Lepsius House to open in Yerevan May 2

PanARMENIAN.Net - It’s important to remember what happened in 1915, German ambassador to Armenia Hans-Jochen Schmidt said after visiting the Armenian Genocide Memorial on April 24.

“I am glad to be accompanied today by a German delegation, the Friends of Lepsius House,” he said.

The ambassador also informed that Lepsius House will open in Yerevan on May 2. “Presently, director of the Armenian Genocide Museum Institutes Hayk Demoyan is negotiating with the German side.

Johannes Lepsius (1858, Potsdam, Germany - 1926, Meran, Italy) was a German Protestant missionary, Orientalist, and humanist with a special interest in trying to prevent the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. Lepsius is known for his documentation of the Armenian Genocide. His work, "Report on the situation of the Armenian people in Turkey", was censored on August 7, 1916, however 20,000 copies were sent throughout Germany before the censorship was enforced. Another edition of the documentation is an interview with Enver Pasha in 1915 that bears the title "The death corridor of the Armenian people". One of Lepsius' most important works is, Germany and Armenia 1914-1918: Collection of Diplomatic documents, which later became considered as "the main document on the Armenian Genocide". Later, in Franz Werfel's The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Werfel attributes two chapters to the description of Lepsius' struggle and his negotiations with Enver Pasha.

Referring to the Holocaust, amb. Schmidt noted, “The young generation urged for accepting the responsibility for the crimes committed.”