A silent march is due to take place in Warsaw this Sunday in remembrance of the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey in 1915.
Commemoration of the tragedy is being led by Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, shepherd of the Armenian community in Poland, Solidarity veteran and scion of a distinguished Polish Armenian family.
Besides the march, which culminates at the Turkish Embassy, there will be a meeting at Warsaw's Ethnographic Museum. The meeting will be attended by several dignitaries, and a film will be screened about the tragedy.
24 countries have signed a document acknowledging the Armenian Genocide, in which hundreds of thousands of Armenians perished at the hands of the Turkish ruling powers.
However, whilst many Turkish intellectuals have proclaimed acknowledgement of the tragedy, the Turkish government itself refuses to accept that there was a genocide.
Poland's own bond with Armenia is a longstanding one, following waves of emigrations since the medieval era. The Armenian Catholic Cathedral in Lwow (today Lviv, Ukraine) was founded in the fourteenth century, and there were numerous Armenian communities throughout South East Poland. The Armenians preserved pride in their descent, yet became an integrated part of the nation. Thousands of Poles, especially from the South East, note their Armenian ancestry.
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