[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 64 (Tuesday, April 22, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E683-E684]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  HONOR THE TRUTH OF THE PAST: COMMEMORATION OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES P. McGOVERN

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 22, 2008

  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

[[Page E684]]

     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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