Auszug aus dem Artikel "Can Germany Mediate Armenian-Turkish Reconciliation?" von Muriel Mirak-Weissbach v. 31.10.2011
„ I am not the Murderer, not I“
One exciting project is a special attraction for student audiences, and could fill an important gap in curricula regarding the genocide of 1915. This is not a classroom lesson but a theatrical reading presented by actors and actresses, to musical accompaniment. The piece, entitled “I am not the Murderer, not I,” is the brainchild of Heinz Böke, from the German Bundestag. How he came to develop the idea is instructive. As he related to the conference participants, “until four years ago I knew nothing about the Armenian genocide, simply nothing.” He responded to his upsetting discovery by looking into the history, which included a visit to Armenia. In the course of his extensive research in Germany, he came across the court records of the trial held on June 2-3, 1921 of the young Armenian, Soromon Tehlerjan (also Soghoman Tehlirian), who gunned down Young Turk leader Talaat Pasha on a Berlin street in broad daylight on March 15, 1921. Böke saw the educational potential in the historical event, as documented in the court records, and, in collaboration with others, put together a play, “The Talaat Pasha Trial – A Theatre Project for Intercultural Studies,” which debuted in 2010 and has been performed in several German cities since then.
Talaat, as Böke recalled, had escaped to Berlin with German help after the end of the war. The young Tehlerjan had been deployed by the Armenian commandoes known as “Operation Nemesis,” to hunt down and assassinate Young Turk criminals wherever they could be located. The trial examined not only the crime but also the assailant’s motivations: why did he kill Talaat? What had Talaat done? The assassin later explained his action with the words, “I killed a man, but I am not a murderer.” Talaat, he meant, was the mass murderer. The court ruled that Tehlerjan was of unsound mind and could not be considered guilty, and acquitted him.
The performances of the theatrical piece open with a 10-minute introduction by Böke on the historical background. After an Armenian song, the work unfolds in a series of 16 scenes documenting the trial. The actors come from different ethnic/cultural backgrounds, Turkish, Armenian, German, Austrian, etc., and at the end of the performance, a discussion takes place with the public. When presented to student audiences, the actors may interrupt the action just prior to the jury’s decision, to allow students to say what they think the verdict should be.
This is not theatre in the conventional sense of the term, certainly not theatre as entertainment, but rather theatre as an educational medium to challenge the minds and open the hearts of viewers to consider historical events they may never have heard of. The historical context of the piece – Ottoman Turkey and the 1915 genocide -- poses the question of whether or not peoples of different ethnic/cultural/religious backgrounds can coexist or not. Students watching the play are thrust into the historical context and must think through the choices that historical personalities at the time faced.
In the discussions held at the end of the play, three main themes are dealt with: the problem of violence as a political tool, a theme only too relevant for students who read of terrorism every day; the enhanced readiness for violence among some layers of youth in Germany today, for example, in right-wing extremist milieux; and the question of guilt. Those involved in the project have taken care to stress that it is not a question of attributing guilt to Turks or Turkish immigrants in Germany, but to document that the 1915 genocide was the work of the Young Turk regime in power at the time.
The theatre project has met with resounding success wherever it has been presented, and its organizers plan to expand performances for schools as well as for the general public.