[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 56 (Wednesday, April 28, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E699]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   REMEMBERING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BRAD SHERMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 28, 2004

  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleagues tonight in somber 
remembrance of the Armenian Genocide. Early in the 20th Century, during 
World War I and its aftermath, the Ottoman Empire attempted the 
complete liquidation of the Armenian population of Eastern Anatolia.
  We must come down to the House floor tonight not only to remember 
this tragic event, but we must also proclaim that the Armenian Genocide 
is an historical fact. There are many who deny that this first genocide 
of the 20th Century actually took place.
  The American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1919 was an 
eyewitness. In his memoirs, he said, ``When the Turkish authorities 
gave the order for these deportations they were merely giving the death 
warrant to an entire race. They understood this well and in their 
conversations with me made no particular attempt to conceal this 
fact.''
  He went on to describe what he saw at the Euphrates River. He said, 
as our eyes and ears in the Ottoman Empire, ``I have by no means told 
the most terrible details, for a complete narration of the sadistic 
orgies of which they, the Armenian men and women, are victims can never 
be printed in an American publication. Whatever crimes the most 
perverted instincts of the human mind can devise, whatever refinements 
of persecution and injustice the most debased imagination can conceive, 
became the daily misfortune of the Armenian people.''
  We can never forget that 8 days before he invaded Poland, Adolf 
Hitler turned to his inner circle and said, ``Who today remembers the 
extermination of the Armenians?'' The impunity with which the Turkish 
government acted in annihilating the Armenian people emboldened Adolf 
Hitler and his inner circle to carry out the Holocaust of the Jewish 
people.
  It is time for Turkey to acknowledge this genocide, because only in 
that way can the Turkish government and its people rise above it. The 
German government has been quite forthcoming in acknowledging the 
Holocaust, and in doing so it has at least been respected by the 
peoples of the world for its honesty. Turkey should follow that example 
rather than trying to deny history.
  It is also time--indeed it is far overdue--for our Congress to 
recognize the Armenian Genocide.
  Mr. Speaker, I again call on my colleagues to recognize the Armenian 
Genocide and to urge my fellow Americans to remember this tragic event.

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