Background
On this day in 1915 Talaat Pasha, one of the leaders of the leading figures in the Ottoman Empire, ordered to arrest 800 members of the Armenian elite in Stambul. This was the starting point of the Armenian Genocide, one of the worst crimes against humanity in history. The aim of the Armenian Genocide was to end the “Armenian question” in the Ottoman Empire once and for all. More than 1,5 million people were killed. Men were murdered on the spot, villages were burnt down, and women and children were forced to move to the desert where they died of starvation.
On this day last year, millions of Armenians around the globe spent the day in a grave atmosphere. With shaking hands they looked at the photographs of their relatives who did not survive that nightmare. Some of them were elderly and some were not even three years old; some of them were talented artists and some were successful merchants. It did not matter who the person was, it mattered that they had Armenian blood.
The 24th of April 2021
On this day, the 24th of April 2021, millions of Armenians will once again reminisce these horrible events. They will do it in 2022, 2023, 2024… We shall not forget our great-grandparents, who were massacred for no reason by the blood-thirsty politicians.
In the end, I would like to ask everyone to do something. If you have an Armenian friend, an Armenian neighbor or an Armenian colleague take a look at him; just look at him for a second. If this shameful act wasn’t stopped by the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I, who knows if he would be standing near you.
Sources
- A Shameful Act by Taner Akcam
- Talaat Pasha: Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide by Hans-Lucas Kieser
- Great Catastrophe by Thomas de Waal