WROC, NY
April 25 2005

A very dark chapter in world history noted in Rochester
4/25/2005 9:00 AM
(WROC-TV)

Members of Rochester’s Armenian community gathered Sunday to mark the
anniversary of a dark chapter in history.

It was the slaughter of more than 1.5 million of their ancestors, in
what historians acknowledge as the first major genocide of the last
century.

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the start of the genocide,
perpetrated by the Ottoman government, as it sought to rid Turkey of
the Armenians who’d lived there for centuries.

Those of Armenian heritage have their own reasons for saying “Lest we
forget”.

And so on Sunday, they remembered, and noted the diferences between
the first wide-scale genocide of the 20th century, and the more
well-chronicled one which followed — the Holocaust of World War II.

A proclamation was read at the gathering at the Armenian Church of
Rochester, saying “whereas the modern German government acknowledges
the acts of commission on the part of the Nazi government…The
Turkish government is not to acknowledge that it happened. That’s why
we’re persevering in speaking louder and louder.”

Because while there remain many survivors of the Nazi holocaust to
give first-hand accounts, there’s almost no one left who saw what
happened to the Armenians.