Words That Forbid Us from Looking Away from Genocide
by Lawrence Kadish • January 26, 2022 at 5:00 pm
The late French singer Charles Aznavour, on January 9, 1977. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
The words are haunting, as if a mourner's lament and offered prayers for the dead. "They Fell," written by Herbert Kretzmer, Charles Aznavour, and George Garvarentz, is a song that remembers the victims of the Armenian genocide, where as many as 1.2 million living under Ottoman rule died during World War I.
But the lyrics speak to every bloody ravine that was turned into a mass grave. The words speak to the terror all genocide victims must have experienced in their final moments. The emotion of Aznavour's voice reveals the despair of viewing the incomprehensible inhumanity inflicted on those targeted for extinction.
