[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 55 (Wednesday, April 21, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H2244]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              HONORING THE MEMORY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Rogan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROGAN. Mr. Speaker, imagine an entire village, 10,000 people, 
drowned at once. Imagine watching as your fathers and brothers are 
burned to death. Imagine watching men in your community tied to horses 
and dragged away. Or watching children see their mothers and sisters 
raped and then beaten and dragged away. Imagine, if you will, smiling 
soldiers posing alongside the corpses of those who were just moments 
before family, friends and neighbors. Imagine if all this happened in 
front of your eyes, and then as you grew old, history and indeed 
nations of the world choose to ignore it all.
  Mr. Speaker, these memories were not imagined, they were witnessed by 
thousands. Today these memories live in the hearts and minds of many of 
my friends and thousands of my constituents. It is our duty not to let 
these memories fade.

                              {time}  1500

  Mr. Speaker, I rise to support legislation that will forever 
recognize the atrocities committed against the Armenian people at the 
hands of the Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923. In eight short years, 
more than 1.5 million husbands, wives and children suffered and died.
  The eyewitness accounts of this tragedy come not from the history 
books but from my own hometown. Today, nearly one-quarter of a million 
Armenians reside in the Los Angeles area, a majority in my hometown of 
Glendale, California. This is the largest concentration of Armenian 
Americans outside the Republic of Armenia. I have been blessed with 
their friendship.
  Armenian Americans have served our country faithfully as members of 
the armed services, as public officials, as business and community 
leaders. Their story is the story of America, one of hard work, 
dedication, commitment to faith and to family. I have heard their 
story. I have heard it from survivors of the genocide and from their 
descendants.
  My good friend Gregory Krikorian has told me the story of his 
grandmother, Yegnar Atamian, who after witnessing the brutal death of 
her father, the capture and slaughter of her brothers, the rape of her 
mother and sisters, endured her own deportation through the deserts of 
Syria. Her faith and her will to live somehow guided her to America.
  She is not alone. Last year, I spoke of the tragedy witnessed by 
another constituent, Haig Baronian. As a child, he watched his own 
mother dragged away, never to be seen again.
  In the memory of their families and in reverence to our founding 
principles of liberty at all costs, we must not let these images be 
erased from history. We must work together today to put to rest the 
painful memories of these and so many Armenians who were forced to 
begin their lives anew, far from their homeland. We must properly 
acknowledge the past.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting our efforts to 
commemorate the genocide against Armenia. Let us join together to close 
the gaping wound history has scored on the body of humanity. Let us 
give the martyrs of the Armenian people the eternal rest they have been 
seeking for nearly a century.

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