50 Years Ago: Demonstration in Montreal – The Gazette 26 April 1965

50 Years Ago: Demonstration in Montreal – The Gazette 26 April 1965 –

Montreal’s Armenian community Saturday observed the memory of more than 2,000,000 Armenians massacred in Turkey 50 years ago.

 More than 2,500 marchers, some of whom lost entire families, paraded slowly along downtown Dorchester Blvd.

 The march, led by two Armenian boy scouts carrying the new Canadian flag, was part of a world-wide demonstration commemorating the massacres that started in Constantinople, now Istanbul, on April 24, 1915.

 At the Cenotaph, the marchers laid a wreath.

 Of Canada’s 15,000 Armenians, approximately 5,000 live in Montreal.

 As well as being part of a day of mourning and prayer, the march was a protest.

 The Armenians say Turkey has never been called to account for the massacres.

 They started by order of the Turkish minister of the interior and in the next three years an estimated 2,000,000 Armenians-three-quarters of the population-were deported and slain.

                                                          Gazette 26 April 1965