YEREVAN, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS. Ethnic Turkish Member of the German Bundestag Sevim Dağdelen, on the occasion of the 106th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, says it’s important not only to commemorate the victims, but also find their deleted names and the cultural heritage they had left. According to her, every memory, every relic relating to that people, is an evidence of their living in that territories.
“April 24 marks the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. It’s has been more than one hundred years since the Armenian political figures and intellectuals have been deported from Istanbul, and the interior minister of the Ottoman Empire, Talaat, started his atrocities.
We commemorate that 1.5 million people who fell victim to that crime, bow down and mourn in silence. Today, in line with the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, the talk is also about re-finding the memory of the missing ones. This memory is hard as from the very beginning everything has been done for this indescribable, brutal crime to be forgotten”, the German Bundestag lawmaker said in a video message to ARMENPRESS.
She reminded how hard it was for the Bundestag to finally recognize the Armenian Genocide in 2016. “And even now in the German Bundestag we in no way speak about the courageous MPs as Karl Liebknecht who was the only member of Reichstag who voted against the First World War in 1914”, the MP said, adding: “Attempts are still being made, for instance, through a sold-out policy, ties with Azerbaijan, by exerting pressure on historic matters or trying to write the history in a new way, thus leading to new crimes. We must not allow this. That is why it’s important to preserve the memory nowadays as well”, Sevim Dağdelen said.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan