ishtartv.com
- AINA
By
Bar Daisan,2018-04-16
Cologne,
Germany (AINA) -- A memorial dedicated to the 1915 genocide of the Armenians
stands in a prominent place in the city of Cologne. According to Armenian
portal Haypress,
it is nationwide the first memorial in a public space to acknowledge the
genocide, which was carried out with German participation.
The
Turkish genocide claimed the lives of 750,000 Assyrians (75%), 1 million Greeks
and 1.5 million Armenians.
On
June 2, 2016 the German Bundestag passed a resolution recognizing the 1915
massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman government as a genocide. The resolution
also explicitly acknowledged that Assyrians and Pontic Greek were affected by
the deportations and massacres as well.
On
Sunday, the initiative Remembering Genocide unveiled a sculpture created by the
Cologne artists Stefan Kaiser and Max Scholz on the left bank of the
Hohenzollern Bridge in the city center. The Armenian community in Cologne is by
its own account with 5,000 members, the largest in Germany.
The
steel sculpture is about 1.80 meters high. The three-sided pyramid bears on the
capped tip a bronze pomegranate with a notch, which symbolizes the Armenian
genocide. The inscription entitled This Pain Affects Us All is written in
Armenian, German, Turkish and English.
According
to a decision by the City Council on April 16, the memorial must be removed
"promptly." The reason given is that the action had not been
announced to the city and had not been approved.
The
city of Cologne pointed out that there is already a memorial stone for the
victims of the genocide of the Armenians in Cologne. It is a cross-stone inaugurated
in November 2017 at the cemetery Lehmbacher Weg in Köln-Bruck. The Armenian
community however, does not regard the cemetery as an appropriate place for a
memorial, as remembering must be done in a public space.
With
a population over a Million, Cologne is also home for more than 60,000 Turkish
migrants. The Armenian community suspects the city succumbed to pressure by
Turkish organizations.
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