By Anna Yukhananov
Special to the Mirror-Spectator
MEDFORD, Mass. — To justify the planned brutality of his invasion of Poland, Adolf Hitler allegedly told his commanders, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
Michael Dukakis, the former governor, repeated the same question on Tuesday, April 6, at the Tufts University Day of Remembrance lecture titled “Do We Really Remember the Armenians?”
At the turn of the 20th century, Americans donated millions of dollars to save the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire, Dukakis said.
However, President Woodrow Wilson abandoned the fight against the Ottoman and later helped the Young Turk leadership involved in the Genocide in order to push the League of Nations through Congress after World War I, Dukakis said.
“The United States essentially capitulated to Kemal [Ataturk],” Dukakis said. “US isolationism took over. No wonder Hitler asked, ‘who remembers the Armenians?’ as he planned his own genocide.”