Colorado State public schools to officially instruct on Holocaust and Armenian Genocide

COLORADO, United States – The governor of the state of Colorado Jared Polis has signed into law bill HB20-1336 which mandates instruction in Colorado schools “to incorporate the standards on Holocaust and genocide studies adopted by the state board into an existing course… The instruction concerns the Holocaust and genocide study, and other acts of mass violence, including but not limited to the Armenian Genocide.”

Related: German MPs Roth and Özdemir: Armenian Genocide should be included in German educational curricula

With Colorado State’s inclusion of the Armenian Genocide in school curricula it joins the several other U.S. states. The state of Colorado recognized the Armenian Genocide in 2017. In December 2019, the U.S. Senate adopted Senate Resolution 150 which recognizes and condemns the Genocide of 1915 on Armenian, Syriac, and Pontus-Greek Christians, planned and perpetrated by Ottoman-Turkish rule: “Whereas the United States has a proud history of recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide, the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, and providing relief to the survivors of the campaign of genocide against Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians;”

In March of this year, the State of Arizona recognized the Genocide on Syriacs – Assyrians-Chaldeans-Arameans – in Resolution text SCR 1006:

“Whereas, Assyrians, an ethnic minority group, are the indigenous people of Mesopotamia who have lived in the Middle East since ancient times, including in what is today Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria; and Whereas, Assyrians, also known as Chaldeans and Syriacs, today live around the world, including more than 600,000 in the United States and tens of thousands in Arizona; and Whereas, between 1914 and 1923, the Assyrian Genocide occurred, during which the Ottoman Empire murdered more than 300,000 Assyrian men, women and children by methods that included mass executions, death marches, torture and starvation; and Whereas, during the Assyrian Genocide, also known as the Seyfo Genocide, the Ottoman Turks and their Kurdish allies also systematically raped and enslaved Assyrian women and girls, forced the Assyrians from their ancestral lands and pillaged and destroyed their communities; and Whereas, the massacre of more than two million Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and other Christian and religious minority populations represented the final culmination of a series of violent persecutions dating back to the late 1800s; and Whereas, this year marks the 105th anniversary of the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides of 1915, which were part of the planned eradication of those indigenous communities by the Ottoman Turkish Empire, yet to this day Turkey has still not recognized these genocides; and Whereas, the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, maintaining impunity for the perpetrators of these atrocities and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides…”

Therefore be it resolved by the Senate of the State of Arizona, the House of Representatives concurring: 1.  That the Members of the Legislature recognize the Assyrian Genocide of 1915 as a genocide and reprehensible crime against humanity.