British Government takes first step towards Armenian Genocide recognition - Press release from CRAG regarding Holocaust Memorial Day, 28 Jan 2002

London, 28th January 2002 ~ The British Government has signaled its willingness to address the issue of Armenian genocide recognition through its inclusion of the Armenian genocide in Britain's second Holocaust Memorial Day, which took place on January 27th 2002. In a marked change of policy from the 2001 memorial, the Home Office lead event in Manchester commemorated the 1915 genocide by including, Ara Nahabedian, Oliver Langford and Kate Whitney in the commemoration ceremonies.

Hratche Koundarjian, Communications Director of CRAG, said "This event was a poignant commemoration and reflection of the Holocaust and other genocide of the 20th century. I am glad that the Home Office has decided to respond positively to the media and public disquiet surrounding the Armenian genocide'sexclusion from the 2001 event."

"This loss saddens me as my ancestors were persecuted because they were Armenians"

Ara Nahabedian at the Holocaust Memorial Day National Event

Ara Nahabedian, invited to speak at the National event, outlined his family's escape from Turkey during W.W.I, and also commented on his life in Britain as a refugee from the Middle East. He concluded his comments by saying "As my family is a minority in the larger UK society, I expect that eventually there will be an assimilation and loss of culture and identity. This loss saddens me as my ancestors were persecuted because they were Armenians and yet in this free society we will eventually lose this identity that they upheld. All this loss will be in vain if their sufferings are ignored."

During W.W.I Ara's grandfather Arakel Nahabedian, his wife and two children lived in Sivas [Sepasdia], in the Ottoman Empire. They fled death by escaping to the city of Aleppo Syria where Ara was born. In turn Ara escaped the upheavals there and settled with his family in UK.

Following directly after Ara's contribution was Kate Whitney, a British member of Armenian Church choir of Manchester, who sang the traditional Armenian folk song "Groong" which describes the longing of the displaced for news about the people left behind.

Oliver Langford, an accomplished British-Armenian violinist later performed 'Tsirani Tsar' (The Apricot Tree), which is a lament about how the innocuous things in life can at times remind people about the losses they have suffered.

This piece of music was particularly moving as the composer and clergyman Gomidas was deported along with 250 other Armenian intellectuals into the Turkish interior by the Ottoman Government on April 24th 1915, the date on which Armenians now commemorate the genocide. Pressure from the German and American Embassy in Istanbul secured his release. He lost his mind after what he had seen and eventually died in an asylum in Paris. He has since become a symbol to Armenians regarding the collective loss suffered.

Hitler's 1939 quote "Who now remembers the extermination of the Armenians" was also displayed at the event, as part of a video piece explaining the history of 'Britain and the Holocaust 1939-45.'

The Home Office also included a substantive section on the Armenian genocide in this years 'Holocaust Memorial Day Education Pack' which has been distributed to schools throughout Britain, (the text of which is available on the CRAG www.24april.org website). The education pack material, at one point, even refers to the Armenian experience as "genocide."

Apart from those taking part directly within the commemoration, over 20 Armenians from the community in Manchester were invited as members of the audience.

CRAG is a single-issue pressure group based in London, UK, that seeks to end the denial of the Armenian genocide which, since the 1960s, has been downplayed and dismissed by the Turkish Government. The Foreign Office refuses to apply the term 'genocide' to the Armenian WWI experience and, in so doing, ignores the overwhelming academic and scholarly evidence present, much of which emanates from British Government achieves.

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