On Saturday, April 24, 2021, one hundred and six years after the Ottoman Government sought to annihilate the Armenian people, President Joe Biden officially recognized these actions and mass murders as genocide. With this declaration, the United States joins other nations in officially recognizing the Armenian Genocide.

Under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress (aka Young Turks), the genocide proceeded with the Muslim Ottomans accusing their Armenian Christian subjects of disloyalty. Hoping to eliminate them, Ottoman officials, military, paramilitary, and even private citizens, tortured, starved, and methodically massacred their Armenian neighbors. Those who survived were sent on death marches or in trains to die of hunger and thirst in the Syrian Desert. Ultimately, more than one million Armenians were murdered by the Ottoman Turks under the cover of World War I from 1915 to 1916.

We commend President Biden for recognizing this tragic history for what it was, a genocide. Denied for far too long, this official recognition marks an important step for the victims of this atrocity, its survivors, and those who continue to be affected by this history today. Genocides must be recognized for the sake of those involved, and so we can take lessons from these horrors to ensure they do not happen again.

To learn more about the Armenian Genocide and others, please visit the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. Tickets and information are available at DHHRM.org.

– Mary Pat Higgins, Museum President and CEO
– Mark Zilbermann, Board Chair