[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 7049-7050]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon in remembrance of 
a dark period in American history, or actually in history, period. That 
point is the Armenian genocide.
  When most people hear the word ``genocide'' they immediately think of 
Hitler. They think of the persecution of the Jews during World War II. 
Most individuals are unaware that the first genocide of the 21st 
century occurred during World War I and was perpetrated by the Ottoman 
Empire against the Armenian people.
  Concerned that the Armenians would move to establish their own 
government, the Ottoman Empire embarked on a reign of terror that 
resulted in the massacre of over 1.5 million Armenians. This atrocious 
crime began on April 15, 1915, when the Ottoman Empire arrested, 
exiled, and eventually killed hundreds of Armenian religious, 
political, and intellectual leaders.
  Once they had eliminated the Armenian people's leadership, they 
turned their attention to the Armenians serving in the Ottoman army. 
These soldiers were disarmed and placed in labor camps, where they were 
either starved or executed.
  The Armenian people, lacking political leadership and deprived of 
young, able-bodied men who could fight against the Ottoman onslaught, 
were then deported from every region of Turkish Armenia. The images of 
human suffering from the Armenian genocide are graphic, and are as 
haunting as the pictures of the Holocaust.
  Why, then, it must be asked, are so many people unaware of the 
Armenian genocide? I believe the answer is found in the international 
community's response to this disturbing event.
  At the end of World War I, those responsible for ordering and 
implementing the Armenian genocide were never brought to justice, and 
the world casually forgot about the pain and suffering of the Armenian 
people.

[[Page 7050]]

  This proved to be a grave mistake. Just a few years later in a speech 
on the eve of World War II, Hitler justified his brutal tactics with 
the infamous statement, ``Who today remembers the extermination of the 
Armenians?'' Six years later, 6 million Jews had been exterminated by 
the Nazis. Never had, as the phrase goes, ``Those who forget the past 
will be destined to repeat it,'' been more applicable.
  If the international community had spoken out against this merciless 
slaughtering of the Armenian people instead of ignoring it, the horrors 
of the Holocaust might never have taken place.
  As we commemorate the 84th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, I 
believe it is time to give this event its rightful place in history. So 
let us pay homage to those who fell victim to their Ottoman oppressors, 
and tell the story of the forgotten genocide, for the sake of the 
Armenian heritage. It is a story that must be heard.

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