S5566 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— SENATE April 24, 1995 

to more than 11⁄2 million Armenian 

men, women, and children at the hands 

of the Ottoman Empire. As we honor 

the memory of these individuals, we 

renew our commitment that the world 

will never forget their tragic suffering. 

Between 1915 and 1923, officials of the 

Ottoman Empire carried out a systematic campaign to eradicate all Armenians. Innocent Armenians were murdered and those who survived were 

forced to flee their homeland and live 

in exile. Many of the survivors later 

made their way to the United States. 

The campaign of genocide began with 

the execution of the Armenian leadership and proceeded with the targeting 

of the entire male population. It continued with the persecution of Armenian women, children, and the elderly, 

who were sent on forced death marches 

to be raped, tortured, and murdered. 

During this brutal 8-year period, over 

11⁄2 million Armenians died through 

massacres, disease, and starvation. 

Unfortunately, even today, the Armenian people face continued violence 

and ethnic hatred. Since 1988, the conflict between Christian Armenians and 

Moslem Azerbaijanis for control of 

Nagorno-Karabakh has resulted in over 

10,000 deaths and almost 11⁄2 million refugees. Despite the May 1994 cease-fire 

and the armistice agreement signed the 

following month, a permanent solution 

to the conflict has yet to be found. 

The United States has provided substantial humanitarian assistance to 

Armenia, but it has become increasingly difficult to deliver this assistance 

because of the continuing blockade by 

the Governments of Azerbaijan and 

Turkey. As a result, Armenia suffers 

from a long-standing shortage of food, 

fuel, and medical supplies. We need to 

redouble our efforts to end the current 

crisis and promote peaceful development of the region. 

I commend the tireless efforts of the 

Armenian-Americans for their efforts 

to promote a peaceful solution to the 

conflict, and for keeping their Armenian heritage alive in the United 

States. 

As we commemorate and honor the 

victims of the Armenian genocide, we 

renew our commitment to combat ethnic hatred and to end injustice and 

conflicts throughout the world. 

f 

THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE 

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, today 

marks the 80th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, the first great crime 

of the 20th century. Over 11⁄2 million 

Armenians were murdered by the Ottoman Empire and its successor between 

1915 and 1923. Many in this country and 

throughout the world still mourn the 

relatives they lost in the Armenian 

genocide. It is important that we take 

a moment to remember this terrible 

crime against humanity. 

The 20th century has been not only a 

century of mass murder, but also a century of culpability in which the nations of the world have failed to act to 

prevent or halt genocide. The slaughter 

of Armenians was ignored. The international community was too slow to 

act when the Nazis began killing Jews 

and Gypsies. Our response to the ethnic 

cleansing in Bosnia and Rwanda has 

been feeble. 

However, on this day, we not only 

mourn the losses sustained by Armenia, we also celebrate the contributions 

of Armenians to our civilization and 

culture, such as fellow New Jerseyans 

Christopher Babigian, a prominent 

physician and community leader, 

Krikor Zadourian, a leading businessman and community leader, and Haigaz 

Grigorian, a community leader active 

in relief work in Armenia, to name a 

few. Indeed, the American-Armenian 

community has done much to enrich 

New Jersey and the United States. 

Armenia itself, Mr. President, has 

now reemerged as an independent state 

in which Armenians can control their 

own destiny for the first time in centuries. Tragically, though, Armenia is 

a country which has thus far been 

forced to devote its resources to war 

rather than to building a peaceful, 

prosperous, life for its people. 

It is our responsibility to educate future generations about the dangers of 

intolerance and to fulfill the pledge of 

‘‘never again.’’ Remembering the horrors of 1915–23 is one way of rousing 

ourselves to give meaning to this 

pledge. 

f 

THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE 

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise 

to join my colleagues in commemorating one of this century’s most tragic 

events. Today marks the 80th anniversary of the Armenian genocide of 1915– 

23, recognized by some as the first 

genocide of this century when 11⁄2 million Armenian men, women, and children lost their lives as a result of the 

brutal massacres and wholesale deportations conducted by the Turkish Ottoman rulers. 

Mr. President, on this day 80 years 

ago began one of the great martyrdoms 

of modern history, a systematic and 

methodical campaign to exterminate 

an innocent people. An entire nation 

was uprooted from its homeland scattering thousands of survivors around 

the world. Thus this human tragedy, 

having left few families unaffected, and 

its anniversary have special meaning 

to Armenians everywhere. 

The 1915 genocide represented the 

culmination of decades, and the development of an insidious pattern, of persecution against the Armenian community living in the Ottoman Empire. 

During the period 1894–96 and again in 

1909, thousands of Armenians lost their 

lives at the hands of their ruthless persecutors. On April 24, 1915, Armenian 

intellectual, religious, and political 

leaders, were rounded up by Ottoman 

authorities, taken to remote parts of 

Anatolia and murdered. 

At least 250,000 Armenians serving in 

the Ottoman Army were expelled and 

forced into labor battalions where executions and starvation were common. 

Men, women, and children were deported from their villages and obliged 

to march for weeks in the Syrian 

Desert where a majority of them perished. 

There was no shortage of contemporaneous newspaper accounts in the 

United States of the Ottoman Turkish 

atrocities—a simple review of headlines appearing in the New York Times 

in mid-1915 yields the following: 

‘‘Wholesale Massacres of Armenians by 

Turks,’’ ‘‘Tales of Armenian Horrors 

Confirmed,’’ ‘‘800,000 Armenians Counted Destroyed,’’ ‘‘Thousands Protest Armenian Murders.’’ In fact, through a 

congressionally chartered organization 

called Near East Relief, Americans 

contributed $113 million in humanitarian assistance from 1915 to 1930 to 

help the surivors. In addition, 132,000 

Armenian orphans were adopted in this 

country. 

Perhaps America’s most notable observer of the Armenian genocide was 

its distinguished ambassador to Turkey at the time, Henry Morgenthau, 

who published an article in the Red 

Cross magazine in 1918 describing the 

wide-scale and deliberate orchestration 

of Ottoman atrocities against the Armenian people as ‘‘the Greatest Horror 

in History.’’ Morgenthau has also written the following about the Armenian 

genocide in this now famous passage: 

Whatever crimes the most perverted instincts of the human mind can devise, and 

whatever refinements of persecutions and injustice the most debased imagination can 

conceive, became the daily misfortunes of 

this devoted people. I am confident that the 

whole history of the human race contains no 

such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the 

sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915. The 

killing of the Armenian people was accompanied by the systematic destruction of 

churches, schools, libraries, treasures of art 

and of history, in an attempt to eliminate all 

traces of a noble civilization some three 

thousand years old. 

Indeed, Morgenthau and other diplomats who witnessed and reported in 

great detail the enormous devastation 

of the Armenian community by the 

Ottomans would be astonished to learn 

today that the abundant evidence they 

collected, much of which is held in our 

own National Archives, and the testimony of survivors who are still with 

us, continue to be challenged without a 

trace of contrition. Despite the irrefutability of the documentation and testimony, including extensive accounts 

from survivors, witnesses, and historians, there are those who refuse to 

come to grips with the past, blame the 

victims, and deride reconciliation. 

Remembrance and understanding, 

however, are universal imperatives essential to all decent people an decent 

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April 24, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— SENATE S5567 

societies. To be sure, Armenians themselves are committed to the proposition that their experience has meaning for all of us—it must not remain 

the special province of the survivors. In 

other words, to ignore or forget the 

past is to remain its captive, and coming to terms with the past is an indispensable part of building for the future. 

Elie Wiesel, speaking at a Holocaust 

memorial service here in the Congress 

during the early 1980’s, expressed eloquently the importance of recognizing 

the Armenian genocide when he said: 

Before the planning of the final solution, 

Hitler asked, ‘‘Who remembers the Armenians?’’ He was right. No one remembered 

them, as no one remembered the Jews. Rejected by everyone, they felt expelled from 

history. 

From the darkness of this experience, 

Armenians have risen to demonstrate 

great courage and strength in their 

pursuit of human dignity and freedom. 

After enduring years of struggle under 

Soviet rule the Armenians gained independence at last. They now face the effects of a devastating earthquake in 

1988, an inhumane economic blockade 

which continues to hamper the delivery of needed humanitarian assistance, 

and the hostile forces arrayed against 

them in their volatile area of the 

world. 

Perhaps the Armenian-American 

community is one of the best examples 

of this indomitable human spirit of the 

Armenian people. The contribution of 

the Armenian community to the cultural, social, economic, and political 

life of America is a source of great 

strength and vitality in our Nation. 

Americans of Armenian origin have 

kept alive, and not let tragedy shatter, 

the rich faith and traditions of Armenian civilization. 

Mr. President, in keeping with our 

country’s highest principles and ideals, 

we pause and pay tribute today to the 

survivors and the victims who perished 

in the midst of a deliberate attempt to 

rid the world of the entire nation. As 

we recall the events that began on the 

night of April 24, 1915, we are reminded 

yet again of the fundamental importance of freedom and respect for human 

rights, and of the terrible consequences 

of their abuse. 

I ask unanimous consent that a recent column appearing in the New 

York Times entitled ‘‘For Old Armenians, April is the Cruelest Memory’’

be printed in the RECORD at this point. 

There being no objection, the article 

was ordered to be printed in the 

RECORD, as follows: 

[From the New York Times, Apr. 19, 1995] 

FOR OLD ARMENIANS, APRIL IS THE CRUELEST

MEMORY

(By Michael T. Kaufman) 

The forsythia at the Armenian Home in 

Flushing are blooming cheerily and the dandelions wink from the lawn, but for the old 

people who live there, April remains a time 

of heavy sorrows. They sit silently in sunny 

rooms, keeping to themselves what they saw 

and heard and smelled 80 years ago when 

their people were scattered and killed in the 

first of the century’s many genocides. 

‘‘We don’t talk to each other about it because everybody has their own terrible stories,’’ said Alice Dosdourian, who is 89 years 

old. They also no longer go to the commemorative gatherings, such as the one to be held 

this Sunday in Times Square, where younger 

people mark the years of Armenian agony 

that began when the Turks killed 235 intellectuals on April 24, 1915. The home’s administrators say the memorials were too upsetting for the residents. 

‘‘But I never forget,’’ Mrs. Dosdourian said. 

‘‘I think about what happened all the time. 

Sometimes I dream about it and I wake up 

and I hold myself and tell myself, ‘No, you 

do not have to worry, now you are in America.’’’ Mrs. Dosdourian has been in America 

since 1924. 

But if the old Armenians discreetly avoided making each other cry, they eagerly took 

advantage of a stranger’s visit to tell what 

they had seen and endured as children. They 

are, after all, among the last ones alive who 

had seen the horrors with their own eyes. 

They need to reveal their recollections to 

those who were not there, not to seek redress 

or make politics, but simply to have the 

facts acknowledged. And so, one after another, the Armenians clasped a stranger’s 

arm and testified. 

Mrs. Dosdourian had been born in 

Mazhdvan, a village in that part of Turkey 

where the Armenians had lived for many 

centuries. She was 6 years old in 1915 when 

soldiers came and took away her father, a 

shoemaker. She never saw him again. ‘‘My 

mother took me and my brother, who was 12, 

and we walked. We went from village to village. We went to the mountains. I do not 

know how many months we walked. Once we 

were in a village where all the men were Armenian heroes, big men who fought until 

they died. But then the soldiers came and 

made us walk again.’’

There were more than a million who 

walked, mostly women, children and old men 

forced across Mesopotamian deserts into 

Syria. Many drowned and died of hunger. 

Some, like Mrs. Dosdourian’s brother, were 

shot to death during the exodus. In all, the 

estimates of the dead ranged between 600,000 

and 1.5 million. Until World War II and the 

destruction of the Jews, it was the sufferings 

of the Armenians, well documented by journalists and writers, that set standards of 

horror and contemporary barbarism. 

‘‘Every night,’’ Mrs. Dosdourian said, ‘‘I 

heard people shouting that they were robbed 

by the gendarmes. We were always hungry. 

People were dying and we had no shovels to 

bury them. People stayed up at night to protect bodies from dogs and wild animals. People sang out to God, ‘How could you let this 

happen to us?’’’ The woman spoke 

unhesitatingly, sitting erect and keeping her 

clear blue eyes on her listener. 

‘‘One day we came to a river. There were 

many dead around but in the water there was 

the body of a young woman floating. I could 

see her long black hair spread out like a 

beautiful fan.’’ She shuddered and her clear 

blue eyes filled with tears. 

Annahid Verdanian also remembers. She 

was 4 years old when she was forced from her 

home with her mother and her father. She 

and her nurse became separated from the 

others. At one river she watched as a ferry 

full of people was turned over. She thinks 

her family may have been on the boat and 

drowned. She was adopted by people, some 

good, some exploitative. She worked as a 

maid, as a seamstress. She went to Greece 

and then to Marseille, and then in 1934 she 

came to Massachusetts, where she worked in 

textile mills. 

Hagop Cividian, who is 86, did not come 

here until 1990. In French and German he explains his story. With difficulty he talks 

about a woman named Diana, saying it is important to remember her because she was a 

real hero. He has written her story but only 

in Armenian. ‘‘Americans should know,’’ he 

said with passion. ‘‘She was an American.’’

She was married to his cousin and they had 

a 7-year-old boy who was a prodigy on the 

piano. ‘‘The authorities told her that because she was American she could go but she 

would have to leave the boy,’’ Mr. Cividian 

said. ‘‘She stayed and died with her husband 

and son.’’

Mr. Cividian managed to live. ‘‘For four 

years I was hungry, and beaten,’’ said the 

stocky and still muscular man. Later he 

made his way to Romania, where he became 

a chemical engineer. ‘‘As a child I saw the 

Turks kill the Armenians, later I saw Hitler 

and then Ceaucescu,’’ Mr. Cividian said. 

‘‘The only time I knew freedom was when I 

came to America five years ago. Only here I 

can do what I want. I can think, speak and 

remember.’’

f 

IS CONGRESS IRRESPONSIBLE? 

THE VOTERS HAVE SAID YES 

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, the impression simply will not go away; the 

enormous Federal debt greatly resembles that well-known energizer bunny 

we see, and see, and see on television. 

The Federal debt keeps going and going 

and going—always at the expense, of 

course, of the American taxpayers. 

A lot of politicians talk a good 

game—when they go home to campaign 

about bringing Federal deficits and the 

Federal debt under control. But so 

many of these same politicians regularly voted for one bloated spending 

bill after another during the 103d Congress, which could have been a primary 

factor in the new configuration of U.S. 

Senators as a result of last November’s 

elections. 

In any event, Mr. President, as of 

yesterday, as of Friday, April 21, at the 

close of business, the total Federal 

debt stood—down to the penny—at exactly $4,837,382,183,299.27 or $18,362.79 

per person. 

f 

FATHER ROBERT J. FOX 

Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I am 

pleased to pay tribute to an outstanding South Dakotan and good 

friend, Father Robert J. Fox of Alexandria, SD. Today, April 24, 1995, marks 

the 40th year of his dedicated service to 

the Catholic church and the people of 

South Dakota. 

It has been my personal pleasure to 

work with Father Robert over the past 

6 years in establishing National Children’s Day. As national chairman of 

National Children’s Day activities for 

the Catholic church, he has tirelessly 

promoted this special day for our children. As a result of his efforts, I expect 

to see National Children’s Day successfully celebrated on the second Sunday 

of October for many years to come. 

Father Robert Fox began his pastoral 

career at the age of 27 after graduating 

from St. Paul Seminary school. A little 

over a year later, on April 24, 1955, he 

was ordained into the priesthood, and 

gave his first sermon soon afterward at 

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