On August 7, candles are lit, poems are read aloud, and songs are sung in Assyrian community centers around the world. Why do we continue to do this, year after year, generation after generation? The answer lies not only in history—it lies in what happens to a people who stop remembering.
For a people without a homeland, scattered to the four corners of the world, remembrance is not something one voluntarily commemorates. It is one of the few threads that still binds an Assyrian in Södertälje to an Assyrian in the Nineveh Plains, in Chicago, or in Beth-Zalin. When we gather to commemorate Martyrs’ Day, we are not just doing something for the dead—we are doing something for ourselves and for the Assyrians who have not yet been born. We are telling the outside world and ourselves that: this happened, these people existed, and their lives and martyrdom are part of our identity. Their deaths were sudden and brutal, but they gave meaning to something enduring and honorable: our struggle—and that of future generations—for the Assyrian cause.
Oblivion is rarely a coincidence. Throughout history, it has often been a deliberate goal—a way to erase a people’s claim to their own history and their own land. Actively remembering therefore becomes a form of resistance against that very erasure. Every time the names of the victims of Simele, or those who perished during the Seyfo, are spoken aloud, it counteracts the silent effort that has been underway for over a century to reduce the Assyrians to a footnote in others’ historical narratives.
There is also a risk in allowing these days of remembrance to become a monotonous task and a routine obligation—lighting the candles, reading the same speeches, and going home without the words truly sinking in. It is not enough to simply remember what was lost. It requires understanding what was lost: not just human lives, but entire villages, linguistic traditions, churches, and a continuity stretching back thousands of years. It also requires recognizing the connection between then and now—that the threatened villages in Khabur and Nala and the vanishing Assyrian presence in Syria and Iraq are not isolated events, but a continuation of the same pattern that once culminated in Simele and Seyfo.
Preserving memory, therefore, is not about looking back with nostalgia. It’s about giving the next generation something to build upon. A child who grows up knowing why August 7 is commemorated carries with them an identity that is harder to erase. In this way, memory becomes a gift for the future, not just a glance in the rearview mirror.
As long as the Assyrian people continue to gather on August 7, with candles, speeches, and songs, the martyrs live on—not as statistics representing past suffering, but as part of a living story that is still being written.
