PRESS RELEASE
Armenian National Committee ~ San Francisco Bay Area
51 Commonwealth Avenue,
San Francisco, CA 94118
Tel: (415) 387-3433
Fax: (415) 751-0617
Email: mail@ancsf.org
Web:
Council of Armenian American Organizations of Northern California
Vice Chair, Anto Cingoz
Tel: 510-843-8454
Memorial Plaque Stolen from San Francisco’s Mt. Davidson
*Note: Photos available
September 26, 2007
San Francisco – It was discovered on Sunday, September 23rd, that the
memorial plaque at the foot of San Francisco’s 103-ft. Mt. Davidson
Cross has been stolen. The bronze plaque, which is 3-ft by 4-ft and
weighs 160 pounds, was bolted into a concrete base.
The San Francisco Police Department is investigating. Captain Denis
O’Leary of the Ingleside station said, "This is a very serious matter.
We are considering all possibilities." Noting that the discovery was
made on the day when Armenian-Americans were celebrating Armenian
Independence Day, O’Leary said they haven’t ruled out the possibility of
a hate crime. O’Leary said that considering the recycling value of the
plaque, the department has also sent out a message and photos to all the
metal recycling plants in the Bay Area, and an additional flyer to
police departments throughout California.
The plaque reads:
The Mt. Davidson Cross was designed and built by George Kelham and
inaugurated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934. In 1997, the
citizens of San Francisco voted to approve the sale of the monument to
the Council of Armenian-American Organizations of Northern California,
to preserve it as an historic landmark.
This revered site is cared for in memory of the 1,500,000 victims of the
Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Turkish government from 1915 to
1918. Over half of the Armenian population on its ancient homeland was
killed, and no Armenian community remained in historical western Armenia.
By honoring those lost, we honor all victims of injustice and cruelty.
In their name we dedicate ourselves to the protection of human rights
and the dignity of all peoples.
If evil of this magnitude can be ignored,
if our own children forget
then we deserve oblivion
and earn the world’s scorn.
Avedis Aharonian
(writer and educator, 1866-1948)
Armenian Genocide Commemoration Day
April 24, 1998
The plaque was installed after a decade-long legal and political battle
over the constitutionality of the presence of a cross in a public park.
The case was resolved when the city of San Francisco auctioned the
property to private ownership. The Council of Armenian American
Organizations of Northern California (CAAONC) won the auction and voters
approved the sale of the property in 1997, despite opposition from
atheists who opposed the presence of the cross and Turkish groups who
opposed the sale to Armenian-Americans who planned to use the site for
annual Armenian Genocide commemorations. Mt. Davidson park and the
cross have remained open to the public.
After a memorial plaque was installed, Turkish-American groups sued
CAAONC, claiming the plaque violated the terms of the property deed.
The court case against the placement of the plaque was dismissed in 2004.
Turkish government representatives are currently waging a similar effort
to block a pending congressional resolution, House Resolution 106, which
re-affirms the U.S. historical record on the Armenian Genocide. The
Turkish government has also actively opposed U.S. state laws mandating
public education about the Armenian Genocide. In Turkey, discussion of
the Armenian Genocide is a crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The overwhelming majority of Armenian-Americans living in San Francisco
are descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors. Several of the
survivors were present at the unveiling of the plaque at the foot of Mt.
Davidson Cross, in 1998.
For more information, please call:
Bay Area Armenian National Committee at (415) 387-3433
or
The Council of Armenian American Organizations of Northern California
Vice Chair, Anto Cingoz, office: 510-843-8454: home: 510-524-6967