Chaim Ouizmann April 16, 2015
Just when our people is preparing to commemorate the memory of the six million of our people exterminated by Nazi Germany, my thoughts are directed to the Armenian cause.
Indeed, on 24 April, will commemorate our Armenian friends, in turn, the centenary of the genocide which they were direct victims, mostly from 1915 to 1917 genocide perpetrated by the government led by the Union and Progress Party the “Young Turks” .
One and a half million men, women and children were exterminated.
How we Jews, holders of so much suffering, can we remain indifferent to that of the Armenians?
The drama of the early 20th century, “the first genocide of the 20th century”, in the words of Pope Francis April 12, 2015 before a delegation of Armenian Patriarchs, cleverly planned and executed drama with great cruelty by Talaat Pasha, Djemal Pasha and Enver Pasha, is as much ours as theirs. Why is this cause ours? What unspeakable catastrophe of the Holocaust which we were the victims he forced us to explicitly recognize the tragedy of the Armenians?
The Holocaust would probably not take place, or at least would not have known the dimensions that we know him, if nations had emerged and had intervened in their day for the Armenians.