Robert Torricelli: “I rise to commemorate the tragic genocide and exile of the Armenian people 79 years ago. In 1915, the Turkish Ottoman…”

“I rise to commemorate the tragic genocide and exile of the Armenian people 79 years ago. In 1915, the Turkish Ottoman Empire began a deliberate campaign to destroy the Armenian people. This campaign included a systematic program of murder and expulsion of over 1,500,000 Armenian people from their historic homeland, and effectively erased a rich culture dating back 3,000 years. Today, fewer than 80,000 Armenians remain in Turkey. This appalling event is known as the first genocide of the 20th century. We pause now to ensure that the Armenian genocide will never slip into the recesses of history, but will instead be remembered as one of the most tragic occurrences of our time. This day of remembrance of the Armenian genocide not only honors the victims of this terrible event, but also functions as a constant reminder of man's ability to perform great evil. Elie Wiesel noted that ``before planning the final solution, Hitler asked, `Who remembers the Armenians?' He was right. No one remembered them, as no one remembered the Jews.'' Both the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust remind us that we cannot close our eyes to the tragedies in our past. And if the past were not enough to remind us of the horrors of which mankind is capable, then we can look to the present in Bosnia, where ethnic cleansing is going on right now. The Armenian community in the United States is comprised of the descendants of the survivors of this heinous event.”