James Rogan: “Haig Baronian of Glendale, California in my district can recite history like few historians can. He has lived it. Last…”

“Haig Baronian of Glendale, California in my district can recite history like few historians can. He has lived it. Last year he told the Daily News of Los Angeles that he had seen his mother pulled away, never to be seen again. The story he has to tell is like those echoed in history books, college classrooms and town halls across the Nation. However, he did not live in Bosnia, Uganda, Cambodia or Nazi Germany. As a child Haig lived in Armenia. Between 1915 and 1923 over 1 million Armenians, who had inhabited their homeland since the time of Christ, were displaced, deported, tortured and killed at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. Families were split, homes were destroyed, lives were torn apart. In the years since, officials from what is now Turkey have dismissed these charges as a mere civil war. But men like Mr. Baronian tell a different tale, and today I ask my colleagues to join me in remembering his family and his neighbors, and to seek justice so that future generations will never again face tragedy at the hands of their own government.”