April 24, 2013
Hundreds gathered under cloudy skies on Wednesday morning in Pasadena for a pair of solemn outdoor ceremonies commemorating the Armenian genocide and calling for official recognition of the tragedy around the world.
A crowd of about 400 at Pasadena City Hall assembled for the event organized by the local chapter of the Armenian National Committee of America, where Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca was among those officials who spoke at the event.
At the same time, nearly 200 others convened at Memorial Park for a ceremony sponsored by the Pasadena Armenian Community Coalition.
At Memorial Park, participants laid white carnations at the proposed site of a genocide memorial and offered song and prayer in Armenian after performances the Marshall Fundamental School orchestra and choir.
“We all know the story of this crime against humanity,” said Kevork Halladjian, an adjunct Armenian language and culture professor at Pasadena City College, “but we must also work to stop others from committing genocide.”
Both groups are proposing designs for a city Armenian genocide memorial to be erected in 2015. The occasion will mark the 100th anniversary of massacres that claimed the lives of some 1.5 million people between 1915 and 1918 at the hands of the Ottoman government in what is now modern-day Turkey.
“The scars are not healed,” former Pasadena Mayor Bill Paparian said during the event at City Hall. “We are still haunted by the emptiness that comes from losing entire families. When a loved one disappears, the disappearance lasts forever.”
Paparian was critical that the Armenian and American governments have failed to press the Turkish government for official recognition of the genocide, saying “the struggle for justice falls on the shoulders of Armenians in the [post-genocide] Diaspora — us.”
He also called for solidarity with all victims of terrorism, genocide and intolerance.
“If [Armenians] ever, even for a moment, close our eyes to the suffering and persecution of any minority anywhere on this globe, we dishonor our own martyred families,” Paparian said.