The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has published a statement on the centennial of the World War I, in which the Armenian Genocide was featured, Asbarez reported.

“As a result of the Ottoman government’s systematic policy of mass deportations and executions, at least one million members of its Armenian minority were killed. The most intense period of the Armenian Genocide occurred in 1915–16 when hundreds of thousands of people, including children and the elderly, died during forced marches into the desert due to violence, starvation, exposure, and disease. Knowledge of these mass murders quickly spread around the world, but there were few efforts to intervene or hold perpetrators accountable,” reads the statement by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“This massive conflict [WWI] and its divisive peace created conditions that would give rise to a second, even more destructive, world war and genocide committed under its cover,” added the statement.