The Center for Armenian Rememberance recently released RAPHAEL LEMKIN’S DOSSIER ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE This is an authoritative publication about one of the most under covered yet crucial aspects of disputes in the Middle East. I urge educators at all levels in all subjects to familiarize ourselves with this issue. This book makes nearsourcing simple. It gives more meaning to the phrase many of us heard at home and in churches as youngsters, “Eat your food as a respectful way to remember the starving Armenian children.”
I don’t think any school lesson can adequately address unrest in the Middle East without addressing the deeply held, personal memories of survivors of mass killings of Armenians by several U.S. allies.
I worked closely with members of the Armenian community after working with survivors of Nazi death camps. Their stories were similar and were linked by Adolph Hitler’s claim about how the world had already forgotten mass killings of Armenians while making his case for the Holocaust against the Jewish people:
Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness for the present only in the East with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish (Jewish) derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians? August 22, 1939, Adolf Hitler (Bold added.)
Raphael Lemkin was a major lawyer and human rights activist in the 20th Century. He coin the word “genocide,” and was the prime mover for the enactment of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (the “Genocide Convention”), the international law document that in 1948 made genocide an international “crime of crimes”.
The center’s site is dedicated to remembrance of Armenian History, Culture and People, … so, “Never Again” will be a reality, for Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Rwandans, and all the people of the world.
Thanks, Garbis, for sending me the link.