Germany waited extremely long until it fully faced its own and the pan-European history’s shameful chapters, the Vice President of Germany’s Bundestag Claudia Roth said on the occasion of the 106th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
“106 years ago on April 24, the planned deportation and extermination of more than 1 million people of Armenian origin and other Christian groups – Arameans, Assyrians and Chaldeans began. They fell victim to deportations and massacres in the Ottoman Empire, which viewed these people as internal enemies and was treating them like that,” Roth said.
The Vice President of the German parliament noted that the fate of these people was an example of history of mass extermination, ethnic cleansing, deportations and genocides, with which the 20-th century was horrifyingly full of.
“It took us very long in Germany until we fully and honestly faced our own and pan-European shameful history. In 2016, the Bundestag condemned that crime with a resolution, as well as the German Empire’s role in these events as a military ally of the Ottoman Empire. Because it is this and only this way that we can strengthen our democracy and avoid similar crimes in the future.
With this resolution the Bundestag is accepting Germany’s special historic responsibility, among others, in supporting Turkey and Armenia in order for them to seek a path towards reconciliation and mutual-understanding from the dark chapters of the past,” Roth said.
Claudia Roth said that with this resolution they assumed the obligation to finally worthily pay attention to the remembrance of the Armenian Genocide and the duly study of its consequences.
“Only this way we can support those democratic figures in Turkey who for decades are demanding to face these dark chapters of Turkish history. Facing history could perhaps become the most important basis for reconciliation both inside the society, as well as with neighbors or former enemies.
Today, on April 24, I remember the victims of 1915. We can’t forget, because oblivion is destructive.”
