In May 2019, Belgian Weekblad't Pallieterke magazine published another article devoted to the memory of the Armenian Genocide, this time in Dutch. The author of the article Jens de Rycke had interviewed Harutyun Marutyan, Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Foundation, Doctor of Historical Sciences, who also specializes in genocide memory and national identity, collective and historical memory issues. The author notes: “Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Harutyun Marutyan immediately points out the symbol of the monument”.

“In the monument I see the open wound of Armenians, because the cruelty of the genocide and the Turkish denial contribute in keeping the wound of Armenian souls unhealed”, the AGMI Director has mentioned. “Every nation has a memory that unites its population. Since the past century for Armenians it has been the 1915 Genocide Memory. Victims and lost homeland (Eastern Armenia) feed the call for justice. I think it is clear why, until today, Turkey continues to deny the fact of the genocide. On the other side there is a myth which connects all the Turks, in particular, that the Turkish Republic was reborn from the war that the Ottomans had lost. They want to make sure that their Turkish legend does not be "smeared" by the Genocide.

But Turkey forgets that its republic is based on the ruins of the [left heritage] by the Armenian citizens who had disappeared from the former Ottoman Empire. It is also a fact that the stolen property of the killed and expelled Armenians helped Turkey to reconstruct. Here are the reasons for which Turkey refuses to recognize the Armenian Genocide. They are afraid that at the same time this will mean compensation for the Genocide victims”.

Turning to the issue on criminalizing the Armenian Genocide denial regularly raised in the Belgian Parliament, Harutyun Marutyan mentioned:

“We never give up the struggle for the truth.

We hear with sorrow, that the Belgian Parliament does not support us in criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide. I think the reason is that, unlike the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide is not in the collective memory of Europeans. The events in the Ottoman Empire were a distant phenomenon for Europe and have never really penetrated [into the European collective memory].

Nevertheless, moral responsibility must be taken and it is necessary to gain lessons from what had happened to Armenians more than a hundred years ago. Otherwise, the world will not be able to prevent such tragedies in the future”.