Michael Amerian is in Yerevan, Armenia, this week with staff of USC Shoah Foundation to commemorate the 100th anniversary the greatest tragedy in the country’s history.

Amerian serves as a Trustee of the George Ignatius Foundation, which provides major charitable contributions to educational, artistic, religious and humanitarian organizations around the world. It is supporting USC Shoah Foundation’s delegation to Armenia this week, in which several of the Institute’s senior staff are attending the Armenian Genocide Centennial commemoration and delivering the first 60 testimonies of the Visual History Archive’s Armenian Genocide collection to the Armenian Genocide Museum & Institute.

Amerian is a Deputy City Attorney with the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office. Before becoming a prosecutor, Amerian served as a law clerk for United States District Court Judge Dickran Tevrizian and was an attorney in private practice. He received his Juris Doctorate at the University of Southern California Law School.

“As a longtime board member of the Armenian Film Foundation, I conceived of this trip to strengthen the ties between the USC Shoah Foundation and Armenian people by personalizing the USC Shoah Foundation's experience in Armenia during their visit to for the Armenian Genocide Centennial Commemoration,” Amerian said. “I believed the best way to do that would be by immersing the delegation, which is led by Dr. Stephen Smith and consists of Dr. Wolf Gruner, Karen Jungblut and Ari and Bonnie Zev, in the culture and history of the Armenian people.”

During the delegation’s trip, it has toured the National Archives and the Armenian Genocide Museum and memorial, which Amerian found “emotionally arresting.” The group also visited national cultural treasures in Yerevan such as the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts and the History Museum of Armenia.  In addition, the delegation has experienced ancient Armenia by touring Dilijan (known as Little Switzerland) and temples and monasteries at Garni/Geghart (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), Haghartsin and Khor Virap.  Equally as important, Amerian said, the delegation caught a glimpse into Armenia's future by touring the TUMO Creative Technology Center.

Amerian said he and his fellow trustees at the George Ignatius Foundation, Walter J. Karabian and George R. Phillips, Sr., wanted to take advantage of having the world's attention turned to the Armenian Genocide to increase global awareness that the 400 interviews constituting the Armenian Film Foundation's testimonies are starting to come online as indexed and translated in the Visual History Archive.  To that end, Smith and Professor Richard Hovannisian, also a member of the delegation, spoke at the Global Forum Against the Crime of Genocide and the delegation met with the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, Richard Mills, and demonstrated USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive to representatives of Yerevan State University.

“The trip has re-energized and affirmed all of our resolve to use the testimonies that are now a part of USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive to build global awareness of the horrors that the Ottoman Empire inflicted upon the Armenian people 100 years ago so that the Armenian Genocide is never forgotten and future genocides can be prevented altogether,” Amerian said.