Poland’s ruling party and a veterans’ association demand that Polish victims of Auschwitz be better commemorated. They claim that non-Jewish victims are ignored due to the main focus on remembering the Holocaust.

The wooden barracks, mountains of shoes, suitcases and locks of prisoners’ shaved hair lying on the former concentration camp grounds are reminders of what went on in the German death factory where over a million people were murdered in the 1940s. The exhibition in the former concentration camp is aimed at informing visitors that Auschwitz, founded in 1940 in occupied Poland and later a symbol of the Holocaust, was initially intended for non-Jewish Poles. During Germany’s occupation of Poland between 1939 and 1945, Polish citizens could end up in a concentration camp for committing the smallest of offences.

Poland’s victims were not just its Jews

Poland lost six million people during the Second World War, more than one-sixth of its population. Half of them were Polish Jews. In percentage terms, the country suffered the largest human loss of all countries affected by the Second World War.

In the Auschwitz Memorial, however, remembrance mainly focuses on the one million Jews who were systematically murdered there — and who make up more than 90 percent of the camp’s victims. The Auschwitz Memorial’s head, Piotr Cywinski, has for years been accused by Poland’s national conservative circles of not adequately remembering non-Jewish Polish victims and heroes of Auschwitz.

Cywinski is accused, for example, of trying to play down the role of Polish officer Witold Pilecki, who voluntarily entered the concentration camp in order to gather information on Nazi crimes for the Allies. This is the allegation made by the Association of Families of Polish Concentration Camp Victims (SRPOOK), to which former prisoners and victims’ descendants belong. In 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the concentration camp’s liberation, the ruling PiS demanded Cywinski’s dismissal because he had not sent a personal invitation to the Polish officer’s descendants. Outraged PiS politician and later Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said at the time, “It’s a scandal not to commemorate Polish heroes.”

January 27 marks the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the date the United Nations has chosen to commemorate victims of the Holocaust during World War II. Six million Jews were murdered by Germany’s Nazi regime and its collaborators, along with 5 million non-Jews who were killed. 

The remembrance day, designated by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/7 on 1 November 2005 during the 42nd plenary session, falls on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, by Soviet troops in 1945.

The UN resolution came after a special session was held earlier on 24 January 2005 during which the General Assembly marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and the end of the Holocaust. 

Prior to the 60/7 resolution, there had been national days of commemoration, such as Germany’s Tag des Gedenkens an die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (The Day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism), established in a proclamation issued by Federal President Roman Herzog on 3 January 1996; and the Holocaust Memorial Day observed every 27 January since 2001 in the UK.

The Holocaust Remembrance Day is also a national event in the United Kingdom and in Italy. 

A new achieve about Armenian Genocide comprising numerous documents and evidences collected by Krikor Guerguerian, a priest and genocide survivor is now on a digital repository and available for scholars. The documents have been processed and compiled by a group of Armenia and Turkish researchers led by Taner Akcam, Professor in Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University.
Ermenihaber reports that Professor Akcam was granted access to the unpublished collection in 2015 by Dr. Edmund Guerguerian, nephew of Fr. Guerguerian, and he has worked diligently to ensure that other scholars of the Armenian Genocide have access to the materials.

The Krikor Guerguerian Archive comprises thousands of original Ottoman documents and Guerguerian’s extensive, unpublished writings. It includes the long-missing handwritten memoirs of Naim Bey, an Ottoman bureaucrat stationed in Aleppo who actively participated in the deportation and massacres of Armenians; documents from the Jerusalem Armenian Patriarchate containing first-hand information about the Armenian genocide; and critical papers from the Istanbul perpetrator trials held from 1919 to 1922 that were long assumed vanished.

According to the source, among the most noteworthy materials are ciphered telegrams that the Ottoman Interior Minister Talat Pasha, army commanders, and the chief of the government’s paramilitary sent to governors throughout the Empire. Some of these telegrams, written on government letterhead stamped with the official Ottoman seal, clearly outline the Ottoman government’s planning and execution of the genocide.

Source Panorama.am

Turkish novelist and playwright Adalet Ağaoğlu sent an exciting letter to Hrant Dink’s family and “Agos” newspaper on the occasion of the 12th anniversary of Dink’s murder. the letter published in Agos.

‘’Family of my much beloved Hrant Dink, ‘Agos’ periodical…

Hrant Dink, my brother, I do not forget you even for a second. I remember you alive during the conferences on peace, standing together with us. It was important that an open-minded person, who is opposed to violence and stands for peace like you talked about such topics. I do not forget for a minute. You talked so beautifully that, believe me, every time I wanted to hug you with enthusiasm. It’s a pity, great pity. Violence took you away from us. I have always been against violence, but when we lost you as a result of violence, my convictions reinforced.

Dear Hrant, when once I heard that you were taken to the court I immediately came in front of ‘Agos’. I was shouting ‘I will not give you to anyone’. We together were trying to prevent your imprisonment. What a pity you fell victim to violence. I miss you very much, Hrant Dink.

My Hrant Dink. I and my husband bowed in front of your memory and greatness. I lost my husband who respected you very much in July. So I became even smaller, but I still resist. The best thing I can do for the memory of both of you is that I do not abandon my own ideas and moving forward along my own path’’.

(Agos) The tenth International Hrant Dink Award was presented on Saturday, September 15th during an award ceremony held at the Istanbul Lütfi Kırdar International Convention and Exhibition Centre.

This year’s awards were granted to human rights defender Murat Çelikkan, who has worked to create peaceful, democratic and pluralistic solutions to several ongoing heated issues in Turkey, and to Mwatana Organization for Human Rights from Yemen.

On the occasion of the decennial of the International Hrant Dink Award, human right activist and Harvard University faculty member Douglas A. Johnson gave a speech focusing on envisioning the future of human rights, as well as new approaches in the field. Co-founder of the International Nestlè Boycott Committee, Johnson is also among the founders of New Tactics, an organisation that supports human right defenders.

The award ceremony featured the musical performances of Vomank, Collectif Medz Bazar and Sahakyan Children’s Chorus.

2018 awardees were announced at the end of the award ceremony.

Mwatana Organization for Human Rights, conducts independent, impartial documentation work and prepares reports in its courageous struggle against human rights violations in Yemen, in a time when cities of this country are being bombed and thousands of civilians are losing their lives in civil war. On behalf of the organization, Radya el-Mutavakel received the award from the jury members Albie Sachs and Rakel Dink. In her speech, el-Mutavakel said ‘We choose Human Rights to be our road toward accountability, justice and peace. Documenting violations, providing legal assistance, and doing lots of advocacy seems like digging the wall in a middle of a horrible war. However, we feel that our honest work can shake the wall of war and one day it will collapse. Peace will come one day and Mwatana will keep working for a society where justice and full access to rights is guaranteed to everyone.’

For years, Murat Çelikkan has striven to create peaceful, democratic and pluralistic solutions to several ongoing heated issues in Turkey. Aware of the many different risks, he nonetheless speaks out in the defense of human rights. He fights for the establishment of freedom of expression and association, the exposure of human rights violations and torture, and recognition of the rights of those who were ‘disappeared.’ Contributing to the strengthening of collective memory, and raising awareness in this area through his writings on coming to terms with the past and dialogue, Çelikkan received his award from jury member Ercan Kesal and 2017 International Hrant Dink Award laureate Eren Keskin. In his speech, Çelikkan said “It is the struggle for human rights that will light the torch of hope against hopelessness, not only in Turkey but in the entire world. ‘There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.’ In the name of hope, I accept this award.”

The organizer of a Turkish agricultural delegation, whose meetings in Fresno were canceled after pressure from Armenian-American organizations, in a statement GV Wire, an the online news site, has denied the Armenian Genocide.

The organizer of the trip is the Irvine-based Trelodex, whose president Gurkan Suzer told GV Wire that last week’s abrupt cancellation of a meeting with Fresno business officials and representatives of the West Mediterranean Exporters’ Association, also known as BAIB, was because of “a tight schedule.”

However, Fresno business leaders said in an announcement last week that the meeting was canceled with Turkey’s agricultural industry representatives due to Armenian-American concerns about allowing Turkish government-affiliated entities to do business in Fresno.

“Out of respect to our community, the upcoming event scheduled for January 15 with an agriculturally-based Turkish delegation to Fresno has been canceled,” the Fresno Economic Development Council, Fresno Chamber of Commerce, Fresno County Farm Bureau, and the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Armenia in Fresno said in a joint statement last week. State Sen. Andreas Borgeas, a Republican representing Fresno, also signed the statement.

Responding to inquiries from GV Wire, Suzer, the Trelodex president said in an email: “I need to tell you something about the Armenian community concerns. I can only say structures built on lies will collapse someday.”

“Russian archives and Turkish archives are open to researchers; German, French and English archives as well. Armenians like to use war propaganda material as facts (like Saddam’s nuclear bombs and the reality, every war creates a reason for itself). And they are increasing the number of casualties every 10 years. The total population of Armenians (was) around 1.5 to 2 million before war. Calculate their population today and compare with other people’s population check the difference. Turkey lost 4 million lives and in 90 years the population increased from 15 million to 80 million, 5 times. There are more than 6-7 million Armenians and it is also 5 times of 1.5 million,” Suzer told GV Wire, adding more of the usual Turkish denialist boiler plate statements to his response.

“We do not like to promote hatred like them. If they need the truth, ask them (to) research the archives,” said Suzer, who in a post script to his email to GV Wire also said: “please do not write the things about Armenian issues, this is not related with the delegation and I just wanted to give a friendly advice.”
“It is astonishing that while Trelodex President Gurkan Suzer claims that a meeting of a Turkish agricultural delegation with Fresno entities was cancelled last week due to scheduling conflicts, yet feels the need to use the tired Turkish government line to deny the Armenian Genocide,” the Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region, whose Fresno chapter was active in the canceling the meeting, said in a statement about Suzer’s efforts to deny the Armenian Genocide.

“By urging Fresno authorities to ignore Armenian concerns, Suzer demonstrates his and his cohorts’ ignorance by attempting to distort history in a state and a city that have been on the forefront of Armenian Genocide recognition in the United States. After all, Fresno became a haven for refugees and survivors of systematic Turkish atrocities against Armenians, including the Armenian Genocide,” added the ANCA-WR.

“The ANCA-WR will continue to oppose efforts by Turkey’s business sector to infiltrate into California’s economy. This latest effort at denying the Armenian Genocide clearly demonstrates that the Republic of Turkey and its business representatives are not acting in good faith and through such statements and maneuvers are actually insulting the intelligence of California state and local officials, as well as its residents,” explained the advocacy organization.