than
200 that included nine survivors. The local paper featured the ceremony
as a lead story and the local cable station broadcast it repeatedly.
Mayor Torigian explained his determination to have the yearly ceremony.
"The more we know about it (the Genocide) the less apt it is to happen as
frequently. The only way people are going to know about the Genocide is
for us to make them aware of it."
The mayor was a guest speaker on May 3, 1999 at a meeting of men's
church organizations from three Armenian churches in the area: Holy
Trinity, St. James and Holy Cross. In his quest to bring public attention to
the Genocide, he told the audience of about 250 people, "Fifty thousand
people in Peabody know who I am, know about the Genocide, and write
about the Genocide, while in the other 350 cities in Massachusetts, with
the exception of a few cities like Watertown and Worcester, citizens don't
know about it." He explained that there was a simple remedy. "You can
go knock on the town manager's door or the mayor's door and say, 'We
lost a million and a half people. We want the city on April 24th to
recognize our families."
The mayor was dismayed that not only are days to honor those who died
in the Genocide rare in Massachusetts, they are rare in other parts of the
country. He also finds it disheartening that for political reasons, the
American government has never made an issue of the Genocide.
"How can your allow a million and half people to perish without
recognizing it? That's what allows those who perpetrate those types of
acts to become more and more bold." For the mayor, the Genocide
commemoration was particularly poignant. "At the turn of the century,
there were not the communications there are today. People got away
with a lot without people knowing about it. What is tragic is that we
started the 20th century with a genocide and we ended it with a
genocide."