L.A. remembers the Armenian Genocide

100 years have passed since a great sorrow eclipsed the Armenian people and on Saturday Los Angeles let the world know that it remembers. It was during the end of World War I and its immediate aftermath that the Ottoman Empire carried out a genocide of Armenians that is numbered at 1.5 million victims.

The event is considered by many historians as a precursor to some later horrors of the 20th century such as the Holocaust. To this day, Turkey, former cradle of Ottoman rule, refuses to call the event a "genocide" and the government even tries to downplay the number of victims.

But for Los AngelEnos of Armenian descent, the scars of history are clear and palpable. Tens of thousands marched through downtown waving Armenian flags and even Turks appeared in solidarity, refusing to accept the Turkish government's official version of events. Among the crowd were older Armenians for whom the history of the genocide has always felt close and younger generation marchers who will carry on their culture's history into the future.

In a country where the streets of Baltimore are boiling, Saturday was a reminder that solidarity, pain and the scars of history are realities shared by the world.