Letter addressed to the President of Armenia
HE
President of Armenia
Dr. Armen Sarkissian
April 23, 2021
Dear Mr. President,
Tomorrow the world will commemorate the 106 anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
On April 24, 1915, hundreds of Armenian intellectuals were rounded-up, arrested and eventually executed, marking the start of a human tragedy of gigantic magnitude.
On the eve of WWI, there were around two million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. In the ensuing seven years, some 1.5 million were murdered, in one of the darkest chapters of history, a crime perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire during its decline.
To be sure, the term "genocide" was coined some three decades later, in 1943, by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew, when another unspeakable massacre was taking place in Europe, this time against the Jews, but it is clear that Lemkin's research was driven by the horrendous crimes against the Armenian people.
Needless to say, the importance of building bridges of understanding and mutual respect cannot be downplayed, but those bridges should be laid upon solid foundations which demand a full recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey and by all the nations of the world.
Our NGO deals with positive pedagogy and with the recognition of goodness. That is why we have engaged in a field research into the feats of Turks and Kurds who reached-out to the Armenians during the Genocide, as we do in regard to Gentiles who helped Jews during the Holocaust, such as the case of your fellow countryman, Dr. Harutyun Khachatryan, who was recognized as Righteous among the Nations thanks to our investigation.
Mr. President, our heart goes out to our sisters and brothers, both in Armenia and in the Diaspora. The victims of the Armenian Genocide will live forever in our memories and we pledge to continue our educational programs to educate the younger generations about this tragedy and instill human values of solidarity to thwart any form of racism.
Respectfully yours,
Baruch Tenembaum
Founder
IRWF
The International Raoul Wallenberg FoundationThe International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation