[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 58 (Thursday, April 25, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E545-E546]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             THE 98TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

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                          HON. ELIOT L. ENGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 25, 2013

  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, yesterday marked the ninety-eighth 
anniversary of the onset of the Armenian Genocide, one of the ugliest 
chapters in the bloodiest century in recorded human history. Over the 
course of the Genocide, 1.5 million innocent Armenians were 
slaughtered; those Ottoman Armenians that survived were the tiny and 
miraculous remnant of a forced march conducted by the Ottomans under 
the most savage of conditions.
   Those murders were not only a tragedy for the Armenian people, who 
bear its scars to this day. The barbarity inflicted on the Armenians 
also opened the floodgates on a century of genocide and ethnic-
cleansing. We've all seen Hitler's sneering statement ``Who after all 
speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?'' That statement 
makes clear the link between indifference to the Armenians and the 
murder of six million Jews. And it expresses the mindset of so many 
thuggish leaders after Hitler, leaders convinced that their nationalist 
aims could easily be achieved through a policy of murder that carried 
no punishment. The victims of this mindset have spanned the globe, as 
we know too well.
   ``Who after all speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?'' 
Mr. Speaker, I want to affirm today that we do remember, and we 
remember with reverence. We recall with sorrow the massive loss of life 
as the result of a deliberate policy of murder. We also know that we 
owe it to humanity and history to remember, if only to help erect a 
deterrent against future such tragedies. And let me add that Turkey 
owes it to the Armenians to acknowledge and come to terms with what its 
forbears perpetrated--and, at a minimum, to apologize.

[[Page E546]]

Turkey also owes that to itself, too, for Turkish society will be 
stronger for having ended the charade of denying what the whole world 
knows to be true.
   Mr. Speaker, to the Armenian people, including the very few 
remaining survivors, I want to express my great sorrow and deepest 
condolences. And I say to them, as we say regarding the Holocaust, 
``Never again.''

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