94TH ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATED

Western Queens Gazette
tures/009.html
March 25 2009
NY

For the 24th year, thousands of Armenian- Americans and their
supporters will gather on Broadway between 43rd and 44th Streets
to commemorate the Armenian Genocide, the first mass killing of a
particular ethnic group of the 20th Century on Sunday, April 26 from 2
to 4 p.m. The event will pay tribute to the 1.5 million Armenians who
were murdered by the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire. The
commemoration will also celebrate the survival of the Armenian people,
their rich heritage and their contributions to America.

Speakers will include Armenian and non- Armenian political and civic
leaders and students. This event is free and open to the public.

The 94th commemoration is organized by the Mid-Atlantic chapters
of Knights and Daughters of Vartan, , a
U.S. fraternal organization of Armenian-Americans, and cosponsored
by Armenian General Benevolent Union, ; Armenian National
Committee of America, ; the Armenian Assembly of America
; the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party, and the Social
Democratic Hunchagian Party.

In 1915, 33 years before the United Nations Genocide Convention was
adopted, the Armenian Genocide was condemned by the international
community as a crime against humanity.

During World War I, the Young Turk political faction of the Ottoman
Empire sought the creation of a new Turkish state, extending into
Central Asia. Those promoting the ideology called "Pan Turkism"
(creating a homogenous Turkish state) saw Turkey’s Armenian population
as an obstacle to the realization of that goal. During the Armenian
Genocide (1915-1923), the Young Turk Government systematically forced
1.5 million Armenians out of their ancestral homeland in present day
Turkey and annihilated them.

Apr. 24, 1915 marked the beginning of the Armenian Genocide in
Constantinople (present day Istanbul) with the arrest, torture and
execution of 300 Armenian intellectuals, writers, poets, political and
civic leaders by the Young Turk Government of the Ottoman Empire. Also
on that day, 5,000 of the poorest Armenians were butchered in the
streets and in their homes.

In May 1915, after mass deportations had already begun, Turkish
Minister of the Interior Talaat Pasha ordered the Armenian
population’s deportation into the Syrian desert. Adult and teenage
males were separated from the deportation caravans and killed under
the direction of Young Turk functionaries. Women and children were
driven for months over mountains and desert, often raped, tortured,
and mutilated. Deprived of food and water and often stripped of
clothing, they fell by the hundreds and thousands along the routes
to the desert. Ultimately, more than half the Armenian population,
1,500,000 people, was annihilated. In this manner the Armenian people
were eliminated from their homeland of several millennia.

Sam Azadian, who lost four siblings during the Armenian Genocide,
founded the first Times Square Commemoration in 1985. Azadian stated,
"It is important to increase public awareness of the Armenian
Genocide. Two out of three Armenians perished as a result of forced
deportation and mass murder by the Ottoman Turks."

Armenian Genocide survivors living at the New York Armenian Home for
the Aged on 45th Avenue in Flushing have not forgotten the atrocities
committed against them, their families and neighbors by the Young
Turk government. In 2007, several of the survivors were interviewed
and recounted their stories.

On March 14, 2007, the Armenian Genocide Resolution (Senate Resolution
106), mirroring House Resolution 106, was introduced in the U.S. Senate
by Assistant Majority Leader Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-Illinois)
and Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada).

Armenian Genocide Survivors ages 95 to 100 will be available on Sunday,
March 29 at 2 p.m. to recount their personal experiences of living
through the Armenian Genocide and to chronicle their lives since W.W.I.

Papazian and Sam Azadian, Armenian Genocide experts will also be
available for interviewing.

The New York Armenian Home is located at 137-31 45th Ave.,
Flushing. For more information, call Linda Millman Guller for the
Knights & Daughters of Vartan, e-mail: mgmarcom@ aol.com; phone
203-454-9800; cellphone 203-856-7004.