Musa Dagh Factoids

For The Week of May 7, 2000

Why did Franz Werfel write "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh"?

Franz Werfel had learned about the Armenian atrocities in World War I through the European press and had promised himself that he would one day write a historical novel about them. In 1929, while on a visit to Damascus, he witnessed the sad situation of Armenian orphans working in a carpet weaving factory. That site further bothered him and accordingly he began a detailed research about Armenian affairs. Among other sources, he was able to review official French files and Rev. Dikran Antreasian's eyeitness account. The book was published in German in 1933. The English version appeared a year later. Since then, the novel has been translated into numerous languages, including Turkish. Recently, the Ministry of Education in Israel proposed the inclusion of the Armenian Genocide in the country's Holocaust curriculum taught in high schools. At the same time, "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh" was recommended for reading.