Countywide : Monument to Mark Armenian Genocide

Weekend ceremonies in Orange and Los Angeles counties beginning today will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, and will include the unveiling of a 16-foot-tall monument at a Santa Ana Armenian church.

“It will be a monument dedicated to the martyrs of 1915,” said North Tustin resident Sylvie Tertzakian, whose father was a survivor of the forced march into the Syrian desert and the execution of more than 1 million Armenians by the Turkish government. “This will be the first monument of its kind in Orange County,” she said.

Armenian groups say 1.5 million Armenians were killed in what amounted to genocide. Turkey rejects the charge and says as many Turks as Armenians were killed as front lines surged back and forth.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 Orange County residents are of Armenian descent, according to church leaders, who said the genocide of 1915 is to Armenians what the Holocaust is to Jews.

The monument consists of a large, Armenian “A” on top of the numerals 24, symbolizing April 24, 1915, when most of the Armenian intellectuals were rounded up and killed, said Garo Tertzakian, keynote speaker at the ceremony.

He said the Armenian word for April also means life. An eternal flame will burn within the “A” of the statue. “We are not mourning the genocide, we are celebrating the fact that we have survived and we exist today as a free and independent Republic of Armenia,” he said.

The ceremony begins at 5:30 p.m. today at the Forty Martyrs Armenian Apostolic Church, Hovnanian Complex Grounds, 5315 W. McFadden Ave., Santa Ana.