By: Lucine Z. Kinoian
(March 2012 ̶ Flushing, N.Y.) ̶ At the New York Armenian Home in Flushing, Queens on Sunday, March 25th, four Armenian Genocide survivors recall their experiences and memories of the early part of their lives. Arsalos Dadir, 98; Charlette Kechejian, 99; Perouze Kalousdinian, 102; and Azniv Guiragossian, 101, accounted for the atrocities and what it took for them to survive and eventually succeed in America. In a room of about a dozen people, the majority being reporters representing local New York media organizations, these women told their stories.
Listening to the four survivors recall places, people, and experiences are both chilling and eye-opening. In the presence of these women, you feel like you are looking into the mirror of history. All the mystique that surrounded the stories of the genocide that you grew up being familiar with disappeared. The Genocide no longer is a tale about our ancestors, all who lived in a time and place much different from ours, but rather it becomes raw, real, and heart-wrenching.
Dadir is the first to speak, although it is clear that just the thought of having to recall such memories to an audience rattles her. You can hear the despair in her words as she shares her thoughts on the Turks who killed her family and village members. “Until today we are suffering from the same results,” she says, “This is the reality.” Watching them kill all the men in her village, she is saddened at the thought of Armenian vindication not yet having a permanent effect on the Turks who continue to deny what their ancestors did.
Kechejian begins her story by expressing, “It’s something I hope you never see.” She talks about walking endlessly through the dessert with no food or water, and how her mother made sure she did not stop despite being weak and overly exhausted. Guiragossian found similar support in her sister after they were uprooted from their home and taken into an orphanage; having her sister by her side felt like protection amongst the tortures, killing, and unknown fates of the people and world surrounding her. The oldest of the survivors, Kalousdinian, summarized the strength needed to survive by saying when the Turks seized their house, she held her mother’s hand, walked out, and could not look back. Facing forward and having faith that the atrocities would pass is what allowed these women to witness and endure all that they did.
“We never knew when it was going to end,” recalls Kechejian. Although referencing the suffering that the Armenians endured, her thoughts ring loud to the contemporary issue of the Armenians Genocide. Turkey to this day refuses to acknowledge the events on the Armenian people as genocide, so for these four women, the suffering is not over. Although young at the time, the memories of Dadir, Kechejian, Kalousdinian, and Guiragossian serve as windows into the past. Their field of view is limited to that of a child, one that has taken great strength to suppress, yet it is powerful and thought evoking. The fears that embodied them back in the early 20th century still lurk within them now. The hesitation and strain they show as they express their accounts are nothing less than that of genuine loss and despair.
These interviews were arranged by the Knights and Daughters of Vartan’s Times Square annual genocide commemoration committee, headed by Mr. Hrant Gulian, with the help of Aghavni Ellian, the director of the home, who patiently assures the possible care for aged Armenians. Dr. Dennis R. Papazian, Grand Commander of the Knights and Daughters of Vartan and specialist in Armenian Genocide and history studies provided exhibits and explained the background of the Armenian genocide to the reporters and photographers, and also was available for interview.
April 24 NYC 