Apr

25

An Appeal to “Never Forget”: A Jewish leader speaks out on the need to remember the Armenian Genocide

Filed Under ArmeniaNow Weekly 

An Appeal to “Never Forget”: A Jewish leader speaks out on the need to remember the Armenian GenocideEditor’s Note: On April 18, Nancy K. Kaufman, Executive Director, Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston (www.jcrcboston.org) appeared before the Massachusetts State House, where she represented her organization in support of remembrance and recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

Following is a portion of her speech, made available through the cooperation of the Armenian Assembly of America (www.aaainc.org) and the JCRC. Click here to read the entire text (English only).

As the Jewish community prepares to celebrate Passover, the festival that speaks to us about freedom from tyranny and oppression, I want to share with you a few thoughts about what lessons we might learn from the experiences of our two communities in the last century.

In the history of the world, the 20th century will be remembered as a time of some good, some real evil, and many challenges, including tragedy and transformation. Two of the most horrendous events were the genocide of Armenians, at the hands of the Turks, in the beginning of the century, and the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis during the middle of the century. It is our responsibility, as the next generation, to tell the story of our ancestors who were the victims of these atrocities. In doing so, we bear witness to the dark chapter of our particular histories. Only by doing that will we ensure that people will not forget and will learn that “never again” will not ring hollow.

We also share in common the attempt by some to deny the enormity of these events. For the Armenians, the problem of denial and deniers has worsened not only with the passage of more time, but because there has still not been a recognition by the perpetrators, or for that matter, the worldwide diplomatic community, that the genocide ever occurred.

As my way of not letting the Armenian genocide be forgotten, I would like to bear witness – to testify, if you will – to that history. It is particularly important for us, as Jews, to speak out in support of your community’s efforts to fight denial.

1915 was a time of government-sanctioned ethnic cleansings with systematic massacres of innocent people on a grand scale. We are here to remember the survivors and mark that day in history, when the world stood by, as rulers became killers, and other countries stood silent and said nothing. Not enough was learned from what happened to the Armenian people, and so the world stood by again, when systematic extermination was directed toward the Jews in Europe, just a quarter-century later.

The Armenian genocide began with a government in hard times—in this case, as a consequence of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. It found a scapegoat to deflect attention from its own failures and a leader that had a plan: To “Kill every Armenian woman, child and man without concern for anything.” These stunning words were spoken by Talaat Pasha, the Ottoman leader who launched the first, and unfortunately not the last, genocide of the 20th century.

. . . It was, interestingly enough, Henry Morgenthau Sr., a German-born Jew who had come to the United States as a ten year old boy and had been appointed ambassador to the Ottoman Empire by President Wilson in 1913, who agitated for US diplomatic intervention. Ironically, it was his son many years later who did the same during World War II with President Roosevelt on behalf of the Jews of Europe. On July 10th 1915, he (Morgenthau Sr.) cabled Washington with a description of the Turkish campaign as follows:

“Persecution of Armenians assuming unprecedented proportions. Reports from widely scattered districts indicate systematic attempt to uproot peaceful Armenian populations and through arbitrary arrests, terrible tortures, whole-sale expulsions and deportations from one end of the Empire to the other accompanied by frequent instances of rape, pillage, and murder, turning into massacre, to bring destruction and destitution on them. These measures are not in response to popular or fanatical demand but are purely arbitrary and directed from Constantinople in the name of military necessity, often in districts where no military operations are likely to take place.”

The Turkish government instituted a policy of denial which continues until this very day. They rejected the charges of genocide and have spent millions of dollars to further this view. In addition, they successfully threatened other countries to follow suit.

These denials have not worked so well outside of Turkey. To honor the 1.5 million lost lives, many monuments have been built around the world. The Armenian Genocide Museum will soon be housed in Washington, DC strategically placed 2 blocks from the White House and down the street from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The 50,000 square foot museum will give visitors a place to commemorate, remember, and recognize that the Armenian genocide was the prototype for modern crimes against humanity, including the Holocaust and more recently, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur.

Why is it the Armenian genocide is often referred to as the “forgotten genocide”? Why, almost 100 years later is it so important that these atrocities be labeled “genocide”? Today’s gathering, “Deny Denial,” puts a name on what we need to do. The simple truth is that unless crimes like these are accepted as reality, punish the perpetrators and not just the top two or three criminals, and provide fair compensation for the victims and their families, then we will continue to have future genocides without any concern by perpetrators that they will face prosecution and be brought to justice.

. . . This brings me full circle, to why I came here today to talk about the Armenian Genocide and its relationship to the Holocaust. Think for a moment what would have happened if Turkey had been occupied by the Allies and war crimes trials had been brought to a successful conclusion? The situation would have been widely followed, major perpetrators would have been punished, and restitution would have been made to the survivors. Survivors would have then urged the world to remember the horrors they lived through and the world would have tried to prevent such a catastrophe from happening again.

Suppose, for example, that the Nazis remained in power after World War II and there were no Nuremberg trials. The Nazis, just as the Turkish government does today, would undoubtedly have denied the accusations, and the memory of what had taken place might have faded into history. As it was, it took years for Jews who survived the Holocaust to speak out about the evil and horror they had experienced at the hands of the Nazis. It was not until the Nuremberg trials in Germany, and the Eichmann trial in Israel, that the atrocities were made public and the survivors began to finally speak out. Had those events not occurred, and the perpetrators not been publicly tried and convicted of crimes against humanity, the Holocaust might have also become a “forgotten genocide”.

As the pictures, the statistics, the witnesses, the trials, and only then the survivors, first began to paint a picture of Nazi Germany the Jewish community promised that we would “never again” stand idly by when genocide is taking place. We pledged to take action to ensure that the words “never again” were not uttered in vain. But, it HAS happened again in Rwanda, in Bosnia, in Cambodia, and right now in Darfur.

Source: http://www.armenianow.com

Permanent link:  http://www.armpress.com/armenianow/2008/04/25/1020/

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