Armenian Community Gathers At San Francisco City Hall To Mark 100 Years Since Genocide

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 SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) – Lines wrapped around the block outside San Francisco City Hall on Friday night as people marked 100 years since the Armenian genocide.

City Hall was packed, not for a gala or celebration, but a remembrance. “One hundred years have gone by, but no one has forgotten what has happened – the consequences continue to be felt,” said David Balabanian, who attended Friday’s event.

It was 100 years ago Friday that the then Ottoman Empire began a systemic slaughter that left 1.5 million Armenians dead.

> Recognition of this genocide that predated The Holocaust hasn’t been easy to come by. Pope Francis recently called the slaughter “the first genocide of the 20th century.”

“There are about one billion Catholics on earth and I view the recognition by the Pope as being very important,” said Dr. Stephan Astourian.

Despite a campaign promise, President Barack Obama has not used the word genocide.

But inside City Hall, amongst a sea of purple forget-me-nots, the atrocities were acknowledged.

Most historians said what happened to the Armenians was indeed genocide. The Turkish government adamantly denies it was genocide, and said Armenians were victims of the chaos of the collapsing Ottoman Empire at le = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Armenian Genocide 100 years VIDEO 24.04.2015

Pope's remarks on Armenian slaughter spur Turkey outrage

VATICAN CITY –  Pope Francis sparked a diplomatic incident with Turkey on Sunday by calling the slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks "the first genocide of the 20th century" and urging the international community to recognize it as such.

Francis, who has close ties to the Armenian community from his days in Argentina, defended his pronouncement by saying it was his duty to honor the memory of the innocent men, women and children who were "senselessly" murdered by Ottoman Turks 100 years ago this month.

"Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it," he said at the start of a Mass in the Armenian Catholic rite in St. Peter's Basilica honoring the centenary.

In a subsequent message directed to all Armenians, Francis called on all heads of state and international organizations to recognize the truth of what transpired and oppose such crimes "without ceding to ambiguity or compromise."

Turkey, which has long denied a genocide took place, immediately summoned the Vatican ambassador to express its displeasure, a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Ankara said on customary condition of anonymity.

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey, however, has insisted that the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest, not genocide. It has fiercely lobbied to prevent countries, including the Holy See, from officially recognizing the Armenian massacre as genocide.

Turkey's embassy to the Holy See canceled a planned news conference for Sunday, presumably after learning that the pope would utter the word "genocide" over its objections.

Francis' words had immediate effect in St. Peters, bolstering the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Aram I, to thank Francis for his clear condemnation and recall that "genocide" is a crime against humanity that requires reparation.

"International law spells out clearly that condemnation, recognition and reparation of a genocide are closely interconnected," Aram said in English at the end of the Mass to applause from the pews.

Speaking as if he were at a political rally, Aram said the Armenian cause is a cause of justice, and that justice is a gift of God. "Therefore, the violation of justice is a sin against God," he said.

The pope's declaration prompted mixed reactions in the streets in Istanbul. Some said they supported it, but others did not agree.

"I don't support the word genocide being used by a great religious figure who has many followers," said Mucahit Yucedal, 25. "Genocide is a serious allegation."

Several European countries recognize the massacres as genocide, though Italy and the United States, for example, have avoided using the term officially given the importance they place on Turkey as an ally.

The Holy See, too, places great importance in its relationship with the moderate Muslim nation, especially as it demands Muslim leaders condemn the slaughter of Christians by Muslim extremists in neighboring Iraq and Syria.

But Francis' willingness to rile Ankara with his words showed once again that he has few qualms about taking diplomatic risks for issues close to his heart. He took a similar risk by inviting the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to pray together for peace at the Vatican -- a summit that was followed by the outbreak of fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Francis is not the first pope to call the massacre a genocide. In his remarks, Francis cited a 2001 declaration signed by St. John Paul II and the Armenian church leader, Karenkin II, which said the deaths were considered "the first genocide of the 20th century."

But the context of Francis' pronunciation was significant: He uttered the words during an Armenian rite Mass in St. Peter's Basilica marking the 100th anniversary of the slaughter, alongside the Armenian Catholic patriarch, Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, Armenian Christian church leaders and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who sat in a place of honor in the basilica.

The definition of genocide has long been contentious. The United Nations in 1948 defined genocide as killing and other acts intended to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, but many dispute which mass killings should be called genocide.

In his remarks Sunday, Francis said the Armenian slaughter was the first of three "massive and unprecedented" genocides last century that was followed by the Holocaust and Stalinism. He said other mass killings had followed, including in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia.

"It seems that the human family has refused to learn from its mistakes caused by the law of terror, so that today too there are those who attempt to eliminate others with the help of a few and with the complicit silence of others who simply stand by," he said.

Francis has frequently denounced the "complicit silence" of the world community in the face of the modern-day slaughter of Christians and other religious minorities by Islamic extremists.

During Sunday's Mass, Francis also honored the Armenian community at the start of the Mass by pronouncing a 10th-century Armenian mystic, St. Gregory of Narek, a doctor of the church. Only 35 people have been given the title, which is reserved for those whose writings have greatly served the universal church.

The Mass was rich in traditional Armenian music, with haunting hymns used at key points. Children dressed in traditional costumes presented the gifts at the altar, which was bathed in a cloud of incense.

Turkey anger at Pope Francis Armenian 'genocide' claim

Turkey has recalled its envoy to the Vatican after Pope Francis described the mass killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule in WW1 as "genocide".

Turkey has reacted with anger to the comment made by the Pope at a service in Rome earlier on Sunday.

Armenia and many historians say up to 1.5 million people were killed by Ottoman forces in 1915.

But Turkey has always disputed that figure and said the deaths were part of a civil conflict triggered by WW1.

The row has continued to sour relations between Armenia and Turkey.

'Bleeding wound'

The Pope made the comments at a Mass in the Armenian Catholic rite at Peter's Basilica, attended by the Armenian president and church leaders.

He said that humanity had lived through "three massive and unprecedented tragedies" in the last century.

"The first, which is widely considered 'the first genocide of the 20th Century', struck your own Armenian people," he said, in a form of words used by a declaration by Pope John Paul II in 2001.

Pope Francis also referred to the crimes "perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism" and said other genocides had followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia.

He said it was his duty to honour the memories of those who were killed.

"Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it," the Pope added.

Armenia's President Serzh Sargsyan welcomed his comments, saying they sent a powerful message to the international community.

But Turkey immediately summoned the Vatican's ambassador to Ankara for an explanation, and then later recalled its ambassador from Rome.

The foreign ministry said it felt "great disappointment and sadness" at the Pope's remarks, which it said would cause a "problem of trust" between them.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted: "The Pope's statement, which is far from the legal and historical reality, cannot be accepted.

"Religious authorities are not the places to incite resentment and hatred with baseless allegations," he added.Pope Francis, who visited Turkey last year, would have been perfectly conscious that he would offend the moderate Muslim country by his use of the word "genocide".

But the Pope's powerful phrase "concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to bleed without bandaging it" extended his condemnation to all other, more recent, mass killings.

It now remains to be seen how far his remarks will impact upon the Vatican's future relations with moderate Muslim states. It was a bold decision but totally coherent with Pope Francis' philosophy of open discussion about moral arguments.

Pope Francis' focus today on Armenia, the first country to adopt Christianity as its state religion, even before the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine, serves as yet another reminder of the Catholic Church's widely spread roots in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Varda in instagram

'We have not forgotten our roots': Somber Kim and Khloe lay red tulips at memorial commemorating 1.5m victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide during eight-day tour of their homeland

Reality stars Kim and Khloe Kardashian laid red tulips at the memorial commemorating the victims of the Armenian genocide 100 years ago on Friday.

Wearing a long red jumpsuit, Kim, 34, and her sister visited the eternal flame of the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex on the outskirts of the capital Yerevan as part of an eight-day tour of their ancestors' homeland.

The pair looked somber, and at one point Khloe, 30, was seen wiping tears away as she stood in silence with her two Armenian cousins.

Kim arrived with her rapper husband Kanye West, their child North West and Khloe on Wednesday and were greeted by hundreds of fans.

Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan received Kardashian and her family in Yerevan on Thursday.

'It was an honor to meet the Prime Minister of Armenia, Hovik Abrahamyan who expressed how proud they are that we are proud Armenians and we have not forgotten our roots! #NeverForget,' Kardashian wrote on her Instagram account. 

The Armenian ancestors are on their father's side - his family emigrated to the United States from an area that now lies in Turkey.

During her eight-day trip, Kim and her film crew will visit Yerevan's genocide memorial and Armenia's National Archives to see documents about her ancestors.

She is then to travel to the provincial city of Gyumri where her distant relatives live.

The 100th anniversary of the mass killings in World War One will be commemorated by Armenia on April 24.

Armenia, some Western historians and some foreign parliaments refer to the mass killings as genocide.  

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart and have long sought to win international recognition of the massacres as genocide.

Turkey rejects the claims, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.

Beyond snapping selfies with her fans, Kim has refused to talk with the press but instead took to social media to express her delight at being in Armenia.

'Armenia we are here!!!!! We are so grateful to be here & start this journey of a lifetime! Thank you to everyone who greeted us! I can't wait to explore our country and have some yummy food!' Kardashian wrote on Instagram.

'My husband and daughter came to Armenia as well to see my heritage and learn about my ancestors! My cousins came along too! So excited I can't sleep.'

There is now attention on whether Pope Francis with utter the word 'genocide' during his homily on Sunday when he will declare a little-known 10th-century

Armenian mystic a doctor of the church, one of the highest honors a pope can bestow.

Francis avoided the word on Thursday when he met the visiting Armenian church delegation, but said that what transpired 100 years ago involved men 'who were capable of systematically planning the annihilation of their brothers.'

'Let us invoke divine mercy so that for the love of truth and justice, we can heal every wound and bring about concrete gestures of peace and reconciliation between two nations that are still unable to come to a reasonable consensus on this sad event,' he said.  

According to reports in the Turkish media, Turkey has been working behind the scenes to discourage Francis from uttering the term 'genocide' and reportedly successfully campaigned to prevent the papal Mass from being celebrated on April 24, which is considered the actual anniversary of the start of the slaughter.

Last year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a message of condolences to descendants of Armenians killed and said Turkey was ready to confront the history of the killings.  

More recently, Erdogan has accused Armenians of not looking for the truth but seeking to score points against Turkey, saying numerous calls from Turkey for joint research to document precisely what happened had gone unanswered.

The Armenians have found a willing supporter in Francis, who as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was particularly close to the Armenian community in Argentina and referred to the 'genocide' of Armenians three times in his 2010 book, 'On Heaven and Earth.'

As pope, Francis provoked Turkish anxiety — and a minor diplomatic incident — when in June 2013 he told a delegation of Armenian Christians that the killing was 'the first genocide of the 20th century.'

THE FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST: THE ARMENIAN MASSACRE THAT INSPIRED HITLER 

The killing of 1.5m Armenians by the Ottoman Turks during World War I remains one of the bloodiest and most contentious events of the 20th century, and has been called the first modern genocide. 

Chillingly, Adolf Hitler used the episode to justify the Nazi murder of six million Jews, saying in 1939: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"book

So how exactly did the events of 1915-17 unfold? Just as Hitler wanted a Nazi-dominated world that would be Judenrein - cleansed of its Jews - so in 1914 the Ottoman Empire wanted to construct a Muslim empire that would stretch from Istanbul to Manchuria.

Armenia, an ancient Christian civilisation spreading out from the eastern end of the Black Sea, stood in its way.

At the turn of the 20th century, there were two million Christian Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. Already, 200,000 had been killed in a series of pogroms - most of them brutally between 1894 and 1896.

In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I against the Allies and launched a disastrous military campaign against Russian forces in the Caucasus. It blamed defeat on the Armenians, claiming they had colluded with the Russians.

A prominent Turkish writer at the time described the war as 'the awaited day' when the Turks would exact 'revenge, the horrors of which have not yet been recorded in history'.

Through the final months of 1914, the Ottoman government put together a number of 'Special Organisation' units, armed gangs consisting of thousands of convicts specifically released from prison for the purpose.

These killing squads of murderers and thieves were to perpetrate the greatest crimes in the genocide. They were the first state bureaucracy to implement mass killings for the purpose of race extermination. One army commander described them at the time as the 'butchers of the human species'.

On the night of April 24, 1915 - the anniversary of which is marked by Armenians around the world - the Ottoman government moved decisively, arresting 250 Armenian intellectuals. This was followed by the arrest of a further 2,000.

Some died from torture in custody, while many were executed in public places. The resistance poet, Daniel Varoujan, was found disembowelled, with his eyes gouged out. One university professor was made to watch his colleagues have their fingernails and toenails pulled out, before being blinded. He eventually lost his mind, and was let loose naked into the streets.

There were reports of crucifixions, at which the Turks would torment their victims: 'Now let your Christ come and help you!' 

So began a carefully orchestrated campaign to eradicate the Armenians. Throughout this period, Ottoman leaders deceived the world, orchestrating the slaughter using code words in official telegrams.

At later war crimes trials, several military officers testified that the word 'deportation' was used to mean 'massacre' or 'annihilation'.

Between May and August 1915, the Armenian population of the eastern provinces was deported and murdered en masse. 

In urban areas, a town crier was used to deliver the deportation order, and the entire male population would be taken outside the city limits and killed - 'slaughtered like sheep'. Women and children would then be executed, deported to concentration camps or simply turned out into the deserts and left to starve to death. 

Walking skeletons begged for food, and women threw their babies into lakes rather than hand them over to the Turks. There was mass looting and pillaging of Armenian goods. It is reported that civilians burned bodies to find the gold coins the Armenians swallowed for safekeeping.

Conditions in the concentration camps were appalling. The majority were located near the modern Iraqi and Syrian frontiers, in the desert between Jerablus and Deir ez-Zor - described as 'the epicentre of death'. Up to 70,000 Armenians were herded into each camp, where dysentery and typhus were rife.

There, they were left to starve or die of thirst in the burning sun, with no shelter. In some cases, the living were forced to eat the dead. Few survived.

In four days alone, from 10-14 June 1915, the gangs 'eliminated' some 25,000 people in the Kemah Erzincan area alone.

In September 1915, the American consul in Kharput, Leslie A. Davis, reported discovering the bodies of nearly 10,000 Armenians dumped into several ravines near beautiful Lake Goeljuk, calling it the 'slaughterhouse province'.

Tales of atrocity abound. Historians report that the killing squads dashed infants on rocks in front of their mothers. 

One young boy remembered his grandfather, the village priest, kneeling down to pray for mercy before the Turks. Soldiers beheaded him, and played football with the old man's decapitated head before his devastated family.

At the horrific Ras-ul-Ain camp near Urfa, two German railway engineers reported seeing three to four hundred women arrive in one day, completely naked. One witness told how Sergeant Nuri, the overseer of the camp, bragged about raping children. 

In the desert regions, the Turks set up primitive gas chambers, stuffing Armenians into caves and asphyxiating them with brush fires.

Everywhere, there were Armenian corpses: in lakes and rivers, in empty desert cisterns and village wells. Travellers reported that the stench of death pervaded the landscape.d.'

By 1917, the Armenian 'problem', as it was described by Ottoman leaders, had been thoroughly 'resolved'. Muslim families were brought in to occupy empty villages.

Even after the war, the Ottoman ministers were not repentant. In 1920, they praised those responsible for the genocide, saying: 'These things were done to secure the future of our homeland, which we know is greater and holier than even our own lives.'

The British government pushed for those responsible for the killing to be punished, and in 1919 a war crimes tribunal was set up.

Kardashian's staff arrives in Yerevan VIDEO