NYC Mayor Adams Must Openly Acknowledge the Armenian Genocide

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One response to “NYC Mayor Adams Must Openly Acknowledge the Armenian Genocide”

1. 

   Simone Suzanne Kussatz

   April 24, 2025

   Hello Hrag,

   I read your piece, and I hear you. It’s deeply unjust to witness silence on something so important.

   The fact that a Turkish official allegedly pressured the Adams staffer, and that this request was reportedly accepted, is alarming. It speaks to a growing fear around standing with marginalized and historically wronged communities.

   I relate to this personally, as the granddaughter of people from Bessarabia, whose homes were taken over by the Soviet Union at the onset of World War II, losing their homeland to another regime. For more than a hundred years, my ancestors lived there and contributed to that region. They were married there, had children there, and buried loved ones there. And then came the erasure.

   I’m also the sister of someone who had an intellectual disability and medically resistant epilepsy, in a country that has for decades remained silent about the mass atrocities committed against people like my brother during the Nazi regime, and that has failed to hold many people who participated in the systematic murders accountable. Sometimes, these victims were not even mentioned during Holocaust Remembrance Day, even though this group was among the first to be systematically murdered. The Final Solution to the Jewish Question was modeled after Aktion T-4, which was the systematic killing of individuals deemed undesirable, costing the government too much money and ‘impurifying’ the population.

   It is soul-crushing to know that others believed it was right for people like one’s family members or group members to be systematically killed, or that it was somehow acceptable for the Bessarabians to lose their homeland. Some of the Bessarabians who stayed were sent to the Gulag in Siberia, and the Jewish Bessarabians were sent to extermination camps. The Bessarabians, too, had to fear state-sponsored starvation by Stalin. Yet it’s considered unacceptable only when it happens to others. That kind of silence hurts.

   You’re absolutely right: there is no room for genocide denial, especially not in New York City, and especially not on the 110th anniversary. It’s not just a moral obligation. It’s about keeping the voices of the people who suffered alive.

   I do wonder, though… could it have something to do with Gaza? Is there a fear that acknowledging the Armenian Genocide might complicate the politics surrounding that issue, or be seen as taking sides? I’m not a political expert… and certainly not an expert on these regions or cultures …I’m just trying to understand. I’m truly sorry for the pain this decision by Mayor Adams has caused you and the Armenian community.

   Best wishes,
   Simone

   Best wishes,
   Simone

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