Athens, May 19th 2013

My name is Peter Koutoujian and
I am honored and humbled to stand with you today as – together – we mark this
tragic day – the Pontian Genocide — in our world’s history.

I thank the Pan-Pontian Federation
of Greece for this invitation and for the opportunity to be here with you
today.
I am an American by birth – from Massachusetts – but my spirit is never far
from Armenia, where family once lived.

I may be from America, and I may be Armenian, but I feel like home here
with you.

And because of that, I know and understand too well the anger and sadness
that accompany this day of remembrance for you and your families, but also I
know and understand the importance of today as well.

Because just as my father taught me, and his father taught him before that
– and what I teach my children today – is that we cannot forget.

As George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it.”

It is our way to honor those who perished
and just as important – those who
survived.

PJK Background

I come from the United States – a country of immigrants – and the story of
my family embodies that.

My grandparents Abraham and Zarouhi fled their home village of Marash, Turkey, with nothing but the
clothes on their backs, to flee the genocide that took the lives of 1.5 million
people in Armenia – and took hundreds of thousands of Pontian Greek lives at
the same time.

They saw acts and sights that were so unspeakable, that they did just that
– after fleeing their home country – they did not speak of what they saw.

This was not uncommon during this time in history – their generation kept
silent about their horrific witness so that others, including their children,
like my father, would not suffer.

My grandparents immersed themselves, as did so many Greeks, in everything
American when they came to the United States. They worked hard – attended
church and sent their daughter and three sons to school – and each of their
sons served in the US military – they loved everything about their new lives.

My grandparents told my father: “My son, America is the greatest
country in the world because you can be anything you want to be.”

This sounds trite because it is both overused and simple, but coming from my grandfather these words
were pure and profound given the horrors he experienced in his lifetime.

Yet these words and this experience are not unique to Abraham and Zarouhi
Koutoujian – nor are they to Armenians – they have been experienced and shared
by immigrant families and communities throughout the world.

History of the Pontian Genocide

My grandfather’s story is only one of a million stories told by Pontian
& Anatolian Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians – all survivors of Ottoman
genocide.

Because in the early 20th century, the Ottoman genocide perpetrated against
our ancestors during and following the First World War binds us together in history forever.

As you know, it began in 1908, when Turkish nationalists, also known as “the Young Turks”, took over leadership
in the Ottoman Empire, only to watch it quickly fall apart through lost wars
waged between then and 1913.

During that time, historians estimate that the Ottoman Empire lost 500,000
miles of land.

As a result, in 1913, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), an extreme
nationalist group of Young Turks, took control of government and began a
movement to victimize and target those who were not of Islamic or Turkish decent.

By 1914, Pontian Greeks were being executed, and a year later in 1915 the
Armenian genocide commenced.

By 1923, millions of humans had died by force or hunger.

Shared History

This heinous time that we share brought us together – our heritage mirrored
each other then and continues today.

The native Pontian Greeks and Armenians were neighbors geographically and
remain close in proximity in the United States in the after many migrated to
the United States.

Many Armenians immigrated to the town of Watertown in Massachusetts.

Many Pontian Greeks immigrated to the same county in the neighboring city
of Lowell, Massachusetts.

I believe we continue to have an unspoken kinship, and as Sheriff of
Middlesex County, I have the honor and distinction of representing both
communities.

We also share the same Christian faith, similar food delicacies and the
importance of preserving family traditions.

And for both of our nationalities, this time of year is one of the most sacred for Pontian Greeks as well as Armenians.

It is about calling attention to an incredible
injustice – a horrific time in our world history when our ancestors where
victim to a systematic massacre of our people perpetrated because of who we were.

Not for a crime committed or an injustice on our part – but rather because of our religion.

It is about a generation taken by
genocide – taken from not only mothers and fathers, but from children and
grandchildren. From your children. From my children.

Henry Morganthau, the American Ambassador to Turkey from 1913 – 1916 wrote
in The Murder of a Nation: “The
Armenians are not the only subject people in Turkey which have suffered from
this policy of making Turkey exclusively the country of the Turks. The story,
which I have told about the Armenians, I could also tell with certain
modifications about the Greeks and Assyrians. Indeed, the Greeks were the first victims of this nationalizing idea.”

Senseless, merciless and horrific only begin to describe this time in world
history – genocide – as declared by
the International Association of Genocide Scholars in as late as 2007, that
“the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914
and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians and Pontian and
Anatolian Greeks.”

As Armenians and Pontian Greeks, we often call upon our faith as Christians
to understand events that have taken place in our history as a way to cope and
understand how to move on. In doing so, we look to the Bible for stories and
passages that exemplify the challenges and struggles of our heritage.

For example: the book of John says: “For everyone who has been born of God
overcomes the world.” And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our
faith.

Resurrection

As Christians, we recently celebrated the Lenten season when we reflect on
the persecution and death of Jesus Christ. On Easter, we celebrate Christ’s
resurrection into Heaven where he joined God, his father. It represents an end
to his suffering and his ascension in to Heaven.

I think this analogy is important because it mirrors the life experiences
of so many of our ancestors.

For a small number of genocide survivors, they successfully fled
persecution only to be resurrected in another land to begin anew.

They owned businesses, they attended the church, they got married, they
started families and sent their children to be educated and they became pillars in their communities.

Resiliency of a People

These unsung heroes of history
didn’t give up despite the atrocities they encountered and the horrors they
saw.

They experienced a rebirth, were resurrected, revived and given a second
chance at life.

I stand before you today as a product of that human resiliency.

Because my grandfather did not give up hope – didn’t give up on humanity – or the capacity of the human spirit – I am able to speak to you today as a
survivor’s descendant. As a survivor myself.

And I’m not the only one – there are millions of me – millions of us.

That’s why today is so important – we are maintaining a legacy for those
who perished – but also for those who survived.

We have been given the chance to live – we must keep those who were robbed
of this forever in our hearts. And live our lives – each and every day – with
passion and in memory of those who perished in our hearts.

Live our lives as they would
live theirs.

Because as is evidenced by my grandfather’s experience – life has many
chapters. Some tragic, some inspirational. But all are worth living to their
fullest.

We, as
survivors of genocide, can never be divided from our experience. It will always
be a part of who we are as a people and as individuals. But we, as a Christian
people, will also never be defined by it.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that “an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” And, as
it has been stated that those who failed to learn from history are doomed to
repeat those same terrible acts. What a tragedy that the Holocaust, Cambodia,
Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur among others have occurred since our Christian
genocide.

Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians, we must work together not
only to ensure that we, as survivors, realize the long dreamed of recognition and acknowledgement of what happened to our people, but that we use our
terrible experience in order to help prevent
other peoples who are and will suffer the same fate from doing so.

Thank you very much.

And may God bless Greece,

may God bless Armenia,

may God bless America

and may God bless the victims and all us as survivors of Christian Genocide.