[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5987-5988]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     A LETTER TO THE TURKISH PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Schiff) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCHIFF. An open letter to the Turkish people:
  Today, I write to you on an issue of great importance to both our 
nations. It is on a subject that many of you, especially the younger 
generation, may know little about because it concerns a chapter of 
world history that your government has expended enormous efforts to 
conceal.
  Turkey has been at the center of human civilization from Neolithic 
times to the present, and your arts, culture, and science have enriched 
the world. But interwoven with all of Turkey's remarkable achievements 
is a dark chapter that too many of today's Turks know little or nothing 
about.
  Were you aware that your grandparents and great-grandparents had many 
Armenian neighbors and friends--that 20 percent of the population of 
today's Istanbul was Armenian? Did you know that the Armenians were 
well integrated into Turkish society as celebrated intellects, artists, 
craftsmen, and community leaders? Have you ever wondered what happened 
to the Armenians? Have you ever asked your parents and grandparents how 
such a large, industrious, and prosperous people largely vanished from 
your midst? Do you know why your government goes to such lengths to 
conceal this part of your history?
  Let me tell you a part of their story. The rest you must find out for 
yourselves.
  Ninety-nine years ago this month, in the dying years of the Ottoman 
Empire, the Young Turk government launched a campaign of deportation, 
expropriation, starvation, and murder against the empire's Armenian 
citizens.

                              {time}  1015

  Much of the Armenian population was forcibly removed to Syria, where 
many succumbed during brutal forced marches through the desert heat. 
Hundreds of thousands were massacred by Ottoman gendarmes, soldiers, 
and even their own neighbors.
  By the time the slaughter ended in 1923, 1.5 million Armenians had 
been killed in what is now universally acknowledged as the first 
genocide of the 20th century. The survivors scattered throughout the 
Middle East and the wider world, with some making their way to the 
United States and to Los Angeles.
  It is their grandchildren and great-grandchildren whom I represent as 
a Member of the U.S. Congress. Theirs is a vibrant community, many tens 
of thousands strong, with schools, churches, and businesses providing a 
daily link to their ancestral homeland. It is on their behalf that I 
urge you to begin anew a national conversation in Turkey about the 
events of 1915-1923.
  As a young man or woman in Turkey, you might ask: What has this to do 
with me? Am I to blame for a crime committed long before I was born?
  I would say this: yours is the moral responsibility to acknowledge 
the truth and to seek a reconciliation with the Armenian people that 
your parents and their parents could or would not. It is an obligation 
you have inherited and is one from which you must not shrink; for 
though we cannot choose our own history, we decide what to do about it, 
and you will be the ones to shape Turkey's future.
  At the end of World War II, Germany was a shattered nation--defeated 
in battle and exposed as history's greatest war criminal--but in the 
decades since the end of the war, Germany has engaged in a prolonged 
effort to reconcile with the Jewish people, who were nearly 
exterminated by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

[[Page 5988]]

  The German Government has prosecuted war criminals, returned 
expropriated property, allied itself with Israel, and made countless 
apologies to the victims and to the world. Most importantly, Germany 
has worked to expunge the cancer of the dehumanizing bigotry and hatred 
that gave rise to the Holocaust.
  This path of reflection, reconciliation, and repentance must be 
Turkey's path as well. It will not be easy. The questions will be 
painful and the answers difficult, sometimes unknowable.
  One question stands out: How could a nation that ruled peaceably over 
a diverse, multicultural empire for centuries have turned on one of its 
own peoples with such ruthlessness that an entirely new word had to be 
invented to describe what took place? ``Genocide.''
  As in Judaism and Christianity, the concept of repentance--or tawba--
is central to Islam. Next year will mark a century since the beginning 
of the genocide, and Armenians around the world will mourn their dead, 
contemplate the enormity of their loss, and ask: Why?
  Answer them, please, with words of repentance.
  Sincerely, Adam Schiff, Member of Congress.

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