The events of spring should be filled with one’s hope and aspirations. Newness and rebirth should be “in the air.” For many Californians this is the case.

However, for Armenian-Americans in California, across the United States and around the world, spring brings us all to the day (April 24, 1915 to be exact) when the wholesale slaughter of 1.5 million people took place in World War I by the Ottoman Turks.

The heinous crime of “man’s inhumanity to man,” genocidal brutality and ethnic
cleansing was perpetuated by a government bent on destroying a people indigenous to that part of the world for 4,000 years. They had dreams and plans for the future, just like anyone else. They were individuals who had families, laughed and were ordinary people trying to do the best they could to make a living.

These plans were literally blown out, like the flame of a candle, when on that
spring day in April in a land far away the intellectuals of the Armenian community were rounded up. It is known how they died. Yet it is inappropriate to go into detail here. Suffice to say that only few ever came back from those “death marches.”

One of them was the clergyman “Gomidas” who is one of Armenia’s most beloved musicians. He had seen his fellow countrymen endure such pain and sorrow that he never recovered. He spent the last decade and a half in a mental institution in Paris. A tragic end for so brilliant a man.

After the intellectuals were murdered, the rest of the populace then went on death marches, were sold into slavery, died of starvation, saw unspeakable crimes, encountered all sorts of illnesses and eventually succumbed to the genocidal plan perpetuated upon them. This went on from 1915-1923 when it became obvious that the Armenian nation was near extinction as a race.

Of course, time went on and people began to recover. Armenians began to build slowly but surely. The recovery was a long and arduous one. They began to leave their ancient homeland and were dispersed to the four corners of the world. Eventually a diaspora developed with its churches, schools, sports teams, philanthropic foundations, cultural organizations and many other groups that enrich the lives of thousands of your neighbors.

As a reader of this article you may ask, “What significance is this for me?” “Why is such an event that happened so long ago important or even relevant?” The answer is that, “No man is an island.”

Of those left after the Genocide a substantial number became your neighbors. Now their offspring are living near you after those terrible days.

More important is that the West did very little in preventing the carnage. The Armenian nation was the first to embrace Christianity in 301 A.D. This predates the Roman Empire under Constantine’s acceptance in 310 A.D. However, pleas of help were largely ignored except for the American missionaries who provided food, shelter and other necessities to a ravaged people. Even education was given to those children who were left. The terms orphan and “starving Armenian” became bywords for the era of the 1920s.

The importance of the West doing little can be seen about 20 years later. Let’s look to Germany, Hitler, Kristelnacht, etc. The list goes on. At the height of the planned Holocaust of the Jews, Hitler was asked if he wasn’t going too far. He stated, “Who nowadays remembers the Armenians?”

To the casual observer’s amazement the final outcome of all this has been a positive one for the most part. A people’s spirit doesn’t die. The only thing that has died here is the truth. After all the documentation, reports, articles, books, eyewitness accounts and veritable libraries full of information, the event is still “alleged” [by some]. This is the final and worst crime that is ongoing. The last victim is the truth.

Yes, no man is an island. For if more attention was given to preventing the Armenian Genocide the Holocaust may not have occurred.

In the month of April you will see many manifestations of the commemoration of the Genocide of 1915. It will involve your neighbors and perhaps friends.

Just remember the victims and the significance of the events so that one lesson is learned. That is, that the last victim in all of this isn’t the truth.

Robert Kachadourian