Holocaust remembrance day reflections

Today is Holocaust remembrance day and while many Jews reflect on the past experiences of their relatives or of their own they at least walk having the peace in mind that justice has somehow been served as Germany has recognized and condemned the Jewish Holocaust and has helped to repatriate many Jews to their native land Israel.

In three days there will be another "Holocaust" remembrance day. The Armenians around the world and in Armenia will commemorate the 95th tragic anniversary of the Armenian Genocide when 1.5 million Armenians were systematically massacred in Eastern Anatolia (what is today's Turkey) and the remnant were deprived from their own motherland constituting today's Armenian diaspora.

On April 15 there was another Holocaust remembrance day marked in a very humble way: the massacre of Adana. The Adana Massacre was the second series of large-scale massacres of Armenians to break out in the Ottoman Empire. The atrocities committed in the province of Adana in April 1909 coincided with the counter-revolution staged by supporters of Sultan Abdul Hamid (Abdul-Hamid) II (1876-1909) who had been forced to restore the Ottoman Constitution as a result of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution led by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). The Young Turks launched formal investigation trying to evade the responsibility for the massacres. However the organizers and the figures responsible for the massacres remained unpunished.

Today in Israel a wail of sirens brought Israel to a standstill on Tuesday morning for a two-minute silence to remember the victims of the Holocaust. At a ceremony, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Holocaust deniers would never be allowed to carry out another Holocaust of the Jewish people. Six million Jews were murdered in the Nazi Holocaust during WWII.

One and a half million Armenians that died during the Armenian Genocide were four time less in numbers than six million Jews who died during the Holocaust. But their souls also cry for justice and demand it.

To this day Turkey has not even expressed a formal apology or a sign showing that it's sensitive toward the human sufferings that Turkey has caused. On April 24 Armenians will commemorate the Armenian Genocide: another "Holocaust" remembrance day so difference from today's.