Biden-1st US President to Acknowledge 1915 Armenian Genocide on its 106th Anniversary

April 24, 2021 – It took 106 years, but President Joseph R. Biden is the very first US president to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide – a genocide committed by Ottoman Turks in 1915. For those who are unaware of the religious affiliation of the Armenian people – Armenia was the nation to adopt Christianity as its ‘state’ religion, in 301AD.

Historically, the Armenian people had been asking many US presidents to acknowledge the atrocities of the 1915 genocide that killed over 1.5 million Armenian people – many women and children. Yet, until Joseph Biden, none of the American presidents had ever made that announcement – many of them unable or unwilling to stand up the United States NATO ally – Turkey.

Since 1952, Turkey has been a NATO member (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and since that time no US president had either the fortitude, strength of character, and moral authority to call the atrocities what they were – genocide. Since the time of Woodrow Wilson – the 28th US president in office at the time of the genocide – he and other had been privy to the barbaric acts by their own ambassadors, and that of ministers of foreign nations, reporting back on the cruel and barbaric atrocities against the Armenians. Reports of eyewitnesses seeing Armenian women and children ushered into churches, while the government soldiers would block the doors and set the church on fire, reports of marching them into the desert under the pretense of dislocation, when the real intent extermination by any means, including, guns, knives, drowning, starvation, rape and murder – some were even crucified. Reports of children slaughtered, and pregnant women disembodied – having their fetus cut from their abdomens – the cruelties and atrocities were endless. Yet, while the Armenians were being marched to their deaths, the industrious Armenians had their homes and valuables plundered by the Turks.

Children were either killed, or made to serve as slaves. Some older girls were taken as wives against their will. Some younger children were hidden by sympathetic Turks who did not follow the dictate of their leaders and raised as a family member. Yet many children either died of starvation, dysentery – the lucky ones ended up in orphanages where missionaries helped to gather-up Armenian children. Those were the lucky ones who had barely survived the ravages of the genocide.

As a result, over a million Armenians perished, but some managed to escape to other nations in Europe, Middle-East and eventually America. My own heritage is marred by loss an grief by those we lost and never had the benefit of knowing – despite having the good fortune of growing up in America. The epic proportion of this genocide is  vast – yet the harm is multi-generational.

But as proud Christians, we can now say – an American president stood up – and said what was ’til now unspeakable by any US president. That the Armenian Genocide did happen, that 1.5 million Armenians perished at the hands of the Ottoman Turks – and it must be acknowledged for the human rights atrocity that it is. For only when an atrocity is recognized can healing start to begin. The European nations recognized the Armenian Genocide long ago, but til now, it had eluded the history books of American children.

Yet, on this 106th anniversary of a cruel and barbaric Armenian Genocide of 1915 – the first genocide of the 20th Century – a humanitarian disgrace to the Armenian people – the first people to adopt Christianity as its state religion – just got their day of recognition in the annals of US history on April 24, 2021 – over a century later. Unfortunately, Israel is still noncommittal on its recognition of the Armenian Genocide due to its alliances and ties to Turkey – even though the Armenian Genocide no doubt gave impetus to Hitler to conduct the Holocaust against the Jews over 25 years later. In fact, Adolf Hitler using the Armenian Genocide as a template for what is widely recognized as the Jewish Holocaust beginning in 1941, famously stated,  “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”  As for Turkey ever acknowledging the atrocities it committed against the Armenian people – that will most likely never happen in any century, now or in the future.