11/14/2017

Appeal to the Presidium and the Central Committee of the German Association of Cities and Towns (“Deutscher Städtetag”): Keep the memory of the genocide against Christians in the Ottoman Empire alive!

Meeting of the “Deutscher Städtetag” in Berlin (November 15) (Press Release)

It is important to keep the memory of the victims alive! The people of Germany should be informed about the painful history of the Armenians and Assyrians/Aramaeans/Chaldeans and about the genocide, which began in 1915. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

On the occasion of the meeting of the Presidium and the Central Committee of the German Association of Cities and Towns (“Deutscher Städtetag”) on Wednesday (November 15) in Berlin, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) appealed to the President of the Association, Eva Lohse, to encourage as many municipalities as possible to install commemorative plaques for the ancestors of the Armenian and Assyrian-Aramaic Christians living in Germany who were murdered in the Ottoman Empire.

“It is important to keep the memory of the victims alive! The people of Germany should be informed about the painful history of the Armenians and Assyrians/Aramaeans/Chaldeans and about the genocide, which began in 1915”, the human rights organization wrote to the president. “After all, due to the close cooperation with the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, the German Reich was informed about the fact that the Christians were persecuted at that time. The death marches, mass deportations, forced labor, massacres of men, and the enslavement of their wives and children were known.”

“That is why it should be of special concern to us to create a place of mourning for the Armenians/Assyrians/Chaldeans and the Greeks living among us – and to set a sign against forgetting,” said Kamal Sido, the STP’s Middle East consultant, on Tuesday. With regard to how this historical crime is addressed in Turkey and throughout the Middle East, he added: “A denial of these genocide crimes must not be tolerated in Germany. We must actively participate in initiatives to come to terms with the past.” In the summer, the STP had already addressed the Presidium of the “Deutscher Städtetag” with an appeal regarding future memorial sites for the murdered Christians of the Middle East.

The human rights activist emphasized that it is necessary for Germany to make a clear statement against the oppression and discrimination of Christians and other religious minorities in Turkey and throughout the Middle East. “More and more Islamic Sharia laws are being adopted, and it is the minorities and the women who suffer. We must do everything we can to demonstrate that the European countries are demanding and promoting a peaceful and tolerant coexistence of the different religious communities.”

The “Deutscher Städtetag” consists of 3,400 independent cities and municipalities with a total of almost 52 million inhabitants. Its Central Committee meets up three times a year. Its approximately 135 members are appointed by the state associations.