Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has issued a message on the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. The message reads, in part:
“The genocide perpetrated against the Jewish people during the years of theWorld War Second is, indeed, one of the most cruel and tragic pages in human history. January 27, which symbolized the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, became an important haven for stopping the evil of the Holocaust.
The commemoration of the Holocaust victims and the condemnation of this genocide is urgent as long as there are most different expressions of hatred and intolerance based on national, racist and religious ground, and as long as the threat of reoccurrence of crimes against humanity is there.
It’s an unequivocal truth that consigning of the victims of genocide to oblivion and denying the genocides, especially on a state level, is one of the stages of that crime. It’s a double crime not only against the innocent victims, but also against the present and the future. Perhaps, it could be possible to prevent the crime perpetrated under the cover of World War Second, had the crime against humanity perpetrated during World War First been dully condemned by the international community.
Once again bowing before the memory of the innocent victims of the Holocaust, I would like to express my support and solidarity to the Jewish people, the Jewish community of Armenia. The Armenian nation, which is commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, more than empathizes the pain of the Jewish people.
I reiterate our commitment to fight jointly to prevent the crimes against humanity with a resoluteness to say “never again.”
