The Pawn 
(9'6" x 12" oil on linen)

The wild ancient child is the innocent victim of history, a pawn.
His stare makes the viewer reexamine the scene.  In Wildcat's painting, the child in the center seems to appeal to the viewer for the humanity, the love, the justice that this moment in history did not provide. What deadly religious or ethnic dispute is here? This child was one who witnessed and survived to tell the tale. 

Nearly eighty years ago, something happened in Turkey. The Turkish government, however, denies it to this day.

In April of 1915 the Turkish minister of interior issued a decree:

"The government has decided to destroy completely all Armenians living in Turkey. An end must be put to their existence, however criminal the measures taken may be. No regard is to be paid to either age, sex nor to conscientious scruples. "
-Talaat Paasha, Turkish Minister of the Interior

A million and a half Armenians were killed by the Turks. it was calculated policy. There were deportations, and long marches. They crossed the Euphrates. There were extermination camps. Many were burned alive in underground caves in Deir Zor,  subterranean Auschwitz. 

No one protested. Orphans survived to tell the tale, but not until much later.

Years later when Hitler planned his "final solution" for the Jews, to convince is party leaders that it could succeed, he asked them: "Who remembers the Armenians now?"

If people had remembered the Armenians, perhaps the Jewish holocaust would not have happened. This was a hidden holocaust. We must respond to the child's appeal in the panting. The orphans, the survivors of the massacres, saw the terrible things. 

And yet as Wildcat's painting tries to tell. against all odds, the people survived. The orphans lived to tell the tale. The painting speaks of history's horror and hidden mystery, and the viewer's responsibility when the child appeals to him, to determine what is happening in life's drama.

 

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