German-Turkish film director Fatih Akin and other artists urge Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Bundestag to finally call the Armenian genocide as such, Die Zeit reports.
In an open letter the artists call “to take a stand on 2 June and to refer to the crimes committed against the Armenian people as “genocide.” This is more than a historical period, more than an apology to the descendants of the victims. “Imagine you lived in Germany and the Holocaust would be denied – would that not be a continuation of the actual fact?”
Among the signatories of the open letter are Markus Rindt, Head of the Dresden Symphony Orchestra, German-Turkish-Armenian composer and guitarist Marc Sinan director of Kampnagel theatre in Hamburg Amelie Deuflhardand the general director of the Saxon State Library, Thomas Bürger.
In the open letter to Merkel and the deputies the art workers write : “We therefore call on you today to stand by the fundamental European values and find the correct wording. The Armenian Genocide denial creates the basis for violence in the present. In 1915 the Armenians were called terrorists, their property was expropriated, only in 2015 more than 5,000 Kurds have been killed in Turkey because they are supposed to be terrorists. This became possible because Turkey systematically refuses to face its history.”
“The Bundestag and its predecessor institutions have been silent on the Armenian Genocide for 100 years now,” the artists say.
The Bundestag is set to vote on a cross-party bill on Armenian Genocide on June 2.
