MANY GERMANS RESENTFUL TO LEARN ABOUT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE… AFTER 90 YEARS

AZG Armenian Daily #069, 19/04/2005

Armenian Genocide

Since January, the Armenian Genocide has caught the spotlight of
major and minor mass media in Germany, and an Armenian scholar can
do nothing but study all the printed material under a magnifying
glass. And a common German TV viewer or a paper reader keeps on
asking why they were unaware of it till now. My 50-year-old friend
who speaks 7 languages and claims to have good command of history
keeps on amazing that neither he nor his 80-year-old father have
ever come across a single sentence about the Armenian Genocide in
any German or English history textbooks. “Why did they withhold the
truth from us?”, he asks and adds that Hitler was, in fact, the first
one to acknowledge it as genocide. A documentary by Laurence Jourdan
“Turks vs. Armenians” that was shown by French-German arte TV on
April 13 for the first time deeply affected my German friend (and
not only he) with its historicity.

There are still many more photos and films in different corners of
the world that are unfamiliar to us. Survivors from Canada to Syria as
well as notifications of western ambassadors of the time tell us about
the Genocide. Writings of German consul Walter Roessler in Aleppo, US
consul Lesley Davis in Kharput (perhaps Kharberd), German ambassador to
Constantinople Conrad von Wangenheim, US ambassador Henry Morgenthau
and Wangenheim’s successor Wolf Metternich testify to the fact that
the described events fall under Lemkin’s definition of genocide.

German ARD TV aired a program on Armenian Genocide on April 14 during
which it was said that the en masse and systematized elimination of
the Armenians assumes to be defined as genocide. Sound arguments of
German historians, horrible stories of survivor Zepyur Metsbaqian,
Turkish lawmakers’ negations and journalists’ blunt questions
interrupted the reportage. Turkey and its ally Germany have never
mentioned of responsibility. The suit on Armenian Genocide at the
Bundestag was canceled 4 years ago and now it again gives in under
Turkish diplomacy’s pressure.

By the way, authors of the program reminded that only Germany voted
against a resolution on Armenian Genocide at the European Parliament
in 1985.

Now is the time to tell the truth after 90 years of negation. It’s
hard to predict what will be Bundestag’s response to the program’s
appeal. Let’s have patience to see the outcome.

By Anahit Hovsepian in Germany