They watched a photomontage of Alireza as a baby, a young boy in Iran, at his graduation from Princeton University and playing with one of his nieces.
The former empress, Farah Diba, told the audience, “My pain is no different from the pain of any mother who has lost her loved one. Whenever I think of Alireza, I tell myself he flew from the cage.”
One Iranian attending told Agence France Presse (AFP), “This is not just a tragedy for the family, it’s a tragedy for the Iranian people. I was not very fond of the shah—that’s the least you could say—but I cried today. When Alireza Pahlavi committed suicide, it was as if the son of every Iranian had committed suicide,” he said.
Many cried as they watched the photos flash past on a large screen at the Strathmore Music Center in Bethesda, Maryland, where the memorial service was held. “When I saw those images of the prince as a young boy,” one man commented, “it made me wonder why we fought all those years ago for change. All we did was replace an undemocratic regime with a bunch of cannibals.”
Pahlavi, 44, shot himself in his Boston home shortly after midnight January 4. That was not quite 10 years after his younger sister, Leila, had committed suicide at the age of 31 by taking an overdose of drugs in a London hotel.
Many of those attending Sunday’s memorial service wore large badges bearing pictures of Alireza and Leila. Others wore lapel pins of the Iranian imperial flag.
“I love them like my own family,” Homa Monassebian told AFP. “This hurts a lot, especially with what is happening in Iran. I came here 40 years ago but my heart and soul are still in Iran.”
Simin Farhoodi, who said her husband was jailed after the revolution, added, “It’s very sad. If it teaches us anything, I suppose it is to be close to our children, to make sure that they don’t feel alone with all that is happening in Iran.”
Farhoodi was pregnant with her second child when her husband was jailed after the revolution. She stayed to help secure his release before they moved to the United States.
“Maybe our generation is better able to handle everything that’s happening in Iran than the younger generation, because we are used to things being unfair,” she said.
Alireza left Iran at the age of 13 and attended high school largely in the United States. He obtained his bachelors degree from Princeton University in 1984 and a masters from Columbia University in 1992.
He had been undertaking a doctorate at Harvard University in philology and ancient Iranian studies, but was not enrolled at the university when he died.
Alireza had been engaged at least once but never married.