Hundreds in Dearborn mark Armenian genocide
April 18, 2005, 6:56 AM
Detroit Free Press, MI
April 18 2005
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Hundreds of people have gathered in remembrance
of the Armenian genocide, a mass killing in Ottoman Turkey during
World War I.
Armenians say that 1.5 million people were killed between 1915 and
1919 by Turkish authorities who accused them of helping the invading
Russian army during World War I.
Remembering the victims “can help inspire us to stop modern genocides,
which still go on,” U.S. Sen. Carl Levin said Sunday before the
gathering Sunday at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center in
Dearborn. “It can encourage and energize us just to remember them.”
Among the participants in the memorial was Sandra Azoian Hutchinson.
Huntchinson’s great aunt watched her two young sons killed in front of
her and for years carried locks of the boys’ hair with her, bringing
them with her to Michigan.
At her request, the locks were buried with her, the Detroit Free
Press said.
Levin and other speakers said the Turkish government should recognize
the Armenian genocide.
Turkey rejects the genocide claim and says Armenians were killed in
civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. France and
Russia are among countries that have declared the killings genocide,
but the United States has not.