Honor the Truth of the Past: Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide

Floor Speech

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the survivors and their descendants of the Armenian Genocide. On Sunday, April 20th, a service in remembrance of the 93rd Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide took place at the Armenian Church of Our Savior in Worcester, Massachusetts. The message of the generations gathered there is simple: ``Honor the truth of the past because denial makes it more likely that genocide will happen again.''

Each year we mark the anniversary of the cataclysmic events that occurred in the Ottoman Empire from 1915-1923, when 1.5 million Armenians were killed and over half a million survivors were exiled.

I would like to enter into the Record the letter I sent to the parishioners of the Armenian Church of Our Savior on this solemn and special occasion, as well as the April 21st article that appeared in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette describing the commemorative event.

Memory is a precious commodity. I urge all my colleagues to support passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution before we lose the last survivors of this terrible period of genocide against the Armenian people.

OPEN LETTER FROM REP. JAMES P. MCGOVERN TO THE PARISHIONERS OF THE ARMENIAN CHURCH OF OUR SAVIOR

April 20, 2008.

DEAR FRIENDS: As you know, this year marks the 93rd anniversary of the first genocide of the 20th Century, the Armenian Genocide. Carried out between 1915 and 1923, the Armenian Genocide was a systematic and deliberate campaign by the Turkish Ottoman Empire to destroy its Armenian minority, which resulted in 1.5 million Armenian deaths and the exile of nearly all Armenians from their ancestral homeland.

The Armenian Genocide is officially recognized and commemorated in 40 States, including the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and by nearly two dozen nations, including 11 of our NATO allies. The federal government must follow suit.

I believe adopting the Armenian Genocide Resolution is the right thing to do:

As a matter of morality--and in the name of humanity--the United States should recognize and condemn all genocides.

In the name of historic truth--and in honor of the historic role so many American diplomatic personnel and humanitarian and relief workers played in saving lives and condemning the genocide as it was taking place--the U.S. especially should recognize the Armenian Genocide.

And in the hope of preventing future genocides--we have to recognize and honor the truth of the past. Denial of the Armenian Genocide--just like denial of the Holocaust--makes future genocides more likely, not less.

No nation, not Turkey, or any other country, should be allowed to block the official recognition or commemoration or the teaching of historic truth about the Armenian Genocide.

I am disappointed that the Federal government has not yet taken the necessary and courageous steps to recognize the Armenian Genocide. I will continue to work to change that reality.

It's ironic that the current Turkish government doesn't seem to realize that the more it denies the Armenian Genocide, the more people begin to think that there really is a connection between the Turks who carried out the Armenian Genocide at the beginning of the 20th Century and today's 21st Century democratic government.

By denying the truth, Turkey undermines its own standing throughout the world, blocks its own acceptance into the European family, and increases regional tensions, especially with neighboring Armenia. Turkey's recognition of the Genocide, its reconciliation with the past, would widely be viewed as the act of a mature democracy, which the world would rush to embrace and reward.

This is why America must also officially recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Some will always argue that the timing is not right to act on this bill. But when will the timing be right? After the last surviving witnesses of the Armenian Genocide are gone?

In April of last year, I was in eastern Chad. And the reality of genocide was right before my eyes. There are over 250,000 refugees from Darfur, Sudan living in camps just inside Chad. I met with individuals and families who had been forced to flee their villages in Darfur. Each had a story about loved ones murdered, homes destroyed, people and family left behind. Many didn't know if some of their family or children were even alive.

So 93 years after the Armenian Genocide, I struggle to find meaning in the words, ``Never Again.''

I am thankful I can turn to Worcester's Armenian-American community for inspiration, one of the oldest in the United States and the first to establish a church in America. They have worked tirelessly for nearly a century to keep alive the historic memory of the Armenian Genocide and to speak out, condemn and organize against the genocides--too many--that mark the past nine decades of human history. They were among the very first to bring to my attention the events unfolding in Darfur.

The least we can do is honor and recognize this selfless community by passing the Armenian Genocide Resolution, so that their history and heritage will be remembered for all time, even after the last survivor passes away.

With warmest respect and friendship,

CONGRESSMAN JIM MCGOVERN.

--

[From the Telegram & Gazette, Worcester, MA, Apr. 21, 2008].

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE REMEMBERED
(By Lisa D. Welsh)

WORCESTER.--Three generations of Armenians--a 99-year-old woman, a three time--Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a high school essayist--spoke from differing perspectives but shared one message during the 93rd anniversary of the Armenian genocide recognition yesterday at the Armenian Church of Our Saviour: ``Honor the truth of the past because denial makes it more likely that genocide will happen again.''

Heghine Minassian was 6 years old the day Turkish soldiers went house to house and emptied all the buildings in her village. She said most Armenians were marched into the desert, where they were left to starve to death; but some of the women, like her aunt, were kept as slaves.

``My grandparents were in the attic hiding,'' Mrs. Minassian said in Armenian through an English interpreter, Van Aroian. ``My grandmother's sister yelled, `Don't open the door. Don't go out.' But the (soldiers) gave the order to come down and they came down.''

Within three years Mrs. Minassian would be an orphan, the same age of many of the children in church who participated in a candle-lighting ceremony in honor of their family members who had died in the genocide. Looking out at the young faces in the front pews, Mrs. Minassian said, ``Don't forget our struggle.''

Stephen A. Kurkjian, a reporter for the Boston Globe for 38 years, has written about many high-profile events. However, sharing the story of his father's family was not one of them.

``I was not an appreciating Armenian until 1992, when I accompanied my 83-year-old father to the village where he was born,'' Mr. Kurkjian said at the Martyrs' Day commemoration. ``The sadness hit me like a sledgehammer. I started asking, `How could this happen?' ''

``I came back and wrote an article called `Roots of Sorrow.' But now I'd add to that title, `Seeds of Hope.' ''

Mr. Kurkjian's father lost his father, brother and sister in the genocide of 1915; he survived after making the 300-mile trek to Syria with his mother, and later to America.

``My father would say out of tragedy there was opportunity for liberty and religious freedom. There was education and economic opportunity in America. I would have never had the successes I've had. Instead I would have worked at a small weekly in a mountain village.''

``I asked my Der Hayr (priest), `How this could happen?' '' Mr. Kurkjian said. ``He said, `God would not have allowed the first Christian church to not have survived.' That's as good an answer as you are going to get.''

With the internal awakening about his heritage Mr. Kurkjian has traveled to Turkey and watched pressure build on the Turkish government to reassess its position that downplays references to the genocide.

Robin Garabedian, a junior at Doherty Memorial High School whose family has been with the Armenian Church of Our Saviour since her grandmother's family immigrated to Worcester, said she was 7 years old when her father told her about the genocide. In reading her award-winning essay, ``Why Remembrance of the Genocide is Important,'' she quoted Adolf Hitler as saying. ``Who today remembers the extermination of the Armenians?'' as rationalization for the Holocaust.

``How does someone hate someone else so much?'' Robin asked in anger. ``If the world had stood up (against) the Armenian genocide, there wouldn't have been genocide of the Jews, or in Cambodia in the '70s, or in Darfur today.''

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