31.10.2022


The delegation, led by Mrs. Erin Mckee, the head of the Europe and Eurasia Bureau of USAID, visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial on October 31.

Edita Gzoyan, Deputy Scientific Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, welcomed the guests. She gave the delegation the history of the three khachkars placed in the Tsitsernakaberd area in memory of the Armenians who died in the massacres in the cities of Sumgait, Kirovabad (Gandzak) and Baku in the last century that were organised by the Azerbaijani government. She also told the stories of the five freedom fighters buried in front of the Wall of Remembrance (Hushapat) who were killed during the Artsakh war, stressing the link of these to the Armenian Genocide.

Mrs. Erin Mckee laid a wreath at the Genocide Monument; the members of the accompanying delegation then laid flowers at the Eternal Fire and observed a minute’s silence in memory of the innocent martyrs of the Armenian Genocide.

Edita Gzoyan accompanied the American guests to the Memory Wall, behind which the relics of foreign public figures, politicians, and missionaries are being interred, who raised their voice of protest against the Armenian Genocide carried out by the Turkish government. Telling them about the pro-Armenian activities of Henry Morgenthau, Gzoyan emphasized that thanks to the work carried out by Ambassador Morgenthau, the American Near East Relief Committee for the Middle East, the American public were well aware of the massacres and deportations of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and that the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the United States is also a tribute to their memory.

At the end of the visit, thanking her for their warm welcome, Mrs. Erin Mckee presented Edita Gzoyan with a souvenir.