Every year on 24 April the Armenian people marks the anniversary of Metz Yeghern (the Great Evil), the genocide started in 1915 by the Government of the Young Turks against the Armenian minority in the territory ruled by the Ottoman Empire.In Armenia a huge crowd flocks to the capital Yerevan for the procession in Dzidzernagapert (the Hill of Swallows), that hosts the Mausoleum remembering the victims of the mass murder. At the end of the ceremony the ashes, or a handful of ground of the burial place of a Righteous, are interred as a token of gratitude from the Armenian population. Other than to honour these exemplary figures, in the Garden of the Righteous for the Armenian situated besides the Genocide Museum, the Armenians dedicate trees to the international personalities who go there to honour the victims of the Metz Yeghern. This remembrance place was created in 1995 by the then director of the museum Laurenti Barseghian and by Pietro Kuciukian, founder of the international Committee The Righteous for the Armenians – Memory is the future, which bestows this title on those who acted to stop the massacres, rescue the persecuted or witness to the truth regarding genocide. So, besides the Righteous and the witnesses of those times, the Armenians also remember the personalities who are still struggling to safeguard the memory of those tragic events and bring justice to the victims.Some streets and schools in Armenians are named after these Righteous.
The Wall of Remembrance of Yerevan
to remember the Righteous for the Armenians
Figures honoured in this Garden
- Bodil Katharine Biørn
- the nurse who documented the Armenian Genocide
- James Bryce
- the Irish statesman who documented the Armenian Genocide
- Fayez El Ghossein
- his memoir is one of the first pieces of documentation and testimony about the Armenian Genocide
- Anatole France
- Nobel laureate, he fought for freedom of thought and human dignity
- Giacomo Gorrini
- he broke the silence in order to bear witness to the Armenian tragedy
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- Karen Jeppe
- a Righteous woman for the Armenians
- Johannes Lepsius
- he helped the survivors to the Armenian Genocide for a lifetime
- Henry Morgenthau
- the US Ambassador who helped the Armenians
- Fridtjof Nansen
- he created a special passport to rescue the stateless and the genocide victims
- Armin T. Wegner
- He warned the leaders of his time to stop genocide against the Armenians and the Jews
- Franz Werfel
- the writer who wrote "The 40 Days of the Mussa Dagh"