REMEMBERING THE ARMENIANS
By Richard Senate

Ventura County Star , CA
April 25 2006

Monday, Armenians all over the world marked the anniversary of a
terrible crime. On that day in 1915, the Turkish government began
the systematic murder of the Armenian people.

It was their solution to what they saw as the “Armenian Problem.”

This mass killing took place in the middle of World War I when few
were interested in the plight of a group of people in faraway Turkey.

The Turks believed that the Armenians were disloyal in the war and
saw the best way to solve the problem was the complete elimination
of this minority.

The edict of April 24, 1915, ordered the arrest of all Armenian
leaders. After they were taken away, they were never seen again. This
was only the beginning.

Next, the Armenians were forced to leave the cities and homes to
points south. These were elaborately planned death marches where
thousands were brutalized and killed. They were forced along a track
that avoided rivers and wells so the despised Armenians would die in
the desert. The victims endured unspeakable cruelties that rival the
fate of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Even after the war ended in 1918,
the killings went on until 1920. It is estimated one-and-a-half million
died in this, the first holocaust of the 20th century. Even today,
Turkey refuses to accept the fact that this crime ever took place.

It is recorded that when Adolf Hitler contemplated the destruction of
the Jews, one of his henchmen asked if this action might cause world
reaction. It is said Hitler replied: “Who remembers the Armenians?”