Peace of Art, Inc. is displaying a large-scale electronic billboard in Foxboro, Mass., thanking Germany for recognizing the Armenian Genocide, the Armenian Weekly reports.
Titled “Truth Vs. National Interest,” this billboard illustrates, on the left side, the German flag and, on the opposite side, the dome of the U.S. Capitol building, where the United States Senate and House of Representatives come together to debate and discuss national and political issues.
Peace of Art president Daniel Varoujan Hejinian stated that “with this billboard, we express gratitude on behalf of our organization for Germany’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide; simultaneously, we are calling on the United States to follow Germany’s act of courage, and set aside its commercial interest for the sake of the truth.”
During World War I, Imperialist Germany was an ally of the Ottoman Empire and had its share of guilt in the implementation of the Armenian Genocide, by justifying and encouraging the crime against humanity. In 1918, Hans von Wangenheim, the German ambassador in Constantinople, said in an interview with an American journalist, “I do not blame the Turks for what they are doing to the Armenians… They are entirely justified.” It has been argued that this justification was the motivation for Hitler to organize the mass extermination of Jews during World War II.
The recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Germany this month was the answer to a question asked 75 years ago by Adolf Hitler: “Who today remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?”
