David Levy: “it seems appropriate to me that today the House of Representatives commemorate April 19, 1994, as the 79th Anniversary…”

“it seems appropriate to me that today the House of Representatives commemorate April 19, 1994, as the 79th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Throughout the United States and the world, Armenians, Americans, Jews and other people of conscience pause to remember the 1.5 million Armenian victims of genocide and the 500,000 refugees that fled the horror between 1915 and 1923. Nearly two decades before the beginning of the Holocaust, the world was brought face to face with the sheer horror and stark terror of mass murder, starvation, torture and atrocity of the Armenian Genocide. As would be the case during the Holocaust, very few would even attempt to come to the aid of the victims of this genocide. Today, Americans and people of conscience stand side by side with people of Jewish and Armenian descent to proclaim that we will not allow those despicable events of 1915 and the Holocaust to ever happen again. Mr. Speaker, Ellie Wiesel, Chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and a survivor of the Holocaust, summed it up better than I ever could. He said, ``Before planning the final solution, Hitler asked, `Who remembers the Armenians?' No one remembered them, as no one remembered the Jews.'' Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that today, all people of conscience remember the Armenians.”