Impact Still Resounds from Biden’s Genocide Statement

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President Joseph Biden made good on a campaign promise by acknowledging the Armenian Genocide as a mass killing in a statement released April 24. The shock is still reverberating globally and locally. It is the first time a sitting president has used the word “Genocide” in connection with the systematic killing of more than 1.5 million Armenians in 1915. The action came on the 106th anniversary and commemoration of the event.

In his statement, Biden said, “We remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever happening again…with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, 1.5 million Armenians were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination.

“We honor the victims…so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history,” he said.

Descendants of genocide survivors, and the survivors themselves, have long called for recognition of the Armenian massacre as the first major genocide of the 20th century. Turkey has maintained a stance of denial for more than 100 years, despite overwhelming oral and photographic evidence, coupled with impartial documentation.

Drawn to the Midwest

Armenians began emigrating from their Ottoman-controlled homelands in the 1890s, landing on the east coast of the U.S., and migrating to the Midwest’s flourishing industrial cities around Lake Michigan, where factory employment provided an economic base. By the 1890s the first trickle of Armenians arrived in West Allis, South Milwaukee and Racine. Those numbers became stagnant in the 1920s when the U.S. instituted stricter immigration policies but grew after the 1960s immigration reform as Armenians left new upheavals in the Middle East and surged after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Oscar Tatosian, the Honorary Armenian Consul for Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri, is adamant in saying, “This statement brings a recognition and affirmation that documents, while establishing a platform to teach, comment, raise an awareness and sensitivity throughout the world and Midwest. This is an opportunity to speak out on the grave matter of genocide in the past, present, and future. If Pres. Biden’s statement saves just one more life…something has been accomplished.”

Other local community leader agree. “Pres. Biden’s statement comforts us because the descendants of the Armenian genocide have been waiting for this proclamation for many decades,” said Fr. Guregh Hambardzumyan, pastor of St. John the Baptist Armenian Orthodox Church in Milwaukee. “In our community, we have many Armenians whose family members survived this genocide and settled in the United States.

“Unfortunately, most survivors have passed away and not here with us today to take note that the world has finally opened its eyes, and proclaimed what should have been done decades ago,” he said.

Vibrant Armenian communities continue in the area in Southeast Wisconsin with two Armenian churches in Milwaukee County, two in Racine County and two more in Waukegan.

“On behalf of our board and congregation, we welcome with gratitude the recognition of the massacres and atrocities committed by the Ottoman Turks and the Young Turks…specifically in 1915, as genocide,” said Fr. Daron Stepanian, pastor of Waukegan’s St. Paul Armenian Church. “Truly our martyrs waited long enough to be recognized as victims of genocide. May this recognition, from the president, bring peace to their souls, and keep the president in good health for years to come.”

Prior to his first term of office, former Pres. Barack Obama made a campaign pledge to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. He later reneged in lieu of monetary funding to Turkey, for bases and fly-over air zones, as “military necessities.”

“I look forward to future developments,” said Fr. Hambardzumyan.