By: Sarah Behjet
“People ask me all the time: ‘Where are you from?’”
This line marked the beginning of Dr. Sabro Bengaro’s presentation before the Ashur Assyrian American Association of Connecticut. While the question posed to Dr. Bengaro is relatively innocuous, it holds layers of complexity beyond face value.
A dedicated researcher, Dr. Sabro Bengaro has dedicated his academic career to studying the Assyrian Genocide and its harmful repercussions. At the crux of Dr. Bengaro’s recent Connecticut visit was the explanation of the Assyrian Genocide’s inner workings, revealing far more than often depicted. Drawing from Dr. Bengaro’s doctoral dissertation, which centers on German-Ottoman coordination in World War I geopolitics, the presentation featured not only concrete historical facts, but also deeply personal anecdotes. Dr. Bengaro recalled his younger self, bewildered, seeing elders whispering about an amorphous concept, leading his grandfather to cry. At the time, Dr. Bengaro could hardly piece together precisely why so many elders were crying in his village. However, after years of dedication and research, often to support his own Assyrian identity, the truth behind elders’ grief came to light. In reflecting on moments of discrimination faced in his childhood, Dr. Bengaro connected his past to the current waves of change made through academic research. In fact, Dr. Bengaro underscored his commitment to enlivening the Assyrian cause, telling his audience, “If you call me at 3 a.m., I will tell you: ‘Give me a few seconds. I will wash my face, and if there is anything I can do for you, I will be ready.’”
Dr. Bengaro’s extensive research and time spent with Assyrians in Bet Nahrain revealed a sobering truth for Assyrians in diaspora: the need to uplift our history. Dr. Bengaro, after witnessing the testimony of an Assyrian priest facing discrimination, said, “These priests in other countries, they died to speak the truth. How about us?” Having raised such a pertinent question, Dr. Bengaro then segued into his journey of oral storytelling and documenting narrators’ histories. A common thread among many interviewees, Dr. Bengaro gathered, was reluctance to reveal harrowing moments embedded in dark corners of survivors’ memories. As Dr. Bengaro stated, “I worked with these people [Assyrian survivors] to interview them, but they saw a piece of paper and a camera and said, ‘No, no, we don’t want to be a part of that.’”
One particularly jarring account of the Assyrian Genocide came from a 107-year-old Assyrian-German man. The man Dr. Bengaro encountered revealed that he “remembered everything,” speaking to the tremendous pain inflicted on Assyrian populations. After the man grew comfortable with Dr. Bengaro, the details of his horrific past came to light, leading the man to “cry like a child, a small child.” Filled with deep sympathy for the survivor’s woe, Dr. Bengaro invited the man to a 2007 European Parliament conference, followed by the survivor’s agreement to Dr. Bengaro’s request. From that point on, Dr. Bengaro interviewed the brave Assyrian-German survivor “for six hours,” underscoring just how entrenched Assyrian injustices are in the broader context of history.
In addition to a committed focus on Assyrian Genocide survivors’ testimonies, Dr. Bengaro reflected on Christian faith as a tenet of resilience. Still speaking about the Assyrian-German interviewee, Dr. Bengaro recalled the man’s robust Christian faith. When asked about any anger he had toward past perpetrators of trauma, the interviewee responded by saying, “I’m a Christian. I can’t hate.” Additionally, Dr. Bengaro concluded that the man was “mature enough to say that hate will not solve anything.” Through every storm in Assyrian survivors’ lives, faith carried with it an unfathomable light as a beacon for Assyrians globally.
As an Assyrian-American teenager living in Connecticut, Dr. Bengaro’s visit was a harbinger of future community progress. By emphasizing the need to remember our past in order to catalyze change, Dr. Bengaro echoed that Assyria’s future is in our hands.
