Each year we remember and honor the victims. and pay respect to the survivors we are blessed to still have with us. During the periods 19151918 and 19201923. approximately 1.5 million Armenians perished under the rule of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The Armenian people fell victim to deportation. expropriation. torture. starvation and massacre. We signify April 24. 1915 as the day of remembrance because of the more than 200 Armenian community leaders who were systematically hunted down in Constantinople on this date. The Armenian genocide was the result of a consciously orchestrated government plan. The United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Henry Morgenthau. stated at the time that. "When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations. they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race. they understood this well. and. in their conversations with me. they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact . . . I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this." In an effort to further our understanding of this tragic period. one of my constituents. Mae Derdarian. has written an important survivors account of the Armenian genocide. Her book. Vergeen. recounts a thirteenyear old girls deportation from her home. the atrocities she survived. her escape from her tormentors. and her ultimate triumph over the horrors she witnessed and which were perpetrated on her. In a review of Ms. Derdarians book.
Keywords matched
deportation deportations