[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 141 (Friday, August 6, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E876-E877]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  COMMEMORATING ASSYRIAN MEMORIAL DAY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES P. McGOVERN

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, August 6, 2021

  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commemorate Assyrian 
Memorial Day, which is observed annually on August 7 to honor the 
memory of all those Assyrians who have fallen victim to genocide, other 
mass atrocities, and persecution. I am very proud that the Second 
Congressional District of Massachusetts is home to a vibrant Assyrian-
American community--a proud reminder of survival and perseverance in 
the face of mass atrocities and extreme injustice.
  The Genocide that we are commemorating today is a history of 
persecution and the systematic destruction of a people, based on their 
religion and ethnicity. It is a history shared with Armenians and 
Hellenes, or Greeks, perpetrated between 1914 and 1923. This is the 
period that began to form the world's modern-day understanding of 
crimes against humanity and genocide, culminating 20 years later in the 
atrocities committed against the Jewish people of Europe.
  Madam Speaker, today is a moment to remember the hundreds of 
thousands of Assyrians who perished during this horror were 
irreplaceable human beings. Each individual--man or woman, children or 
the elderly--were part of a family, with dreams and hopes for the 
future--and all those hopes, all of those dreams, all of those 
``possibilities'' were erased. This was done deliberately. This was a 
choice made by leaders at all levels of the Ottoman Empire and those 
who took charge immediately after the empire's demise.
  The Assyrian people and the Assyrian Catholic Church have existed for 
over 2,000 years. In their ancestral homes of the Middle East--in Iraq, 
Syria, and Turkey--they lived and worshipped, established communities, 
and broke bread together, centuries before Islam was born in the 
region.
  Sadly, the minority religions and peoples of the Middle East are 
facing yet another test, as they are again being persecuted and 
targeted for extinction. Most of the world's 2 to 4 million Assyrians 
still live around their traditional homelands, although they are 
frequently displaced and fleeing violence and war like so many others 
in the region. It is estimated that some 60 percent of Iraqi Assyrians 
have been forced to abandon their homes and leave the country since the 
U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003.
  Today, tens of thousands of Assyrians in Northern Iraq have fled 
persecution at the hands of ISIS, which has attacked Assyrian villages, 
killing or imprisoning hundreds. And with ISIS has come another form of 
genocide--the war against the history of mankind--with the destruction 
of archaeological sites, ancient books, artifacts, works of art, houses 
of worship, museums, centuries-old Bibles, and relics. Yet, we can take 
hope from the survival of towns like Alqosh in northern Iraq and the 
Nineveh Plains. People survive and the culture and memory survive.
  We cannot sit idly by and watch this destruction continue. We need to 
provide aid and protection to these communities, these villages and 
towns--certainly for the sake of the Assyrian and other Christian 
minorities defiantly

[[Page E877]]

surviving the bloodbath raging around them, but also for the sake of 
our shared humanity.
  And clearly, the Assyrian culture and religion survive within all of 
those who, over the centuries, fled the region and made new lives in 
strange lands, including right here in the United States and in 
Massachusetts. And what a wealth of history, culture, and religion they 
have brought to us, enriching our communities and our public life.
  Part of that history is St. Mary's Assyrian Apostolic Church which 
was built on Hawley Street in Worcester in 1924. I have read that it 
was built by about 30 Assyrian families who came to Massachusetts from 
southern Turkey. They were joined in later decades by Assyrians from 
Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria, and more recently, from Iraq. I knew that 
church. It was a wonderful place. But a couple of years ago, it moved 
to its new home in Shrewsbury, which luckily, is also part of my 
congressional district.
  And like the Assyrian American Association of Massachusetts Cultural 
Center in North Grafton, it is a place of community and a place of 
defiance, of resistance, in the best meaning of those words--a place 
where culture and religion and human potential are valued, remembered, 
renewed, and strengthened.
  So, while I rise to commemorate the tragedy of the past and to honor 
its enduring memory, I also celebrate the strength of the Assyrian-
American community and the hopes of their future, and their children's 
futures.
  In 2015, the Assyrian-American community of Massachusetts dedicated a 
monument called ``Hope.'' Hope gives us life, gives us purpose, and a 
reason to look forward to tomorrow.
  For centuries, Assyrians have survived persecution and some of the 
greatest evils known to humankind. But far from being exterminated, the 
Assyrian people--their religion and their culture--continue to survive 
and thrive.

                          ____________________