The East Mediterranean Business and Culture Alliance (EMBCA) began its latest season of events with Burnt Offerings and Whispering Voices: The Smyrna Catastrophe (September, 1922), a Historical Remembrance on September 26 at the 3 West Club in Manhattan.
The event included presentations by EMBCA’s President Lou Katsos on The Japanese Ship Tokei Maru- A Profile in Courage and Humanity; Peter Stavrianidis, PhD, educator and community leader in Hellenic Genocide Issues on Smyrna 1922: The End of Hellenism in Asia Minor; and Professor Ismini Lamb, the Director of the Modern Greek Program in the Department of Classics at Georgetown University on Correcting Three Popular Misconceptions about the 1922 Catastrophe in Smyrna. U.S. Representatives and Co-Chairs of the Hellenic Caucus Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) sent a letter in support of the EMBCA event on the Smyrna Catastrophe which was read at the event by Taylor Abbruzzese, Caseworker and District Representative for Rep. Maloney.
Lou Katsos spoke to the camera of Hellenic Daily News and noted that “now it is the time for the recognition of the Genocide”.
If we forget that, then we forget a lot of other things and history always repeats itself. The modern state of Turkey tries to prevent the recognition of the Hellenic Genocide. They spend millions of dollars for that and many nations of the world are afraid to recognize ti.
Still to this day most nations do not recognize those crimes. The US State included. We have the deniers of those horrible events.
What happened in 1922 did not really end. It manifested in Cyprus in 1974 and the north of the island is still occupied.
Genocide has to be recognized. It is time that we nationally and internationally work for that goal. We cannot forget. If we don’t succeed, genocides will continue to happen. It happens in Syria against Christians and muslim populations now.
It is about time”…
