More than 100 North Jersey residents Sunday, April 22 packed buses for their annual pilgrimage to New York City to add their voices to a chorus calling for Turkey and the United States to acknowledge as genocide the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians during and after World War I, NewJersaey.com reports.
Inside the banquet hall of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, the event began with the singing of the U.S. national anthem. A 99-year-old survivor in a wheelchair and clutching a white carnation joined in the singing.
“I never forget it, but I don’t like to talk about it,” Charlotte Kechejian, who lives at the New York Armenian Home in Queens, said of the events in Turkey. “I always tell my children how lucky they are, and that they should respect the freedom they have.”
Rain forced the 97th commemoration of the Armenian deaths indoors from its usual venue in Times Square.
Later, Dennis Papazian, of Woodcliff Lake, was the keynote speaker before roughly 800 people, joining others who renewed their call for the Turkey to acknowledge the killings as genocide.
Papazian, leader of the Armenian fraternal service organization that hosted the event, said he felt a sense of responsibility in leading the commemoration “because ethnic groups are close-knit, like families. When they go through a trauma like genocide, the historical rhythm is disrupted.”
“I don’t dislike anybody,” he said, “except people who do bad things. And I don’t like people who did bad things to my ancestors. Why do the Turks today continue to carry this burden, which they need not carry?”
The United States has yet to join the 21 countries that consider the Armenian deaths genocide. New Jersey and 42 other states have done so, but diplomatic and economic pressure from Turkey has been cited for preventing the United States from following suit.
“Armenian Genocide is not and should not be an issue for debate,” Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., told the crowd at the commemoration. “It is a fact.”
Menedez, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is sponsoring a bill that calls on the United States to acknowledge the deaths as genocide. “What happened in 1915 was nothing but a blatant act of genocide,” he said.
