All language subtitles for Orphans.Of.The.Genocide.2013.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX].eng
Afrikaans
Albanian
Amharic
Arabic
Armenian
Azerbaijani
Basque
Belarusian
Bengali
Bosnian
Bulgarian
Catalan
Cebuano
Chichewa
Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional)
Corsican
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Esperanto
Estonian
Filipino
Finnish
French
Frisian
Galician
Georgian
German
Greek
Gujarati
Haitian Creole
Hausa
Hawaiian
Hebrew
Hindi
Hmong
Hungarian
Icelandic
Igbo
Indonesian
Irish
Italian
Japanese
Javanese
Kannada
Kazakh
Khmer
Korean
Kurdish (Kurmanji)
Kyrgyz
Lao
Latin
Latvian
Lithuanian
Luxembourgish
Macedonian
Malagasy
Malay
Malayalam
Maltese
Maori
Marathi
Mongolian
Myanmar (Burmese)
Nepali
Norwegian
Pashto
Persian
Polish
Punjabi
Romanian
Russian
Samoan
Scots Gaelic
Serbian
Sesotho
Shona
Sindhi
Sinhala
Slovak
Slovenian
Somali
Spanish
Sundanese
Swahili
Swedish
Tajik
Tamil
Telugu
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Urdu
Uzbek
Vietnamese
Welsh
Xhosa
Yiddish
Yoruba
Zulu
Odia (Oriya)
Kinyarwanda
Turkmen
Tatar
Uyghur
Would you like to inspect the original subtitles? These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated:
1
00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:18,810
This program was made possible
2
00:00:18,810 --> 00:00:22,163
by generous contributions
from the Bezikian family.
3
00:00:23,100 --> 00:00:26,673
Additional support was provided
by Dr. Noubar Ouzounian
4
00:00:27,591 --> 00:00:30,817
and the Chitjian Foundation
and viewers like you.
5
00:00:34,810 --> 00:00:39,520
- My grandmother experienced the genocide
6
00:00:40,720 --> 00:00:42,110
by her own eyes.
7
00:00:42,110 --> 00:00:46,210
She was in Moush in 1915, in July,
8
00:00:46,210 --> 00:00:49,440
when the Turkish soldiers shelled the city
9
00:00:49,440 --> 00:00:52,270
and destroyed her working field,
10
00:00:52,270 --> 00:00:55,313
destroyed her orphanage,
destroyed her clinic.
11
00:00:56,800 --> 00:00:59,837
- They come knock the
door and took us out,
12
00:01:01,522 --> 00:01:03,223
and we had to walk,
13
00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:08,173
and they took my father early.
14
00:01:09,020 --> 00:01:11,093
Only women and children left.
15
00:01:15,180 --> 00:01:20,180
- All beautiful girls were
victims of some kind, you know,
16
00:01:20,860 --> 00:01:25,860
rape or theft or kidnapping.
17
00:01:28,410 --> 00:01:32,640
My mother said that they would
use mud to rub on the faces
18
00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:36,260
of the beautiful women so they
wouldn't look so attractive.
19
00:01:36,260 --> 00:01:40,130
To try to look like they
had sores on their face,
20
00:01:40,130 --> 00:01:41,293
just to save them.
21
00:01:44,130 --> 00:01:48,490
- My mother would talk
about that all the time
22
00:01:48,490 --> 00:01:53,140
and she would say in Armenian,
23
00:01:55,457 --> 00:01:58,120
"Why did God do this?"
24
00:01:58,120 --> 00:02:00,313
And she lost her faith.
25
00:02:16,747 --> 00:02:19,310
"Orphans of the Genocide,"
26
00:02:19,310 --> 00:02:21,250
the story of hundreds of thousands
27
00:02:21,250 --> 00:02:24,210
of Armenian genocide orphans forgotten
28
00:02:24,210 --> 00:02:25,663
in the pages of history.
29
00:02:40,370 --> 00:02:45,010
On June 26, 2010 close to 2,000
Canadian citizens gathered
30
00:02:45,010 --> 00:02:46,850
at the Cedarvale Park Community Center
31
00:02:46,850 --> 00:02:48,860
for the official unavailing of the plaque
32
00:02:48,860 --> 00:02:51,430
that designated the
Georgetown Boys Farmhouse
33
00:02:51,430 --> 00:02:53,843
as a historic and
protected municipal site.
34
00:02:55,090 --> 00:02:59,740
- Designated property
2010, Cedarvale Park.
35
00:02:59,740 --> 00:03:03,870
In 1923 Cedervale Farm was a site
36
00:03:03,870 --> 00:03:06,180
of Canada's first international
37
00:03:06,180 --> 00:03:08,850
humanitarian resettlement effort,
38
00:03:08,850 --> 00:03:12,020
rescuing orphans of the Armenian Genocide
39
00:03:12,020 --> 00:03:15,320
that later became United
Church Girl School,
40
00:03:15,320 --> 00:03:16,763
Heritage Halton Hills.
41
00:03:28,260 --> 00:03:32,633
- At the most crucial
juncture of our history,
42
00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:38,193
Canada saved these children.
43
00:03:39,575 --> 00:03:44,186
This was not in fact a humanitarian action
44
00:03:44,186 --> 00:03:46,290
in the ordinary sense of the word.
45
00:03:47,940 --> 00:03:50,970
This was indeed a concrete expression
46
00:03:52,672 --> 00:03:57,672
of Canada's commitment to
justice and Human Rights.
47
00:03:59,470 --> 00:04:01,453
Justice and Human rights,
48
00:04:02,790 --> 00:04:06,160
two concepts or their
lack of etched the destiny
49
00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:09,050
of hundreds of thousands
of parentless children.
50
00:04:09,050 --> 00:04:12,740
Hundreds of thousands of
orphans, Armenian orphans,
51
00:04:12,740 --> 00:04:15,220
orphans of the genocide.
52
00:04:15,220 --> 00:04:19,620
The year was 1915, the place Anatolia,
53
00:04:19,620 --> 00:04:22,310
the persecutors were
the Ottoman Authorities
54
00:04:22,310 --> 00:04:25,050
and the target was the Ottoman citizens
55
00:04:25,050 --> 00:04:26,793
of Armenian ancestry.
56
00:04:43,150 --> 00:04:46,130
Summer of 1915 marked the first waves
57
00:04:46,130 --> 00:04:48,910
of mass deportations that created scores
58
00:04:48,910 --> 00:04:50,780
of Armenian orphans.
59
00:04:50,780 --> 00:04:53,090
Within weeks, hundreds of thousands
60
00:04:53,090 --> 00:04:55,190
of Armenian citizens were uprooted
61
00:04:55,190 --> 00:04:56,890
from their ancestral villages
62
00:04:56,890 --> 00:04:59,513
and put in temporary concentration camps.
63
00:05:00,970 --> 00:05:02,800
- For the most part the men were gone,
64
00:05:02,800 --> 00:05:06,270
having either been killed at
the outset of the genocide
65
00:05:06,270 --> 00:05:08,500
or conscripted into labor battalions
66
00:05:08,500 --> 00:05:10,050
and were killed sometime later.
67
00:05:10,050 --> 00:05:13,330
Women and children were of
course organized into caravans,
68
00:05:13,330 --> 00:05:16,560
sent on the road towards Der
Zore for their relocation
69
00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:19,010
and en route they fell victim.
70
00:05:19,010 --> 00:05:24,010
Women were raped, their
goods, their money was stolen
71
00:05:24,830 --> 00:05:28,797
by their escorts or by
people along the way.
72
00:05:36,920 --> 00:05:39,960
Der Zore, a desert, located northeast
73
00:05:39,960 --> 00:05:41,600
of present day Syria,
74
00:05:41,600 --> 00:05:44,870
known for its harsh
climactic characteristics,
75
00:05:44,870 --> 00:05:48,080
200 millimeters average yearly rainfall,
76
00:05:48,080 --> 00:05:52,680
scorching summer heat that
generates frequent droughts,
77
00:05:52,680 --> 00:05:55,463
bitter cold, sub-zero weather.
78
00:06:00,470 --> 00:06:03,100
Talaat Pasha, the Interior Minister,
79
00:06:03,100 --> 00:06:06,043
was well aware of the harsh
conditions of Der Zore.
80
00:06:06,920 --> 00:06:11,410
On July 6, 1914, during
a parliamentary debate,
81
00:06:11,410 --> 00:06:13,620
he refused to populate the area
82
00:06:13,620 --> 00:06:15,983
with Turkish Albanian refugees.
83
00:06:16,840 --> 00:06:18,580
About 10 months later,
84
00:06:18,580 --> 00:06:21,730
he gave the orders to
relocate the Armenian citizens
85
00:06:21,730 --> 00:06:23,943
from Ottoman Turkey to Der Zore.
86
00:06:27,440 --> 00:06:28,940
- Through each town or each city
87
00:06:28,940 --> 00:06:31,130
that the Armenians would
have passed through,
88
00:06:31,130 --> 00:06:34,790
local people, Kurds, Muslims, Turks, Arabs
89
00:06:34,790 --> 00:06:38,640
would have identified
pretty girls or young boys
90
00:06:38,640 --> 00:06:40,330
and would take them from the caravans
91
00:06:40,330 --> 00:06:42,380
and integrate them into
their own households,
92
00:06:42,380 --> 00:06:45,080
sometimes as wives, sometimes as servants.
93
00:06:45,080 --> 00:06:46,750
But they were taken as children
94
00:06:47,766 --> 00:06:49,966
and their families would
often go on to die.
95
00:06:51,080 --> 00:06:52,580
Consequently, the banks
96
00:06:52,580 --> 00:06:54,380
of the Euphrates River is dotted
97
00:06:54,380 --> 00:06:56,860
with hundreds of mass graves.
98
00:06:56,860 --> 00:07:00,400
To this day human remains
can be easily found
99
00:07:00,400 --> 00:07:03,600
in shallow mass graves
and caves in Der Zore,
100
00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:08,260
El-Raqqa, Ras El Ain and
tens of other locations
101
00:07:08,260 --> 00:07:10,613
all the way up to central Anatolia.
102
00:07:13,210 --> 00:07:15,383
- My mother's story is really tragic.
103
00:07:17,040 --> 00:07:20,700
She went through the
whole thing in detail.
104
00:07:20,700 --> 00:07:23,520
They lost their home, they were on foot.
105
00:07:23,520 --> 00:07:25,963
They took with them only
what they could carry.
106
00:07:26,893 --> 00:07:31,390
No carts, no riding animals or anything.
107
00:07:31,390 --> 00:07:36,223
And they were driven from their
home in Govdoun, Sepastia,
108
00:07:37,980 --> 00:07:41,070
all the way across the Iraqi dessert
109
00:07:41,070 --> 00:07:42,100
to Ourfa
110
00:07:46,440 --> 00:07:48,020
and Mosul.
111
00:07:48,020 --> 00:07:53,020
And then during the trip they
were bare foot all the way,
112
00:07:54,350 --> 00:07:56,823
across the hot dessert sands.
113
00:07:57,720 --> 00:08:01,140
And her feet were slightly disformed
114
00:08:01,140 --> 00:08:02,963
because of that but not bad.
115
00:08:04,470 --> 00:08:05,660
On the way, of course,
116
00:08:05,660 --> 00:08:08,850
there were women and children and old men,
117
00:08:08,850 --> 00:08:11,387
who couldn't resist the Ottoman power see,
118
00:08:12,320 --> 00:08:16,163
and so they didn't
massacre them right away.
119
00:08:17,150 --> 00:08:19,110
My mother at the time was 15.
120
00:08:19,110 --> 00:08:22,870
Her sister was a little
younger and she was considered
121
00:08:22,870 --> 00:08:25,960
to be the most beautiful
girl in the village.
122
00:08:25,960 --> 00:08:28,420
At least that's what Murad Pasha said
123
00:08:28,420 --> 00:08:30,323
and he was from the same village.
124
00:08:34,530 --> 00:08:36,220
So they took a special care
125
00:08:36,220 --> 00:08:38,813
to make her look uglier than she was.
126
00:08:41,010 --> 00:08:44,300
But it didn't work, I
mean she died of illness,
127
00:08:44,300 --> 00:08:46,813
she died of disease on the way.
128
00:08:48,330 --> 00:08:50,350
My mother also lost her brother
129
00:08:50,350 --> 00:08:55,223
who was tormented by Arab children.
130
00:08:57,300 --> 00:08:59,323
They used to throw stones at them.
131
00:09:00,770 --> 00:09:02,670
And he died also on the way.
132
00:09:02,670 --> 00:09:07,670
And so did my mother's
mother, my grandmother.
133
00:09:08,400 --> 00:09:10,920
And she lost another sister
134
00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:13,850
who was taken in by friendly Arabs
135
00:09:14,940 --> 00:09:19,693
and after the war settled in Beirut.
136
00:09:22,250 --> 00:09:23,740
Dr. Jack Kevorkian,
137
00:09:23,740 --> 00:09:25,600
a former medical pathologist,
138
00:09:25,600 --> 00:09:28,310
who spent a good part of his
professional life entangled
139
00:09:28,310 --> 00:09:31,090
in legal battles with
the U.S. Supreme Court,
140
00:09:31,090 --> 00:09:33,410
protecting the rights
of the terminally ill
141
00:09:33,410 --> 00:09:35,410
to choose voluntary euthanasia,
142
00:09:35,410 --> 00:09:38,003
was the son of an
Armenian Genocide orphans.
143
00:09:39,290 --> 00:09:41,440
- This bothered me growing up.
144
00:09:41,440 --> 00:09:43,810
I didn't really have any
hatred for the Turks,
145
00:09:43,810 --> 00:09:46,880
my mother never showed outright hatred
146
00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:49,810
and she could talk even
with Turkish people
147
00:09:49,810 --> 00:09:54,810
without any kind of emotion
and I always admired that.
148
00:09:55,290 --> 00:09:57,350
My sister couldn't stand that.
149
00:09:57,350 --> 00:10:01,563
My younger sister was more
vengeful than my mother.
150
00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:05,133
My mother, I think, was wiser.
151
00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:08,590
But because of that,
152
00:10:08,590 --> 00:10:12,360
I can speak with Turks and not hate them,
153
00:10:12,360 --> 00:10:13,803
because they didn't do it,
154
00:10:14,930 --> 00:10:16,580
that was the Ottomans who did it,
155
00:10:18,200 --> 00:10:20,203
although that's the same people.
156
00:10:21,610 --> 00:10:23,110
Although he never thought of himself
157
00:10:23,110 --> 00:10:26,110
as an artist, Dr Kevorkian's
paintings reflect
158
00:10:26,110 --> 00:10:30,230
a profound sense of
distaste towards injustice.
159
00:10:30,230 --> 00:10:35,130
In this painting entitled
"1915 Genocide 1945,"
160
00:10:35,130 --> 00:10:37,750
using his own blood as red paint,
161
00:10:37,750 --> 00:10:41,970
he depicted the horrors of
the 1915 Armenian Genocide
162
00:10:41,970 --> 00:10:44,993
and The Jewish Holocaust of 1945.
163
00:10:46,700 --> 00:10:49,400
- I am a historian of the Holocaust
164
00:10:49,400 --> 00:10:54,400
and I think about what happened
to Jewish children caught
165
00:10:55,000 --> 00:11:00,000
in the net of Nazism and I
think too about what happened
166
00:11:00,350 --> 00:11:03,760
to Armenian children who were caught
167
00:11:03,760 --> 00:11:06,383
in the grip of this genocide.
168
00:11:07,450 --> 00:11:12,450
For me their experiences
are absolutely similar,
169
00:11:13,110 --> 00:11:15,803
far more similar than different.
170
00:11:16,850 --> 00:11:19,930
Both groups of children suffered
171
00:11:21,290 --> 00:11:23,840
irrevocable loss.
172
00:11:23,840 --> 00:11:28,300
Both groups of children
were targeted for reasons
173
00:11:28,300 --> 00:11:30,360
which they didn't understand
174
00:11:30,360 --> 00:11:34,830
and which indeed are not understandable.
175
00:11:34,830 --> 00:11:39,430
- No Armenian males
remained in Kayseri except
176
00:11:39,430 --> 00:11:44,430
for a few feeble elderly men
and boys under the age of 15.
177
00:11:45,890 --> 00:11:50,890
The able bodied mostly
intellectuals had been gathered,
178
00:11:50,950 --> 00:11:53,780
jailed and then slain
179
00:11:53,780 --> 00:11:57,677
in what came to be known
as Slaughter Valley.
180
00:11:59,410 --> 00:12:00,710
90 year old Mae Derderian,
181
00:12:00,710 --> 00:12:02,479
the author of "Vergeen,"
182
00:12:02,479 --> 00:12:05,750
based on the memoirs
of Vergeen Kalenderian,
183
00:12:05,750 --> 00:12:08,483
a close family friend who
was a genocide orphan.
184
00:12:18,990 --> 00:12:20,870
Vergeen's story is a
testament to the plight
185
00:12:20,870 --> 00:12:23,450
of a typical teenaged
Armenian orphaned girl
186
00:12:23,450 --> 00:12:24,773
during the genocide.
187
00:12:26,560 --> 00:12:31,560
- Vergeen's father had died
before the deportation began,
188
00:12:32,120 --> 00:12:34,293
so it was just she and her mother.
189
00:12:35,540 --> 00:12:40,380
They started out from the city of Kayseri
190
00:12:40,380 --> 00:12:43,800
and joined other people
in their neighborhoods
191
00:12:43,800 --> 00:12:47,140
in other cities and
then took that journey,
192
00:12:47,140 --> 00:12:49,550
that awful journey,
193
00:12:49,550 --> 00:12:53,763
through the various villages
and cities southward
194
00:12:56,070 --> 00:12:59,770
and eventually ended up in Aleppo, Syria,
195
00:12:59,770 --> 00:13:01,963
but a lot went on in between.
196
00:13:03,470 --> 00:13:05,590
While stillin the deportation route,
197
00:13:05,590 --> 00:13:07,530
a Bedouin horseman abducts Vergeen
198
00:13:07,530 --> 00:13:09,760
and drags her mother along.
199
00:13:09,760 --> 00:13:13,530
- When they got to where
the Bedouin's family was,
200
00:13:13,530 --> 00:13:16,180
I guess the decision was made
201
00:13:16,180 --> 00:13:18,000
that they were gonna kill the mother
202
00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:19,890
and keep the daughter.
203
00:13:19,890 --> 00:13:21,360
And so the second day
204
00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:25,900
that she was there they
did indeed kill the mother
205
00:13:25,900 --> 00:13:30,564
by drowning her and taking her clothes
206
00:13:30,564 --> 00:13:32,450
and giving it to Vergeen.
207
00:13:32,450 --> 00:13:35,997
So at the age of 13,
208
00:13:35,997 --> 00:13:39,903
she became an orphan in
the hands of the Bedouins.
209
00:13:41,110 --> 00:13:43,580
Her captors treat Vergeen as a slave,
210
00:13:43,580 --> 00:13:46,090
assigning her difficult house chores,
211
00:13:46,090 --> 00:13:48,281
while she endured abuse and rape,
212
00:13:48,281 --> 00:13:50,550
and living with the tribe's livestock.
213
00:13:50,550 --> 00:13:52,850
A few months later, Vergeen is tattooed
214
00:13:52,850 --> 00:13:54,830
as an Arab Bedouin woman.
215
00:13:54,830 --> 00:13:57,650
- And she was interviewed on radio
216
00:13:57,650 --> 00:13:59,817
and the reporter said to her,
217
00:13:59,817 --> 00:14:03,057
"Why do you have your
marks on your forehead
218
00:14:03,057 --> 00:14:06,670
"and your chin and your mouth?"
219
00:14:06,670 --> 00:14:11,057
And she said, "I," in
English, perfect English,
220
00:14:11,057 --> 00:14:13,447
"I was captured by the Bedouins
221
00:14:13,447 --> 00:14:15,590
"during the Armenian Genocide."
222
00:14:15,590 --> 00:14:17,890
Eventually she manages to flee
223
00:14:17,890 --> 00:14:20,230
and finds a job at a military hospital
224
00:14:20,230 --> 00:14:23,450
where she meets Nartouhy,
Mae Derdarian's mother.
225
00:14:23,450 --> 00:14:25,793
The two become lifelong friends.
226
00:14:26,730 --> 00:14:29,440
At the end of World War
I they move to Aleppo
227
00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:31,600
together with Nartouy's mother.
228
00:14:31,600 --> 00:14:33,550
Vergeen finds a teaching job
229
00:14:33,550 --> 00:14:38,263
at an orphanage housing 2,500
Armenian Genocide orphans.
230
00:14:39,280 --> 00:14:41,080
- Just outside of Aleppo,
231
00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:44,860
these Armenian refugees
were living in tents.
232
00:14:44,860 --> 00:14:48,450
My mother and my grandmother
were in one tent.
233
00:14:48,450 --> 00:14:53,450
And right next to them
was a tent of children.
234
00:14:54,710 --> 00:14:57,690
Infants and toddlers, about 50 of them.
235
00:15:01,710 --> 00:15:06,370
Crying, wailing, no one
to take care of them.
236
00:15:06,370 --> 00:15:10,070
My grandmother tried to
walk over to the tent
237
00:15:10,070 --> 00:15:13,320
and enter it to take
care of these children
238
00:15:13,320 --> 00:15:17,193
and she was beaten badly by the gendarmes.
239
00:15:18,050 --> 00:15:23,050
Those kids died one by one
with no one looking after them.
240
00:15:25,730 --> 00:15:26,883
My mother used to,
241
00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:31,693
it makes me cry,
242
00:15:33,470 --> 00:15:37,880
my mother would talk
about that all the time
243
00:15:37,880 --> 00:15:42,151
and she would say, in Armenian,
244
00:15:44,857 --> 00:15:47,460
"Why did God do this"?
245
00:15:47,460 --> 00:15:48,933
And she lost her faith.
246
00:15:50,490 --> 00:15:54,760
It's pretty hard to
look at babies, infants
247
00:15:54,760 --> 00:15:58,810
without parents and toddlers
with no one to look after them.
248
00:15:58,810 --> 00:16:03,810
No one to give them water or
food, or change their diapers,
249
00:16:03,980 --> 00:16:08,853
and those children died
one by one, 50 orphans.
250
00:16:12,840 --> 00:16:16,170
In 1921, Armen
Meghrouni of Milwaukee,
251
00:16:16,170 --> 00:16:19,070
the son of a family friend
from Vergeen's birthplace,
252
00:16:19,070 --> 00:16:22,430
arranged her immigration
to America as his fiancé,
253
00:16:22,430 --> 00:16:24,250
hoping to start a family with the woman
254
00:16:24,250 --> 00:16:27,100
he had fallen in love with as a young man.
255
00:16:27,100 --> 00:16:30,120
It was Vergeen's wish to
have her tattoos removed,
256
00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:31,940
to rid herself once and for all
257
00:16:31,940 --> 00:16:34,350
of the constant reminders
of the horrific memories
258
00:16:34,350 --> 00:16:37,200
of her life as an
Armenian Genocide orphan.
259
00:16:37,200 --> 00:16:39,920
Her sons, Vahe and Victor
made it their mission
260
00:16:39,920 --> 00:16:41,600
to grant their mother's wish
261
00:16:41,600 --> 00:16:44,610
and were successful in finding
a medically safe solution
262
00:16:44,610 --> 00:16:46,580
to erase Vergeen's tattoos
263
00:16:46,580 --> 00:16:48,623
from her the forehead, lips and chin.
264
00:17:03,870 --> 00:17:06,467
Sabiha Gokcen, the first
woman pilot in Turkey,
265
00:17:06,467 --> 00:17:09,530
was the adopted daughter
of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
266
00:17:09,530 --> 00:17:11,420
the first president of Turkey.
267
00:17:11,420 --> 00:17:13,950
To this day, Sabiha Gokcen remains
268
00:17:13,950 --> 00:17:17,300
as an iconic figure and a
symbol of Turkish womanhood
269
00:17:17,300 --> 00:17:19,680
who was not only the first female pilot,
270
00:17:19,680 --> 00:17:22,578
but also the first female combat pilot.
271
00:17:31,421 --> 00:17:35,460
One of Sabiha's missions was
the Dersim Operation of 1938,
272
00:17:35,460 --> 00:17:36,790
when her squadron was assigned
273
00:17:36,790 --> 00:17:39,790
to bomb the Kurdish
populated region of Dersim.
274
00:17:39,790 --> 00:17:43,250
This operation cost tens of
thousands of innocent lives.
275
00:17:52,280 --> 00:17:54,640
During the Genocide of 1915,
276
00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:57,000
large numbers of Armenians took refuge
277
00:17:57,000 --> 00:17:59,954
in Dersim disguised as Kurds.
278
00:18:04,330 --> 00:18:07,800
A 2004 US State Department
report states, quote:
279
00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:10,640
In February, the "Hurriyet"
newspaper's publication
280
00:18:10,640 --> 00:18:12,640
of a report that Sabiha Gokcen,
281
00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:15,180
an adopted daughter of
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
282
00:18:15,180 --> 00:18:17,300
who was the country's first female pilot,
283
00:18:17,300 --> 00:18:19,640
was of Armenian descent drew a number
284
00:18:19,640 --> 00:18:22,200
of racist public statements, unquote.
285
00:18:22,200 --> 00:18:23,800
The "Hurriyet" report was based
286
00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:25,970
on an article written in 2004
287
00:18:25,970 --> 00:18:27,960
by Hrant Dink and published
288
00:18:27,960 --> 00:18:31,500
in the "Agos" Armenian
newspaper in Istanbul, Turkey.
289
00:18:31,500 --> 00:18:32,650
The article revealed
290
00:18:32,650 --> 00:18:35,583
that Sabiha Gokcen's real
name was Hatun Sebilisian,
291
00:18:36,610 --> 00:18:38,950
an Armenian orphan of the genocide
292
00:18:38,950 --> 00:18:42,360
and the daughter of Dirouhi
and Nerses Sebilisian
293
00:18:42,360 --> 00:18:47,040
whose father, Nerses, was
killed during the 1915 Genocide.
294
00:18:47,040 --> 00:18:50,870
In 1925, while living in
an orphanage in Cibin,
295
00:18:50,870 --> 00:18:52,900
Hatun Sebilisian was adopted
296
00:18:52,900 --> 00:18:56,270
by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
President of Turkey.
297
00:18:56,270 --> 00:18:58,790
The publication of the
article created an uproar
298
00:18:58,790 --> 00:19:01,430
amongst government circles in Turkey.
299
00:19:01,430 --> 00:19:03,720
Journalist Hrant Dink
was labeled a traitor
300
00:19:03,720 --> 00:19:06,200
for unveiling Sabiha Gokcen's secret
301
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:08,450
which was based on a
first account testimonial
302
00:19:08,450 --> 00:19:11,525
from Sabiha's niece, Huripsimeh Ghazaryan.
303
00:19:16,410 --> 00:19:20,310
Sabiha's Armenian ancestry has
long been a common knowledge
304
00:19:20,310 --> 00:19:22,180
among the Armenians.
305
00:19:22,180 --> 00:19:25,210
This is an article,
published in August of 1970,
306
00:19:25,210 --> 00:19:28,060
in an Armenian magazine
discussing the secrets
307
00:19:28,060 --> 00:19:29,423
of Ataturk's daughter.
308
00:19:30,520 --> 00:19:32,360
This, and similar articles penned
309
00:19:32,360 --> 00:19:34,290
by the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink,
310
00:19:34,290 --> 00:19:37,653
sparked a series of hate mail
and threats against his life.
311
00:19:39,130 --> 00:19:42,750
In 2007, Dink was assassinated
in Istanbul, Turkey
312
00:19:42,750 --> 00:19:45,020
when a gunman shot him in broad daylight
313
00:19:45,020 --> 00:19:47,210
in front of his office building.
314
00:19:47,210 --> 00:19:48,870
Dink's funeral procession united
315
00:19:48,870 --> 00:19:50,810
the Armenian and Turkish citizens
316
00:19:50,810 --> 00:19:53,310
in what is believed to be
one the largest funerals
317
00:19:53,310 --> 00:19:55,590
ever held in modern Turkey.
318
00:19:55,590 --> 00:19:58,830
At his funeral, 200,000 mourners marched
319
00:19:58,830 --> 00:20:01,457
in protest of the assassination, chanting,
320
00:20:01,457 --> 00:20:06,457
"We are all Armenians" and
"We are all Hrant Dink."
321
00:20:06,460 --> 00:20:09,690
In 2009, Turkey's second largest airport
322
00:20:09,690 --> 00:20:13,071
in Istanbul was named after Sabiha Gokcen.
323
00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:35,200
The first waves of Ottoman atrocities
324
00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:37,020
against the Armenians started
325
00:20:37,020 --> 00:20:40,460
before the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
326
00:20:40,460 --> 00:20:43,320
Ottoman Emperor, Abdul Hamid II,
327
00:20:43,320 --> 00:20:45,670
34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire,
328
00:20:45,670 --> 00:20:48,900
ordered the massacres of tens
of thousands of Armenians,
329
00:20:48,900 --> 00:20:52,750
becoming known as the
infamous Red or Bloody Sultan.
330
00:20:52,750 --> 00:20:56,420
These atrocities, which
started as early as 1892
331
00:20:56,420 --> 00:20:59,050
and culminated in the massacres of Adana,
332
00:20:59,050 --> 00:21:03,333
left an estimated 50,000
Armenian orphans in Anatolia.
333
00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:39,290
In 1909, an orphan
334
00:21:39,290 --> 00:21:41,500
who survived the Adana massacres,
335
00:21:41,500 --> 00:21:43,200
found herself at the doorsteps
336
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:46,113
of the Hadjin Orphanage
wrapped in this dress.
337
00:21:48,640 --> 00:21:52,280
In 1914, when the orphanage
was uprooted in haste,
338
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:55,520
sister Dorinda Bowman managed
to bring this dress with her
339
00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:58,660
to all the way from Hadjin
to the United States.
340
00:21:58,660 --> 00:22:01,793
The dress retains it's
original dirt to this date.
341
00:22:05,170 --> 00:22:08,530
In 1908, two sisters,
Rose and Nora Lambert
342
00:22:08,530 --> 00:22:10,440
of the Mennonite Brethren Missionaries
343
00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:13,170
took an arduous journey
from New York to Hadjin
344
00:22:13,170 --> 00:22:16,670
by way of Mersin, Turkey
and founded two orphanages,
345
00:22:16,670 --> 00:22:20,610
one in Hajin for girls and
one in Everek for boys.
346
00:22:20,610 --> 00:22:23,400
This mission, perched at
the hilltops of Hadjin,
347
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:25,470
housed 306 orphans
348
00:22:25,470 --> 00:22:30,040
that survived the Hamidian
massacres between 1894 and 1896.
349
00:22:31,570 --> 00:22:34,038
In her 1911 published memoirs,
350
00:22:34,038 --> 00:22:36,240
"Hadjin and the Armenian Massacres"
351
00:22:36,240 --> 00:22:39,730
Rose Lambert reassures a group
of widow and orphan survivors
352
00:22:39,730 --> 00:22:42,417
of her sincere commitment
to their security.
353
00:22:42,417 --> 00:22:45,937
"If the blood of 20 thousand
innocent Armenians is shed
354
00:22:45,937 --> 00:22:47,717
"it will make very little difference
355
00:22:47,717 --> 00:22:50,247
"if the blood of one
American is mingled with it".
356
00:22:53,500 --> 00:22:57,740
Later, during the Genocide
of 1915 through 1918,
357
00:22:57,740 --> 00:23:00,170
both orphanages were
torched down to rubbles
358
00:23:00,170 --> 00:23:01,860
by the Ottoman Turks.
359
00:23:01,860 --> 00:23:03,910
At least five American missionaries,
360
00:23:03,910 --> 00:23:06,573
including Reverend Henry
Maurer, lost their lives
361
00:23:06,573 --> 00:23:09,353
while caring for the
Armenian orphans of Hadjin.
362
00:23:27,610 --> 00:23:31,423
- My name is Jussi Flemming
Bioern, my father was Armenian.
363
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:35,843
His name was Rafael Safarian.
364
00:23:37,420 --> 00:23:40,692
He was adopted by a Norwegian missionary,
365
00:23:40,692 --> 00:23:43,090
Bodil Katharina Biorn from Karagida.
366
00:23:43,090 --> 00:23:47,340
He was brought to Norway and he grew up.
367
00:23:47,340 --> 00:23:51,630
He later was taken down
368
00:23:51,630 --> 00:23:52,900
to the Middle East
369
00:23:52,900 --> 00:23:54,363
to live with my grandmother.
370
00:23:58,163 --> 00:23:58,996
Bodil Biorn was
371
00:23:58,996 --> 00:24:00,870
a young Norwegian missionary nurse
372
00:24:00,870 --> 00:24:03,480
who came from a very affluent family.
373
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:07,380
In 1905, Bodil chose to
leave her posh life behind
374
00:24:07,380 --> 00:24:10,450
and dedicate her life
to the Armenian orphans.
375
00:24:10,450 --> 00:24:13,450
After serving in Constantinople,
present day Istanbul,
376
00:24:13,450 --> 00:24:16,800
and Marash in Western Armenia until 1907,
377
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:19,010
she requested to be transferred to Moush.
378
00:24:19,010 --> 00:24:24,010
- My grandmother experienced
the genocide by her own eyes.
379
00:24:24,120 --> 00:24:28,220
She was in Moush in 1915, in July
380
00:24:28,220 --> 00:24:31,410
when the Turkish soldiers shelled the city
381
00:24:31,410 --> 00:24:35,770
and destroyed her working
field, destroyed her orphanage,
382
00:24:35,770 --> 00:24:38,963
destroyed her clinic and she had to flee.
383
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:43,970
She had to flee for her life
384
00:24:43,970 --> 00:24:46,760
and she lost her children
in the orphanage,
385
00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:51,760
she lost the girls that she had
educated and helped so much.
386
00:24:56,060 --> 00:24:57,590
Bodil Biorn writes the following caption
387
00:24:57,590 --> 00:24:59,717
on the verso of this photo.
388
00:24:59,717 --> 00:25:02,777
"In this image, the teacher
Margarid Nalbanchian
389
00:25:02,777 --> 00:25:04,677
"and most of the 120 children
390
00:25:04,677 --> 00:25:07,997
"of the day school were murdered in 1915."
391
00:25:17,190 --> 00:25:21,330
In 1917 she adopts a 1
1/2-year-old Armenian orphan
392
00:25:21,330 --> 00:25:24,130
named Rafael Safaryan of Constantinople,
393
00:25:24,130 --> 00:25:26,090
and takes him back with her to Norway,
394
00:25:26,090 --> 00:25:28,760
where she raises funds
for orphan relief work
395
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:31,200
only to return to Armenia one year later
396
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:34,827
to serve in Alexandrapol,
Armenia, present day Gyumri.
397
00:25:35,940 --> 00:25:38,420
- There she rented a big house
398
00:25:38,420 --> 00:25:43,420
and started all over
again with a new orphanage
399
00:25:43,919 --> 00:25:48,640
this time for boys and she
opened a clinic, a public clinic.
400
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:50,120
She was a trained nurse.
401
00:25:50,120 --> 00:25:54,140
She had experience as a doctor
even though she was not,
402
00:25:54,140 --> 00:25:56,650
but she had experience in surgery,
403
00:25:56,650 --> 00:26:00,543
in dental work, all what was necessary.
404
00:26:02,830 --> 00:26:06,760
In 1922, Bodil had to flee Armenia once more,
405
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:09,640
this time under pressure
from Soviet Authorities
406
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:13,700
and continue her orphan
relief work in Aleppo, Syria.
407
00:26:13,700 --> 00:26:16,760
99 years after Bodil Biorn's first visit
408
00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:20,490
to historic Armenia, her
grandson Jussi Fleming Bioern,
409
00:26:20,490 --> 00:26:23,340
the son of the adopted
orphan Rafael Safaryan,
410
00:26:23,340 --> 00:26:26,897
produces a documentary
about Bodil Biorn's life.
411
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:33,530
- We traveled to Turkey, eastern Turkey,
412
00:26:33,530 --> 00:26:34,813
we traveled to Moush.
413
00:26:35,900 --> 00:26:40,810
We traveled to Armenia
and we traveled to Syria
414
00:26:40,810 --> 00:26:43,740
and shot the film in three parts.
415
00:26:43,740 --> 00:26:47,980
This was in 2006 and 2007.
416
00:26:47,980 --> 00:26:52,017
And used the rest of 2007
417
00:26:52,017 --> 00:26:57,017
and the spring of 2008 to
edit and make the film.
418
00:27:10,430 --> 00:27:12,730
Arshile Gorky,
considered a seminal figure
419
00:27:12,730 --> 00:27:16,190
in the abstract art movement
that transformed American art,
420
00:27:16,190 --> 00:27:19,440
was born Vosdanik Adoian near Lake Van.
421
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:24,010
On June 16, 1915, at the
height of the genocide, Gorky,
422
00:27:24,010 --> 00:27:27,450
along with his three sisters
and mother, Shushan Adoian,
423
00:27:27,450 --> 00:27:30,500
joined a death march
caravan heading north east
424
00:27:30,500 --> 00:27:32,480
for 150 miles.
425
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:35,130
30 days later, they arrived in Yerevan,
426
00:27:35,130 --> 00:27:37,830
present day Armenia's capital city.
427
00:27:37,830 --> 00:27:39,303
Soon after their arrival,
428
00:27:39,303 --> 00:27:42,693
Gorky's mother died of
starvation in his arms.
429
00:27:44,290 --> 00:27:47,550
- Arshile Gorky's a really
an interesting story
430
00:27:47,550 --> 00:27:50,790
in terms of having lost his mother
431
00:27:50,790 --> 00:27:55,790
and of what he became once
he came to the United States.
432
00:27:55,790 --> 00:28:00,790
He and his sisters, lead by
his mother fled the genocide.
433
00:28:02,130 --> 00:28:04,160
They fled to Van City for a while,
434
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,780
then they ended up in and around Yerevan.
435
00:28:07,780 --> 00:28:10,490
There was so little food
because of Turkish blockades
436
00:28:10,490 --> 00:28:12,780
of Armenia at the time,
437
00:28:12,780 --> 00:28:16,030
so many people were dying
of starvation and disease
438
00:28:16,030 --> 00:28:19,030
and his mother would give
439
00:28:19,030 --> 00:28:22,010
whatever food she could to the children,
440
00:28:22,010 --> 00:28:25,370
particularly to Gorky
because he was her only son.
441
00:28:25,370 --> 00:28:29,543
Eventually she basically starved to death.
442
00:28:29,543 --> 00:28:34,036
And the story in the family
is that she basically starved
443
00:28:34,036 --> 00:28:36,640
to death in his arms and eventually,
444
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:38,870
through the help of family friends,
445
00:28:38,870 --> 00:28:42,400
they made it to the United States in 1920.
446
00:28:50,150 --> 00:28:52,377
One of the two
versions of Gorky's famous,
447
00:28:52,377 --> 00:28:55,330
"The Artist and His Mother"
is on permanent exhibit
448
00:28:55,330 --> 00:28:58,820
at the National Gallery
of Art in Washington D.C.
449
00:28:58,820 --> 00:29:00,800
The inspiration for both paintings was
450
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:02,850
the only photo Gorky had of himself
451
00:29:02,850 --> 00:29:07,120
and his mother taken just before
the start of the genocide.
452
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:09,360
- People actually stand
in front of that painting
453
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:14,360
and they weep, they weep, because
they get the emotionality,
454
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:17,410
they get what happened to Gorky,
455
00:29:17,410 --> 00:29:19,870
and they get what happened to her.
456
00:29:19,870 --> 00:29:24,760
And they see their mothers' face
457
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:29,080
who they lost in the genocide
maybe in that painting,
458
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:33,220
because he has spent so much time trying
459
00:29:33,220 --> 00:29:35,750
to get an overall sense of the mood
460
00:29:35,750 --> 00:29:39,170
or that kind of atmosphere
of that painting,
461
00:29:39,170 --> 00:29:43,610
without having created a
work that is so individual.
462
00:29:43,610 --> 00:29:46,010
It's a very Armenian looking face
463
00:29:46,010 --> 00:29:48,200
and, yes, it looks like his mother
464
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,260
but it also looks like
a lot of Armenian faces.
465
00:29:51,260 --> 00:29:54,490
Faces of Armenian women that you see
466
00:29:54,490 --> 00:29:56,600
in the pictures of the genocide.
467
00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:01,120
Old pictures of the way life
used to be in the old country.
468
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:03,740
And so I think that that's a huge thing
469
00:30:03,740 --> 00:30:05,713
that kind of resonates for people.
470
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:09,633
- An artist is like a blender.
471
00:30:11,050 --> 00:30:14,120
Everything that happens
to you as an artist,
472
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,750
as a human being goes into that blender.
473
00:30:17,750 --> 00:30:20,650
You read a fantastic book,
474
00:30:20,650 --> 00:30:23,030
you listen to some fascinating music,
475
00:30:23,030 --> 00:30:27,860
you fall in love and war goes in there
476
00:30:27,860 --> 00:30:30,460
and of course genocide, genocide.
477
00:30:30,460 --> 00:30:35,070
And so you process
everything, that blender works
478
00:30:35,070 --> 00:30:36,610
and you spew it out.
479
00:30:36,610 --> 00:30:40,940
In Gorky's case, in Gorky's
case it's fascinating,
480
00:30:40,940 --> 00:30:43,930
because his processor has worked so well
481
00:30:43,930 --> 00:30:46,950
that it's almost impossible to detect
482
00:30:46,950 --> 00:30:49,030
which is which, what's what.
483
00:30:49,030 --> 00:30:50,280
But it's there.
484
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:54,513
It's impossible that it won't be there.
485
00:31:00,766 --> 00:31:02,720
Harutune Galents was four years old
486
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:05,440
when his affluent family
in Sepastia was deported
487
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,000
after the disappearance of his father.
488
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,460
Upon their arrival to relative
safety in Aleppo, Syria,
489
00:31:11,460 --> 00:31:13,230
his mother died of exhaustion
490
00:31:13,230 --> 00:31:16,336
sending the four brothers
into an orphanage.
491
00:31:19,201 --> 00:31:20,880
Harutune Galents,
492
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:22,310
who's been through the journey
493
00:31:22,310 --> 00:31:26,680
of orphanhood and who was
a typical Armenian man,
494
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:30,220
who has gone through the
dreadful genocide was able
495
00:31:30,220 --> 00:31:33,250
to battle life through his art
496
00:31:33,250 --> 00:31:37,850
by affirming that I exist, we exist.
497
00:31:37,850 --> 00:31:39,810
Harutune's artistic talents were apparent
498
00:31:39,810 --> 00:31:42,040
from an early age in the orphanage.
499
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:44,520
Upon graduating from the orphanage school,
500
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:48,190
he settled in Beirut, Lebanon
where he excelled as an artist
501
00:31:48,190 --> 00:31:51,440
and in 1939 received the Medal of Merit
502
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,350
at the New York International Exhibition.
503
00:31:54,350 --> 00:31:58,700
In 1943, he married his
apprentice Armine Baronian,
504
00:31:58,700 --> 00:32:02,960
and in 1946 repatriated
to Armenia with his family
505
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:06,153
where he died at the peak
of his career in 1967.
506
00:32:11,820 --> 00:32:14,270
Every time he mentioned the genocide
507
00:32:14,270 --> 00:32:16,830
he would go to his room and weep,
508
00:32:16,830 --> 00:32:20,100
but he wouldn't discuss
it except with his family.
509
00:32:20,100 --> 00:32:23,500
He would talk about his
experiences during the genocide.
510
00:32:23,500 --> 00:32:25,600
How his mother rubbed their faces
511
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:28,030
with dirt to disguise them.
512
00:32:28,030 --> 00:32:31,140
How they witnessed the
killings on the track.
513
00:32:31,140 --> 00:32:34,460
How human bodies would float
in the river for weeks.
514
00:32:34,460 --> 00:32:36,950
He would tell us that in tears.
515
00:32:36,950 --> 00:32:40,950
But none of his paintings
depict the Armenian tragedy.
516
00:32:40,950 --> 00:32:44,493
The contrary, what they
do is celebrate life.
517
00:32:46,060 --> 00:32:47,230
Although Galents' paintings
518
00:32:47,230 --> 00:32:49,270
have vibrant, cheerful colors,
519
00:32:49,270 --> 00:32:51,820
his melancholic portraits reflect eyes
520
00:32:51,820 --> 00:32:55,403
that resonate the despondence
of a tortured soul.
521
00:33:11,550 --> 00:33:16,550
The fear in Nuvart's face,
the horror in Markarid's eyes,
522
00:33:16,750 --> 00:33:19,050
the destitute in their mother's vision
523
00:33:19,970 --> 00:33:23,123
and the hesitant grip
of her newborn child.
524
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:27,930
In 1899, after the murder of her husband
525
00:33:27,930 --> 00:33:32,130
during the Hamidian massacres
she walked nearly 100 miles
526
00:33:32,130 --> 00:33:33,960
from the town of Keghi to Harput
527
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:36,300
with her three fatherless children in tow
528
00:33:36,300 --> 00:33:38,373
and in search of food and shelter.
529
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:46,140
The 105 year old, Almas Boghossian,
530
00:33:46,140 --> 00:33:49,810
once an Armenian Genocide
orphan as Almas Avakian,
531
00:33:49,810 --> 00:33:52,860
now lives in Whitensville, Massachusetts.
532
00:33:52,860 --> 00:33:55,810
She was eight years old when
the Turkish soldiers evicted
533
00:33:55,810 --> 00:33:57,840
her family from their ancestral home,
534
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,920
to join thousands of
other Armenian refugees
535
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:02,970
in what became the starvation march
536
00:34:02,970 --> 00:34:04,393
to the desert of Der Zore.
537
00:34:05,410 --> 00:34:07,090
Almas is the only survivor
538
00:34:07,090 --> 00:34:09,673
of the Avakian Family of Harput province.
539
00:34:11,032 --> 00:34:12,283
- I remember but, well,
540
00:34:21,694 --> 00:34:23,315
they come knock the door
541
00:34:23,315 --> 00:34:27,823
and took us out and we had to walk.
542
00:34:30,220 --> 00:34:32,743
And they took my father early.
543
00:34:33,690 --> 00:34:36,933
Only women and children left.
544
00:34:39,860 --> 00:34:44,375
They killed them, my mother and my father
545
00:34:44,375 --> 00:34:46,803
and we walked and walked.
546
00:34:48,710 --> 00:34:49,860
Some of them dying.
547
00:34:49,860 --> 00:34:53,063
Kids were left alone, new born kids.
548
00:34:54,510 --> 00:34:57,877
It's awful, I don't want
to even remember them.
549
00:34:59,330 --> 00:35:01,100
- And as best as we can figure
550
00:35:01,100 --> 00:35:06,100
she really went most of the
way from Hussenig to Der Zore
551
00:35:07,540 --> 00:35:10,930
on foot with her family
552
00:35:10,930 --> 00:35:13,513
and she was the only
one them that survived.
553
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:19,610
Her younger sister died
very early along the way,
554
00:35:19,610 --> 00:35:23,980
along the route, roughly
following the Euphrates River.
555
00:35:23,980 --> 00:35:25,330
The march to Der Zore passed
556
00:35:25,330 --> 00:35:27,870
through Ras El Ain, a major processing
557
00:35:27,870 --> 00:35:30,840
and annihilation center
for the Armenian deportees
558
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:32,740
along the deportation route.
559
00:35:32,740 --> 00:35:37,640
- She remembers going into a
store in Souare with her mother
560
00:35:38,670 --> 00:35:41,370
and she remembers the mother speaking
561
00:35:41,370 --> 00:35:43,580
to the Syrian owner of the store.
562
00:35:43,580 --> 00:35:45,440
They were speaking in Turkish
563
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:49,400
and that it was sort of
an excited conversation
564
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:51,053
and it went on for sometime.
565
00:35:52,390 --> 00:35:55,180
My grandmother became tired after a while
566
00:35:55,180 --> 00:35:57,110
and fell asleep in the store.
567
00:35:57,110 --> 00:35:59,630
What was happening was that my
great-grandmother was trying
568
00:35:59,630 --> 00:36:03,750
to convince the store owner
to adopt my grandmother.
569
00:36:03,750 --> 00:36:05,853
- I was in a Arabic house.
570
00:36:06,700 --> 00:36:10,593
They adopted me, they
were a very good family.
571
00:36:13,951 --> 00:36:17,950
They said whoever have Armenian kid,
572
00:36:17,950 --> 00:36:21,530
they should bring them
to government house.
573
00:36:21,530 --> 00:36:24,230
- The relief agencies were making a plea
574
00:36:24,230 --> 00:36:29,230
for Syrian families that
had adopted Armenian orphans
575
00:36:30,020 --> 00:36:33,373
to return those orphans
to the relief agencies.
576
00:36:35,190 --> 00:36:39,470
- They took us there and
that was my second home.
577
00:36:39,470 --> 00:36:42,900
You know I was small and little by little
578
00:36:42,900 --> 00:36:47,543
I started to love them and that's it.
579
00:36:48,545 --> 00:36:51,563
They brought us to the
orphanage in Aleppo Syria.
580
00:36:52,890 --> 00:36:57,430
- She remembers food was
scarce in the orphanage.
581
00:36:57,430 --> 00:37:01,570
And she would sometimes reserve her food.
582
00:37:01,570 --> 00:37:04,430
She would eat just enough so
that she wasn't hungry anymore
583
00:37:04,430 --> 00:37:07,193
and hide the rest of it in various places.
584
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:13,033
- We wake up in the morning,
we all sleeping one room.
585
00:37:14,050 --> 00:37:17,987
About 20, 30 little by little.
586
00:37:22,090 --> 00:37:26,793
They feed me so we not die.
587
00:37:26,793 --> 00:37:30,300
Starving, we were starving.
588
00:37:30,300 --> 00:37:33,803
Each one is very thin because no food.
589
00:37:34,720 --> 00:37:38,183
This much bread and soup, little.
590
00:37:41,700 --> 00:37:44,113
- One day while she was in the orphanage,
591
00:37:48,700 --> 00:37:51,490
she made contact through
the gate of the orphanage.
592
00:37:51,490 --> 00:37:54,680
There were other children
outside, street children
593
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:56,720
and sometimes she was able to talk to them
594
00:37:56,720 --> 00:37:57,970
through the orphanage gates.
595
00:37:57,970 --> 00:38:00,460
She was on the inside,
they were on the outside
596
00:38:00,460 --> 00:38:02,970
and one of them was her older sister,
597
00:38:02,970 --> 00:38:05,710
whom she had not seen in several years,
598
00:38:05,710 --> 00:38:08,950
since the time of the deportation.
599
00:38:08,950 --> 00:38:11,270
She remembers passing some of the food
600
00:38:11,270 --> 00:38:13,480
out to her older sister
601
00:38:15,450 --> 00:38:18,740
and her older sister told her
602
00:38:19,870 --> 00:38:24,740
that the very day after
her mother gave her
603
00:38:25,830 --> 00:38:27,750
to be adopted by the store owner,
604
00:38:27,750 --> 00:38:29,453
the next day her mother died.
605
00:38:30,500 --> 00:38:32,540
A few weeks later, the street children,
606
00:38:32,540 --> 00:38:35,220
also known as the
roaming Armenian orphans,
607
00:38:35,220 --> 00:38:37,870
were no longer begging at
the gates of the orphanage.
608
00:38:37,870 --> 00:38:40,760
A rumor soon spread that
the Ottoman gendarmes,
609
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:43,880
annoyed by the children had
assembled and killed them all.
610
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:47,760
Among the disappeared was
Almas Avakian's older sister.
611
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:50,460
She remembers it was a difficult life there.
612
00:38:51,445 --> 00:38:55,200
They taught the orphans
to do various tasks.
613
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:56,930
They would have to help
out in the orphanage.
614
00:38:56,930 --> 00:38:59,910
Some of them, like my
grandmother, were taught
615
00:38:59,910 --> 00:39:03,003
how to make Armenian lace.
616
00:39:03,890 --> 00:39:07,503
- I learned this in orphanage.
617
00:39:07,503 --> 00:39:11,780
This is made by sewing needle.
618
00:39:11,780 --> 00:39:15,313
Not crochet, sewing needle.
619
00:39:18,110 --> 00:39:20,340
- That's something that my
grandmother has remembered
620
00:39:20,340 --> 00:39:21,250
all of her life.
621
00:39:21,250 --> 00:39:24,450
She has made very beautiful Armenian lace
622
00:39:25,630 --> 00:39:28,750
and a few years ago taught my daughter,
623
00:39:28,750 --> 00:39:31,040
her great-granddaughter,
how to do the lace.
624
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:34,413
So now my daughter knows
how to do that very well.
625
00:39:40,620 --> 00:39:43,440
In 1920, Almas Avakian's aunt,
626
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:44,800
living in Massachusetts,
627
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:47,320
discovers that Almas was still alive
628
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:50,120
and immediately claims her
from the Aleppo orphanage
629
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:52,910
and pays for her passage to America.
630
00:39:52,910 --> 00:39:56,340
- My aunt had seven children.
631
00:39:56,340 --> 00:39:58,783
Her husband made $25.
632
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:01,730
And she bring me here.
633
00:40:01,730 --> 00:40:05,713
That cost them perhaps, three,
$400 for me to come here.
634
00:40:07,672 --> 00:40:10,183
And later she married me.
635
00:40:11,539 --> 00:40:12,853
And then I had my children.
636
00:40:15,463 --> 00:40:18,503
And that's life, that's life.
637
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:22,170
Almas Bogossian is considered
638
00:40:22,170 --> 00:40:24,940
to be one of the lucky
Armenian Genocide orphans
639
00:40:24,940 --> 00:40:28,890
who survived the horrors and
atrocities of the genocide.
640
00:40:28,890 --> 00:40:32,570
Living in America, 5,000 miles
away from her ancestral home
641
00:40:32,570 --> 00:40:34,840
of Western Armenia where
she was driven out of,
642
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:38,340
Almas started a family
and raised three children
643
00:40:38,340 --> 00:40:41,670
who went on to complete
post graduate education.
644
00:40:41,670 --> 00:40:43,910
She lived to enjoy her eight grandchildren
645
00:40:43,910 --> 00:40:46,613
who made her a proud
great grandmother of six.
646
00:40:55,290 --> 00:40:58,830
- The number of orphans was so large,
647
00:40:58,830 --> 00:41:01,530
that they would become really the basis
648
00:41:01,530 --> 00:41:03,030
of the new Armenian society
649
00:41:03,030 --> 00:41:06,380
in places like Aleppo and in Beirut.
650
00:41:06,380 --> 00:41:09,230
Armenian relief was an
incredibly important aspect
651
00:41:09,230 --> 00:41:14,006
of America's relationship
with the Middle East
652
00:41:14,006 --> 00:41:15,890
and entire organizations,
653
00:41:15,890 --> 00:41:17,140
Near East Relief being
the most important one,
654
00:41:17,140 --> 00:41:20,070
but also the International Red Cross,
655
00:41:20,070 --> 00:41:23,260
that Americans were at the forefront
656
00:41:23,260 --> 00:41:27,413
of providing relief to
Armenian victims of genocide.
657
00:41:28,730 --> 00:41:30,400
Robert Elliot Wirt Junior,
658
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:33,840
a U.S. Special Forces Green
Beret who has served his country
659
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:35,090
in Central America,
660
00:41:35,090 --> 00:41:37,860
is the great, grandson of
congregational minister,
661
00:41:37,860 --> 00:41:41,110
Loyal Lincoln Wirt who
started a worldwide campaign
662
00:41:41,110 --> 00:41:42,910
for Near East Relief fundraisers
663
00:41:42,910 --> 00:41:46,660
for genocide stricken
Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.
664
00:41:46,660 --> 00:41:48,650
- At the end of the First World War,
665
00:41:48,650 --> 00:41:52,520
Loyal had been a captain
in the American Red Cross
666
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:57,520
in the European theater and
he came back to America,
667
00:41:57,560 --> 00:41:59,820
was recruited by Dr. Barton
668
00:41:59,820 --> 00:42:02,300
of the Congregational Mission there,
669
00:42:02,300 --> 00:42:07,180
to head up a relief effort to Turkey,
670
00:42:07,180 --> 00:42:12,070
which was being gathered
under the auspices
671
00:42:12,070 --> 00:42:15,290
of Near East Relief, which
is a church relief group
672
00:42:15,290 --> 00:42:18,270
that was set up and was
chartered and authorized
673
00:42:18,270 --> 00:42:21,110
by the U.S. Congress at about that time,
674
00:42:21,110 --> 00:42:23,053
under Woodrow Wilson.
675
00:42:24,070 --> 00:42:25,930
Loyal Lincoln Wirt was commissioned
676
00:42:25,930 --> 00:42:28,260
to lead the first shipment
of relief supplies
677
00:42:28,260 --> 00:42:30,470
from New York to Constantinople, Turkey
678
00:42:30,470 --> 00:42:32,840
aboard the vessel SS Pensacola.
679
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:37,650
The 10,000 ton vessel set
sail on January 25, 1919,
680
00:42:37,650 --> 00:42:39,860
carrying 100 automobiles,
681
00:42:39,860 --> 00:42:42,870
scores of necessary relief
equipment and supplies
682
00:42:42,870 --> 00:42:46,030
and a group of 48 American volunteers.
683
00:42:46,030 --> 00:42:47,800
Loyal's mission marked the beginning
684
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:50,383
of Near East Relief's herculean task.
685
00:42:52,030 --> 00:42:54,690
- They built, according to Loyal,
686
00:42:54,690 --> 00:42:59,690
approximately 212 orphanages
from Istanbul to Aleppo
687
00:43:00,290 --> 00:43:01,363
down in Syria.
688
00:43:02,922 --> 00:43:05,172
And these were operated
for a number of years
689
00:43:06,070 --> 00:43:10,160
until the children
eventually gathered together
690
00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:14,410
approximately according
to again Loyal's writings,
691
00:43:14,410 --> 00:43:17,090
approximately 200,000 children,
692
00:43:17,090 --> 00:43:20,210
the Armenian orphans
which were left behind
693
00:43:20,210 --> 00:43:23,030
after their parents were had been murdered
694
00:43:23,030 --> 00:43:25,490
by the Ottoman Turks, during the war.
695
00:43:25,490 --> 00:43:29,886
And they were fed, clothed, educated
696
00:43:29,886 --> 00:43:34,080
and all of these locations that
the Near East Relief set up
697
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:37,240
for the Armenian orphanages,
698
00:43:37,240 --> 00:43:40,500
were under the protection
of the U.S. government,
699
00:43:40,500 --> 00:43:43,360
and it didn't really take apparently,
700
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:44,540
the posting of the troops,
701
00:43:44,540 --> 00:43:48,930
just the flying of the flag
that the Turks would leave
702
00:43:48,930 --> 00:43:53,000
these locations alone and
leave the Armenian orphans
703
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:55,373
to their salvation in the orphanages.
704
00:43:56,370 --> 00:43:59,190
In his memoirs,
the "World is my Parish,"
705
00:43:59,190 --> 00:44:01,230
Loyal writes how he witnessed the arrest
706
00:44:01,230 --> 00:44:03,940
of Ismael Hakki Bey in Karahisar
707
00:44:03,940 --> 00:44:07,137
while transporting Armenian
refugees to Aleppo.
708
00:44:07,137 --> 00:44:10,357
- "Ismael Bey was the Turkish
Director of Deportations
709
00:44:10,357 --> 00:44:13,417
"at Aleppo, before the city
was captured by the British.
710
00:44:13,417 --> 00:44:16,977
"Before their arrival he
fled into the interior.
711
00:44:16,977 --> 00:44:19,227
"The regimental interpreter
was standing near him
712
00:44:19,227 --> 00:44:22,447
"and I asked him what
the crowd was saying.
713
00:44:22,447 --> 00:44:23,777
"He replied that their language
714
00:44:23,777 --> 00:44:26,333
"was more forcible than elegant,
715
00:44:27,197 --> 00:44:31,287
"but not more so than the
old scoundrel deserved.
716
00:44:31,287 --> 00:44:33,297
"One was crying, 'Look at me, look at me,
717
00:44:33,297 --> 00:44:34,917
"'you have not forgotten me,
718
00:44:34,917 --> 00:44:38,757
"'I am the man who paid you
600 pound sterling at Mersin,
719
00:44:38,757 --> 00:44:40,047
"'you promised me exemption
720
00:44:40,047 --> 00:44:41,987
"'and then you deported me to the desert.'
721
00:44:41,987 --> 00:44:46,257
"Another shouted, 'You
called yourself protector.
722
00:44:46,257 --> 00:44:49,117
"'You said pay me and I will
save you and we believed you.
723
00:44:49,117 --> 00:44:49,950
"'We paid you plenty
724
00:44:49,950 --> 00:44:52,837
"'then you sent 40,000
of us to the desert.
725
00:44:52,837 --> 00:44:55,997
"'Most of us died of
disease and starvation.
726
00:44:55,997 --> 00:44:57,977
"Still others heaped maledictions
727
00:44:57,977 --> 00:44:59,853
"on the prisoners in the head.
728
00:45:01,168 --> 00:45:03,067
"'You sent 300 orphans to a train,
729
00:45:03,067 --> 00:45:05,467
"'saying they were going
to a happy orphanage.
730
00:45:05,467 --> 00:45:09,083
"'Then you set fire to that
train and the children perished.
731
00:45:10,077 --> 00:45:11,687
"'You though you left no witness
732
00:45:11,687 --> 00:45:15,047
"'but I escaped to accuse you.'
733
00:45:15,047 --> 00:45:18,417
"Ismael Hakki Bey had a fair trial,
734
00:45:18,417 --> 00:45:20,827
"but the evidence against
him was overwhelming.
735
00:45:20,827 --> 00:45:23,497
"The verdict was execution by hanging.
736
00:45:23,497 --> 00:45:27,400
"But as a military officer
he was privileged to be shot.
737
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:39,300
Child star actor, Jackie Coogan,
738
00:45:39,300 --> 00:45:40,310
who played an orphan
739
00:45:40,310 --> 00:45:44,160
in Charlie Chaplin's 1921
silent movie "The Kid,"
740
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:47,520
was commissioned by the American
Near East Relief Foundation
741
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:51,190
in 1924 to embarked on
what became to be known
742
00:45:51,190 --> 00:45:52,930
as the the World's first celebrity
743
00:45:52,930 --> 00:45:55,810
humanitarian fundraising campaign.
744
00:45:55,810 --> 00:45:58,800
Coogan's fundraiser for the
Armenian Genocide orphans
745
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:01,710
was endorsed by the dairy
product giant Nestle
746
00:46:01,710 --> 00:46:06,200
and raised $1 million for
providing necessary food supplies.
747
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:09,840
In this rare film, Jackie
Coogan visits Detroit, Michigan
748
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:12,010
as one of his stops for his fundraiser
749
00:46:12,010 --> 00:46:15,210
and eventually in October of 1924 travels
750
00:46:15,210 --> 00:46:18,190
across the Atlantic to deliver
the humanitarian shipment
751
00:46:18,190 --> 00:46:21,260
to Armenian and Greek orphans in Athens.
752
00:46:21,260 --> 00:46:24,733
Jackie Coogan was honored by
His Holiness Pope Pius XI,
753
00:46:25,573 --> 00:46:30,150
who in 1922 had saved 400
Armenian Genocide orphan girls
754
00:46:30,150 --> 00:46:32,970
from Constantinople bringing them safety
755
00:46:32,970 --> 00:46:35,893
to the city of Castel Gandolfo in Rome.
756
00:46:37,690 --> 00:46:40,440
During a 1923 visit to Jerusalem,
757
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:44,140
Emperor Hailee Selassie of
Ethiopia was so very impressed
758
00:46:44,140 --> 00:46:46,380
by the performance of a brass band
759
00:46:46,380 --> 00:46:47,430
that when he was informed
760
00:46:47,430 --> 00:46:48,630
that its members were orphans
761
00:46:48,630 --> 00:46:51,899
of the Armenian Massacres,
he offered to adopt them all
762
00:46:51,899 --> 00:46:55,560
and brought them back
with him to Addis Ababa.
763
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:57,680
Soon, the 40 Armenian orphans formed
764
00:46:57,680 --> 00:46:59,940
the Imperial Band of Ethiopia.
765
00:46:59,940 --> 00:47:01,950
And their conductor, Kevork Nalbandian,
766
00:47:01,950 --> 00:47:04,563
composed the Ethiopian National anthem.
767
00:47:06,490 --> 00:47:09,840
In 1931, at the emperor's coronation,
768
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:12,930
the brass band refused to
play the Turkish Anthem
769
00:47:12,930 --> 00:47:15,287
as the Turkish delegation arrived.
770
00:47:15,287 --> 00:47:19,120
"They killed our fathers how
can we play their anthem?"
771
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:20,928
the band members reasoned.
772
00:47:40,070 --> 00:47:43,080
One of the largest Armenian
Orphan relief initiatives
773
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:45,952
launched by the American
Near East Relief Foundation,
774
00:47:45,952 --> 00:47:47,190
was the management
775
00:47:47,190 --> 00:47:49,900
of the world's largest
genocide orphan relief
776
00:47:49,900 --> 00:47:51,770
in the city of Alexandrapole,
777
00:47:51,770 --> 00:47:55,130
modern day city of Gyumri, in Armenia.
778
00:47:55,130 --> 00:47:57,210
- Alexandrapole was the place
779
00:47:57,210 --> 00:48:00,870
for mass concentration of orphanages.
780
00:48:00,870 --> 00:48:04,050
That's why the main three orphanages
781
00:48:04,050 --> 00:48:08,573
in Alexandrapole were
called Orphan Cities.
782
00:48:24,830 --> 00:48:26,000
One of the orphanages
783
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:30,000
in Alexandrapole was housed
in 75 such stone buildings,
784
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:32,463
once used as Russian Imperial barracks.
785
00:48:36,810 --> 00:48:38,430
About 90 years ago,
786
00:48:38,430 --> 00:48:41,470
thousands of Armenian orphans
assembled in this field,
787
00:48:41,470 --> 00:48:43,463
for their daily exercise routine.
788
00:48:54,100 --> 00:48:57,600
22,000 Armenian orphans
were cared for by American,
789
00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:00,913
European and Armenian relief
workers in Alexandrapole.
790
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:12,440
- We have hundreds of photos shot
791
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:15,170
by Near East Relief personnel showing
792
00:49:15,170 --> 00:49:17,100
what kind of humanitarian activity,
793
00:49:17,100 --> 00:49:19,820
orphan care activities were organized
794
00:49:19,820 --> 00:49:23,163
in Alexandrapole, in 1920's.
795
00:49:24,050 --> 00:49:26,304
The orphanage had its own hospital operated
796
00:49:26,304 --> 00:49:30,050
by trained medical staff with
scores of medical doctors
797
00:49:30,050 --> 00:49:33,350
and nurses providing
professional patient care.
798
00:49:33,350 --> 00:49:35,580
They even had their own ambulatory system
799
00:49:35,580 --> 00:49:38,050
for patient transportation.
800
00:49:38,050 --> 00:49:40,190
In addition to academic education,
801
00:49:40,190 --> 00:49:41,950
the Armenian children were trained
802
00:49:41,950 --> 00:49:44,435
in the arts, crafts and trades.
803
00:49:52,150 --> 00:49:54,230
The orphanage had its own musical bands
804
00:49:54,230 --> 00:49:57,450
and organized concerts as
well as theatrical groups
805
00:49:57,450 --> 00:49:59,340
that put on performances.
806
00:49:59,340 --> 00:50:01,560
While older girls helped
out in the kitchen
807
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:03,580
and attended embroidery classes,
808
00:50:03,580 --> 00:50:05,230
the boys learned about gardening,
809
00:50:05,230 --> 00:50:07,900
shoemaking and auto-mechanics.
810
00:50:07,900 --> 00:50:10,470
One of the children, a 14-year-old orphan,
811
00:50:10,470 --> 00:50:13,423
built a small automobile
that really operated.
812
00:50:14,490 --> 00:50:16,760
Both, boys and girls were taught to knit
813
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:20,270
their own winter stockings for
the harsh Caucasian weather.
814
00:50:20,270 --> 00:50:22,800
They were also taught to
mend their own clothing,
815
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:24,903
but still found time for play.
816
00:50:26,490 --> 00:50:29,493
Even the nurses took respite
from their hectic schedule.
817
00:50:30,830 --> 00:50:34,900
In 1920, Vahan Cheraz, a
native of Constantinople,
818
00:50:34,900 --> 00:50:37,010
founded the first Armenian athletic
819
00:50:37,010 --> 00:50:40,050
and scouting organization
in Alexandrapole.
820
00:50:40,050 --> 00:50:43,310
The group organized soccer
teams, athletics programs,
821
00:50:43,310 --> 00:50:47,440
and many other sports competitions
involving the orphans.
822
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:49,230
All necessary measures were taken
823
00:50:49,230 --> 00:50:52,820
to make the Armenian Genocide
orphans feel at home.
824
00:50:52,820 --> 00:50:55,863
They were provided toys,
allowed to have pets,
825
00:50:57,000 --> 00:50:59,113
they even had an outdoor hair salon.
826
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:03,093
And were showered with
motherly love and care.
827
00:51:09,770 --> 00:51:11,640
Alexandrapole was the capital
828
00:51:11,640 --> 00:51:14,070
of Shirak Province in Armenia.
829
00:51:14,070 --> 00:51:16,900
The Governor, Garo Sassouni
was very instrumental
830
00:51:16,900 --> 00:51:20,300
in the Armenian Genocide
orphan relief efforts.
831
00:51:20,300 --> 00:51:25,300
- My father, along with
other duties was able
832
00:51:26,590 --> 00:51:31,590
to save many orphans
833
00:51:31,630 --> 00:51:34,020
by paying Kurds
834
00:51:35,222 --> 00:51:38,670
delivering the orphans
to their organization.
835
00:51:38,670 --> 00:51:43,670
That's where you will
find a group of orphans
836
00:51:46,240 --> 00:51:49,240
with my mother Leyola Sassouni,
837
00:51:49,240 --> 00:51:52,520
doing some physical exercises
838
00:51:52,520 --> 00:51:54,893
on one of the hills of Khunous.
839
00:51:55,990 --> 00:51:58,330
Garo Sassouni's
wife, Leyola Sassouni,
840
00:51:58,330 --> 00:52:00,560
a graduate of the American Robert College
841
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:03,910
in Constantinople served as
the administrative translator
842
00:52:03,910 --> 00:52:06,510
for Near East Relief in Alexandrapole.
843
00:52:06,510 --> 00:52:09,230
- My father was also instrumental
844
00:52:09,230 --> 00:52:14,190
in bringing large
845
00:52:15,840 --> 00:52:18,650
segment of the population
846
00:52:18,650 --> 00:52:21,650
of Daron, Van, Erzunga and Alashgerd
847
00:52:23,300 --> 00:52:25,570
to Eastern Armenia
848
00:52:25,570 --> 00:52:30,160
and many orphans were walking
849
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:35,160
with about 100,000 or some
say about 300,000 population
850
00:52:36,240 --> 00:52:39,720
from that region to Eastern Armenia
851
00:52:39,720 --> 00:52:43,363
and primarily through Alexandrapole.
852
00:52:44,340 --> 00:52:46,110
Later, the Sassuni's continued
853
00:52:46,110 --> 00:52:47,330
their orphan relief efforts
854
00:52:47,330 --> 00:52:50,280
in Aleppo, Syria and Beirut, Lebanon.
855
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:53,520
Today, one of the chapter of
the Armenian Relief Society,
856
00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:55,540
based in Watertown, Massachusetts,
857
00:52:55,540 --> 00:52:57,453
is named after Leyola Sassouni.
858
00:52:58,720 --> 00:53:00,263
- The rescue movement was an attempt
859
00:53:00,263 --> 00:53:04,860
to locate, find and
retrieve these young people,
860
00:53:04,860 --> 00:53:07,840
who now in many cases had
gone through adolescence
861
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:10,270
and were adults, who wanted to be found
862
00:53:10,270 --> 00:53:13,483
and wanted to come back
to the Armenian community.
863
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:16,230
It wasn't just that
international organizations
864
00:53:16,230 --> 00:53:17,650
that did this of course,
865
00:53:17,650 --> 00:53:19,700
the first and most important
rescues were affected
866
00:53:19,700 --> 00:53:21,720
by Armenians themselves.
867
00:53:21,720 --> 00:53:25,220
The AGBU, Armenian
General Benevolent Union,
868
00:53:25,220 --> 00:53:28,190
established in 1906 in Cairo, Egypt
869
00:53:28,190 --> 00:53:31,200
and the ARS, Armenian Relief Society,
870
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:34,290
at times referred to as
the Armenian Red Cross,
871
00:53:34,290 --> 00:53:38,300
established in New York, in
1910, played a momentous role
872
00:53:38,300 --> 00:53:41,230
in locating and rescuing Armenian orphans
873
00:53:41,230 --> 00:53:44,410
including those who were
forcefully converted into Muslims,
874
00:53:44,410 --> 00:53:47,100
or roaming aimlessly
in the Syrian dessert,
875
00:53:47,100 --> 00:53:49,010
and still others who were adopted
876
00:53:49,010 --> 00:53:51,220
by friendly Muslim families.
877
00:53:51,220 --> 00:53:54,126
Both organizations were instrumental
878
00:53:54,126 --> 00:53:55,140
in providing the genocide orphans
879
00:53:55,140 --> 00:53:58,640
with desperately needed physical,
mental and spiritual care
880
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:01,930
by starting soup kitchens,
clinics, kindergartens,
881
00:54:01,930 --> 00:54:04,963
workshops, skill centers
and Bible schools.
882
00:54:05,900 --> 00:54:09,000
Armenian organizations and
church groups collaborated
883
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:11,130
in administering scores of orphanages
884
00:54:11,130 --> 00:54:14,950
in Constantinople, Eastern
Anatolia, Jerusalem,
885
00:54:14,950 --> 00:54:18,610
Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and
many other locations,
886
00:54:18,610 --> 00:54:21,120
with financial assistance
from United States,
887
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:24,393
Europe and as far as Australia and Japan.
888
00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:11,640
Mampre and Myriam Shirinian,
889
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:12,473
who look like
890
00:55:12,473 --> 00:55:14,670
an average hard-working
Canadian immigrant couple
891
00:55:14,670 --> 00:55:17,480
in this photo, were in
fact two Armenian orphans
892
00:55:17,480 --> 00:55:20,170
of the genocide, who
met and started a family
893
00:55:20,170 --> 00:55:23,720
thousands of miles away from
their ancestral homeland.
894
00:55:23,720 --> 00:55:25,690
Mampre was a Georgetown boy
895
00:55:25,690 --> 00:55:27,783
and Myriam was a Georgetown girl.
896
00:55:28,630 --> 00:55:32,653
- The Georgetown Boys
endeavor was very important.
897
00:55:33,690 --> 00:55:36,290
The Armenian Relief Association of Canada
898
00:55:36,290 --> 00:55:41,290
raised public funds and
these funds were raised
899
00:55:42,030 --> 00:55:44,750
for the Armenian children.
900
00:55:44,750 --> 00:55:48,340
The purpose was to bring
these children to Canada,
901
00:55:48,340 --> 00:55:53,340
to settle them on a farm home school
902
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:58,460
in Ontario, and to
maintain those children,
903
00:55:58,460 --> 00:56:01,442
each of those children, for five years.
904
00:56:06,938 --> 00:56:09,160
In 1924, Mampre Shirinian was brought
905
00:56:09,160 --> 00:56:10,820
to Georgetown Boys Farmhouse
906
00:56:10,820 --> 00:56:13,000
in Cedervale, Ontario, Canada,
907
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:16,730
by the efforts of the Armenian
Relief Association of Canada.
908
00:56:16,730 --> 00:56:21,730
- He remembers his
father who was taken away
909
00:56:21,830 --> 00:56:26,120
in a labor battalion and killed,
910
00:56:26,120 --> 00:56:27,903
before the genocide started.
911
00:56:28,804 --> 00:56:30,810
Miryam Mazmanian
from Harput, Turkey,
912
00:56:30,810 --> 00:56:34,310
orphaned at the age of two and
her brother were also brought
913
00:56:34,310 --> 00:56:36,473
to Canada by way of Corfu, Greece.
914
00:56:37,340 --> 00:56:41,050
- She remembers the day that
her brother came running to her
915
00:56:41,050 --> 00:56:45,360
as she was playing in the
yard outside her home.
916
00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:46,937
Grabbed her by the hand
and pulled and said,
917
00:56:46,937 --> 00:56:48,567
"Run, the soldiers are coming."
918
00:56:49,680 --> 00:56:52,010
She never saw home or parents again.
919
00:56:52,010 --> 00:56:54,630
My dad told me a recollection
920
00:56:54,630 --> 00:56:58,160
of when he was on the deportations.
921
00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:02,720
He remembers, his brother, Kevork,
922
00:57:02,720 --> 00:57:06,510
after whom I'm named, dying of pneumonia.
923
00:57:06,510 --> 00:57:10,363
- And my father having lost everybody,
924
00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:14,100
moved from family to family
925
00:57:14,100 --> 00:57:17,630
and he would join with other orphaned boys
926
00:57:17,630 --> 00:57:19,820
when they'd pass through a town.
927
00:57:19,820 --> 00:57:21,180
And one trick they would have,
928
00:57:21,180 --> 00:57:23,610
they'd do go to the local granary
929
00:57:23,610 --> 00:57:25,740
and they would pretend to get in a fight,
930
00:57:25,740 --> 00:57:28,540
and they would throw each
other on the grain pile
931
00:57:28,540 --> 00:57:30,610
and stuff their pockets full of grain
932
00:57:30,610 --> 00:57:32,440
that they would take back to the mother
933
00:57:32,440 --> 00:57:34,010
who was looking after them
934
00:57:34,010 --> 00:57:38,080
and this would allow her to
make some food or some bread.
935
00:57:38,080 --> 00:57:41,580
- A group of Turkish soldiers
saw him begging for food,
936
00:57:41,580 --> 00:57:45,080
recognized him as an
Armenian and called him over
937
00:57:45,080 --> 00:57:46,580
and said they'll give him food
938
00:57:47,853 --> 00:57:49,954
if he let them circumcise him
939
00:57:49,954 --> 00:57:53,260
and convert him into Muslim on the spot.
940
00:57:53,260 --> 00:57:56,460
In 1936, Mampre, a Georgetown boy
941
00:57:56,460 --> 00:57:59,030
and Miryam, a Georgetown girl get married
942
00:57:59,030 --> 00:58:02,000
and settle in Ontario,
Canada, start a business,
943
00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:04,020
raise two sons Lorne and George,
944
00:58:04,020 --> 00:58:06,984
who both excelled as academicians.
945
00:58:13,320 --> 00:58:15,950
Sarkis Sarkissian was
another Georgetown boy
946
00:58:15,950 --> 00:58:20,350
who lost his parents in
1915 in Harput at age two.
947
00:58:20,350 --> 00:58:24,150
His grandmother took custody
of Sarkis and his sister Nuver,
948
00:58:24,150 --> 00:58:26,220
but as her health began to fail
949
00:58:26,220 --> 00:58:29,100
she turned the children
over to an orphanage.
950
00:58:29,100 --> 00:58:32,310
- His grandmother put him and his sister
951
00:58:32,310 --> 00:58:34,763
in an orphanage in Adana,
952
00:58:35,730 --> 00:58:40,730
and they stayed there
for two to three years,
953
00:58:41,084 --> 00:58:44,960
then they were taken
to the island of Cyprus
954
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:48,120
to another orphanage and they were there
955
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:49,990
for another two years,
956
00:58:49,990 --> 00:58:54,880
and then they were shipped
to the Greek Island of Corfu.
957
00:58:54,880 --> 00:58:56,880
Eventually Sarkis was separated
958
00:58:56,880 --> 00:58:59,420
from his sister, Nuver,
and taken to Canada
959
00:58:59,420 --> 00:59:01,670
as a Georgetown boy where he excelled
960
00:59:01,670 --> 00:59:03,740
in agricultural husbandry.
961
00:59:03,740 --> 00:59:05,923
- It's probably be this field right here,
962
00:59:06,850 --> 00:59:10,770
was all wet and marshy.
963
00:59:10,770 --> 00:59:15,180
And they gave the boys each a plot,
964
00:59:15,180 --> 00:59:18,800
and they had to tile
drain this, this land.
965
00:59:18,800 --> 00:59:20,610
I'm sure if you dug down,
966
00:59:20,610 --> 00:59:22,860
you'd probably find the
tiles are still here.
967
00:59:23,840 --> 00:59:27,070
Each boy had to dig a
certain amount of trench,
968
00:59:27,070 --> 00:59:31,000
to put the tiles in to drain this field
969
00:59:31,000 --> 00:59:34,018
and each had a plot where
they could grow a garden.
970
00:59:36,860 --> 00:59:38,540
Upon leaving Georgetown,
971
00:59:38,540 --> 00:59:40,520
Sarkis started a farming business,
972
00:59:40,520 --> 00:59:42,173
and after meeting Ann Popiel,
973
00:59:42,173 --> 00:59:45,560
a Canadian of Ukrainian
descent, started a family.
974
00:59:45,560 --> 00:59:49,600
In 1938, Sarkis received
word that his sister Nuver,
975
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:52,750
the only family relation
was alive and well,
976
00:59:52,750 --> 00:59:55,710
and employed as a nurse at
the Scot Mission Hospital
977
00:59:55,710 --> 00:59:57,750
in Tiberias, Palestine.
978
00:59:57,750 --> 01:00:00,190
Sarkis contacts Nuver immediately
979
01:00:00,190 --> 01:00:02,440
and soon she joins him in Canada.
980
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:04,060
- After letters and going
981
01:00:04,060 --> 01:00:07,110
through different political
channels and all that stuff,
982
01:00:07,110 --> 01:00:10,253
he finally got her
permission to come to Canada.
983
01:00:11,480 --> 01:00:15,110
And I can remember what we used
to be called Multon Airport
984
01:00:15,110 --> 01:00:18,970
and she came in on this big Tristar,
985
01:00:18,970 --> 01:00:23,130
motor driven airplane
and she got off the plane
986
01:00:23,130 --> 01:00:25,533
and well it was a very,
987
01:00:35,170 --> 01:00:38,410
sorry, but a very emotional reunion.
988
01:00:43,180 --> 01:00:44,860
After settling in Toronto,
989
01:00:44,860 --> 01:00:49,690
Nuver met and married Levon
Vassoyan another Georgetown boy.
990
01:00:49,690 --> 01:00:54,120
- I can remember going to her wedding
991
01:00:54,120 --> 01:00:59,120
and another one of the Georgetown
boys was their best man
992
01:01:00,230 --> 01:01:03,293
and his name was Mampre Shirinian.
993
01:01:05,140 --> 01:01:10,140
- There was a moment in Georgetown
994
01:01:10,350 --> 01:01:15,350
when the zeal to make the
young orphans Canadians rapidly
995
01:01:17,170 --> 01:01:18,963
perhaps went a little too far.
996
01:01:19,970 --> 01:01:24,970
- So when the Armenian
Relief Association of Canada
997
01:01:25,500 --> 01:01:27,760
changed the names of those children,
998
01:01:27,760 --> 01:01:31,773
anglicized them in the
name of their sponsors,
999
01:01:33,846 --> 01:01:36,330
that was the connection.
1000
01:01:36,330 --> 01:01:40,490
The sponsors had given
certain amounts of money
1001
01:01:40,490 --> 01:01:42,790
and were gonna continue that kind of money
1002
01:01:42,790 --> 01:01:45,030
for these children and
it was at that point
1003
01:01:45,030 --> 01:01:49,100
that the children objected to
having their names changed,
1004
01:01:49,100 --> 01:01:51,980
because that was the only thing
1005
01:01:51,980 --> 01:01:54,930
they came with was their names.
1006
01:01:54,930 --> 01:01:59,930
- So they told the boys,
they had a meeting and said,
1007
01:02:00,377 --> 01:02:01,880
"We're gonna change your names,"
1008
01:02:01,880 --> 01:02:04,200
and they even drew a list of
what their names would be.
1009
01:02:04,200 --> 01:02:07,170
For example, my father Mampre Shirinian,
1010
01:02:07,170 --> 01:02:10,420
they said he was going to be Paul Oliver
1011
01:02:10,420 --> 01:02:12,960
and my father shook his head
1012
01:02:12,960 --> 01:02:15,660
and there was no rhyme or reason
1013
01:02:15,660 --> 01:02:19,620
to why it should be Paul Oliver
and they were similar cases.
1014
01:02:19,620 --> 01:02:22,860
The boys in effect revolted.
1015
01:02:22,860 --> 01:02:27,500
- And all these young
boys gathered together
1016
01:02:27,500 --> 01:02:30,480
and made a delegation to the
leadership of the orphanage
1017
01:02:31,650 --> 01:02:33,320
and they begged to be able
1018
01:02:33,320 --> 01:02:35,403
to keep their original Armenian names.
1019
01:02:36,850 --> 01:02:38,960
They did not want to appear ungrateful
1020
01:02:38,960 --> 01:02:42,130
but, they said these names
have no meaning to us.
1021
01:02:42,130 --> 01:02:44,020
But we've lost our mothers,
1022
01:02:44,020 --> 01:02:46,343
our fathers and friends and home.
1023
01:02:48,298 --> 01:02:52,087
Please let us keep our Armenian names.
1024
01:02:52,087 --> 01:02:56,660
- And in this way the
administrators relented
1025
01:02:56,660 --> 01:02:59,230
and the boys were allowed
to keep their names.
1026
01:02:59,230 --> 01:03:02,263
A memory of their parents
they never saw again.
1027
01:03:04,960 --> 01:03:07,330
- I have mixed emotions of sadness,
1028
01:03:07,330 --> 01:03:10,740
because the Georgetown Boys
Farm had to be established
1029
01:03:10,740 --> 01:03:15,477
and was established to look
after 109 orphans of boys
1030
01:03:15,477 --> 01:03:19,240
and 29 orphan girls that
had to come to a new land,
1031
01:03:19,240 --> 01:03:22,140
who knew nothing about the
language or the culture,
1032
01:03:22,140 --> 01:03:24,890
but were put in the
position that they were in.
1033
01:03:24,890 --> 01:03:28,470
But I have mixed emotions
of celebration today,
1034
01:03:28,470 --> 01:03:30,050
because they were survivors
1035
01:03:30,050 --> 01:03:33,170
and this picture right
here in front of all of us,
1036
01:03:33,170 --> 01:03:35,940
in any future printings of a dictionary
1037
01:03:35,940 --> 01:03:37,800
besides the word survivor,
1038
01:03:37,800 --> 01:03:39,690
every dictionary should have a picture
1039
01:03:39,690 --> 01:03:41,329
of the Georgetown Boys.
1040
01:03:49,620 --> 01:03:52,080
On June 27, 2011,
1041
01:03:52,080 --> 01:03:54,120
the provincial plaque
was erected at the site
1042
01:03:54,120 --> 01:03:56,060
by the Ontario Heritage Trust,
1043
01:03:56,060 --> 01:03:57,960
further immortalizing the memory
1044
01:03:57,960 --> 01:04:01,480
of the 109 Armenian
Genocide orphans rescued
1045
01:04:01,480 --> 01:04:04,320
by the Canadian relief
efforts marking this
1046
01:04:04,320 --> 01:04:07,583
as Canada's first ever humanitarian
undertaking of its kind.
1047
01:04:22,740 --> 01:04:25,550
A recently uncovered
authentic Ottoman document,
1048
01:04:25,550 --> 01:04:28,700
issued on August 30, 1915,
1049
01:04:28,700 --> 01:04:31,300
dispatched by the
Ottoman Interior Ministry
1050
01:04:31,300 --> 01:04:34,620
to the vice governor of
Ankara, reads as follows:
1051
01:04:34,620 --> 01:04:36,740
The existence of Armenian children
1052
01:04:36,740 --> 01:04:39,630
in official institutions
is not appropriate.
1053
01:04:39,630 --> 01:04:41,860
Therefore, the remaining
ones should be divided
1054
01:04:41,860 --> 01:04:43,490
among Islamic villages.
1055
01:04:43,490 --> 01:04:45,453
Signed Interior Minister, Talat.
1056
01:04:47,070 --> 01:04:48,570
According to another document,
1057
01:04:48,570 --> 01:04:52,840
issued on September 22,
1915, dispatched in Ankara,
1058
01:04:52,840 --> 01:04:55,473
and signed by deputy governor Atef,
1059
01:04:55,473 --> 01:04:59,420
1,426 Armenian children were ordered
1060
01:04:59,420 --> 01:05:02,290
to be absorbed by Islamic Institutions.
1061
01:05:02,290 --> 01:05:07,100
- 1,450 orphans in Ankara,
today's capital of Turkey,
1062
01:05:07,100 --> 01:05:08,810
back, right after the genocide,
1063
01:05:08,810 --> 01:05:11,310
according to Ottoman documents written
1064
01:05:11,310 --> 01:05:16,150
by Turkish government officials,
that we have access to now.
1065
01:05:16,150 --> 01:05:18,050
According to those documents,
1066
01:05:18,050 --> 01:05:22,760
those 1,450 Armenian kids,
young kids, were taken
1067
01:05:22,760 --> 01:05:24,290
and then distributed,
1068
01:05:24,290 --> 01:05:27,290
sent over to various Islamic institutions
1069
01:05:27,290 --> 01:05:30,000
the document says and
as a result of course
1070
01:05:30,000 --> 01:05:32,070
when little, young kids are taken over
1071
01:05:32,070 --> 01:05:33,490
by Islamic institutions,
1072
01:05:33,490 --> 01:05:36,100
they are raised as Muslims, as Turks.
1073
01:05:36,100 --> 01:05:38,650
If you send an Armenian kids
to an Islamic institution,
1074
01:05:38,650 --> 01:05:40,400
obviously the intent is to Islamize them,
1075
01:05:40,400 --> 01:05:42,910
so you also prove not only the act
1076
01:05:42,910 --> 01:05:44,490
but you prove the intent of the act,
1077
01:05:44,490 --> 01:05:47,050
the objective, the end result
1078
01:05:47,050 --> 01:05:50,110
of the act is to Islamize them.
1079
01:05:50,110 --> 01:05:54,510
- Under all international
human rights laws,
1080
01:05:54,510 --> 01:05:56,623
which of course are frequently not obeyed,
1081
01:05:57,820 --> 01:06:01,370
to take a person out of their community
1082
01:06:01,370 --> 01:06:04,840
and turn them into
another person is a crime
1083
01:06:04,840 --> 01:06:07,227
against humanity and is
in deed an act of genocide
1084
01:06:07,227 --> 01:06:11,090
and the United Nations'
documentation clearly shows that.
1085
01:06:11,090 --> 01:06:15,200
- Taking away Armenian
children from families
1086
01:06:15,200 --> 01:06:18,480
and putting them either in orphanages
1087
01:06:18,480 --> 01:06:22,510
or within Turkish families
and to assimilate them
1088
01:06:22,510 --> 01:06:25,020
into Islamic culture,
into Turkish culture,
1089
01:06:25,020 --> 01:06:26,870
was a very structural element
1090
01:06:26,870 --> 01:06:31,870
and very important part
of the genocidal process.
1091
01:06:32,160 --> 01:06:35,593
- What was happening was that, in effect,
1092
01:06:37,400 --> 01:06:42,400
the Turkish authorities
were changing the identity
1093
01:06:42,490 --> 01:06:46,330
of Armenian children, who
either had lost their parents
1094
01:06:46,330 --> 01:06:49,430
or whose parents were actually
killed in the genocide
1095
01:06:49,430 --> 01:06:54,430
and these children were effectively
being turned into Turks.
1096
01:06:55,520 --> 01:06:59,450
- Now they were in this
very hostile environment
1097
01:06:59,450 --> 01:07:01,750
in the Turkish orphanages,
1098
01:07:01,750 --> 01:07:06,750
orphanages set up specially for
collecting Armenian children
1099
01:07:07,250 --> 01:07:08,910
and Turkifying them.
1100
01:07:08,910 --> 01:07:10,420
And putting them through
1101
01:07:10,420 --> 01:07:13,530
a very strict regime of Turkification.
1102
01:07:13,530 --> 01:07:16,630
- Where they were, as
was standard practice
1103
01:07:16,630 --> 01:07:18,370
in the Ottoman orphanages at that time,
1104
01:07:18,370 --> 01:07:22,140
if you were a Christian
boy, you were circumcised
1105
01:07:22,140 --> 01:07:23,330
and given a Muslim name.
1106
01:07:23,330 --> 01:07:24,530
If you were an Armenian girl,
1107
01:07:24,530 --> 01:07:26,550
your name would have been
changed to a Muslim name.
1108
01:07:26,550 --> 01:07:29,990
- And they forced them to become Muslim,
1109
01:07:29,990 --> 01:07:32,640
they were not allowed to speak Armenian.
1110
01:07:32,640 --> 01:07:35,300
They were often beaten,
sometimes to death,
1111
01:07:35,300 --> 01:07:38,380
if they dared to maintained
their Armenian identity.
1112
01:07:38,380 --> 01:07:43,223
- Armenian children between
age five, six until 13,
1113
01:07:44,320 --> 01:07:47,170
gave them a wonderful opportunity,
1114
01:07:47,170 --> 01:07:50,920
because this was the age
group that they thought
1115
01:07:50,920 --> 01:07:54,290
they could assimilate them easily
1116
01:07:54,290 --> 01:07:57,610
and then make them Turks.
1117
01:07:57,610 --> 01:08:02,610
- They strove to adopt themselves
to this new environment,
1118
01:08:03,180 --> 01:08:06,890
but they weren't able to,
because whatever they cherished,
1119
01:08:06,890 --> 01:08:09,410
their language, they heritage,
1120
01:08:09,410 --> 01:08:13,690
even small children was robbed out of them
1121
01:08:13,690 --> 01:08:18,340
and a new thing, something
new was imposed on them.
1122
01:08:18,340 --> 01:08:20,680
- Ottoman authorities started
1123
01:08:20,680 --> 01:08:24,600
to implement these policies way before
1124
01:08:24,600 --> 01:08:28,213
they organized the actual
deportations and killings.
1125
01:08:29,290 --> 01:08:31,600
They calculated that some
1126
01:08:31,600 --> 01:08:36,300
of the Armenian children would remain,
1127
01:08:36,300 --> 01:08:40,020
they won't be sent with their parents
1128
01:08:40,020 --> 01:08:43,630
and certain preparations were made
1129
01:08:43,630 --> 01:08:48,630
to keep these Armenian children
either in form of orphanages
1130
01:08:49,110 --> 01:08:53,930
or in form of distributing
them into Muslim families.
1131
01:08:53,930 --> 01:08:57,900
- We know that in Turkey
itself, what is today Turkey,
1132
01:08:57,900 --> 01:09:02,770
there were orphanages opened
for Turkish, and Kurdish,
1133
01:09:02,770 --> 01:09:05,210
in other words for Muslim orphans,
1134
01:09:05,210 --> 01:09:08,790
and as the genocide was unfolding,
1135
01:09:08,790 --> 01:09:11,860
the Turks also gathered Armenian orphans
1136
01:09:11,860 --> 01:09:15,580
and placed them in
those Muslim orphanages,
1137
01:09:15,580 --> 01:09:19,170
and when you look at their
statement after the war,
1138
01:09:19,170 --> 01:09:21,640
when certain parts of
Anatolia were occupied
1139
01:09:21,640 --> 01:09:25,170
by the Allied Forces,
the Turks began to say
1140
01:09:25,170 --> 01:09:30,170
that their mission was to
shelter those Armenian orphans,
1141
01:09:30,830 --> 01:09:33,170
they did not differentiate
1142
01:09:33,170 --> 01:09:36,660
between an Armenian or a
Christian and a Muslim.
1143
01:09:36,660 --> 01:09:39,590
- And when League of
Nations observers would go
1144
01:09:39,590 --> 01:09:41,140
and visit those orphanages,
1145
01:09:41,140 --> 01:09:45,203
they would see list, long lists
of names of Armenian kids,
1146
01:09:46,320 --> 01:09:48,533
Armenian children's names, Assadour, Hagop
1147
01:09:49,772 --> 01:09:50,650
that've been crossed out
1148
01:09:50,650 --> 01:09:53,723
and then replaced with Muslim names.
1149
01:09:54,821 --> 01:09:57,118
And so they understood that there was
1150
01:09:57,118 --> 01:10:00,170
a concerted, official,
governmental process
1151
01:10:00,170 --> 01:10:04,130
to change Armenian children
into Muslim Turkish children.
1152
01:10:09,250 --> 01:10:10,160
The result of one
1153
01:10:10,160 --> 01:10:12,920
of those concerted official
governmental processes
1154
01:10:12,920 --> 01:10:15,790
was the creation of Antoura
Orphanage spearheaded
1155
01:10:15,790 --> 01:10:19,473
by the commander of the 4th
Ottoman Army, Ahmad Jemal Pasha.
1156
01:10:20,540 --> 01:10:22,610
- What Jemal Pasha was doing, in effect,
1157
01:10:22,610 --> 01:10:26,280
was killing the children's identity
1158
01:10:26,280 --> 01:10:27,900
by turning them into Turks.
1159
01:10:27,900 --> 01:10:32,900
Taking away their culture, their
religion, their very names.
1160
01:10:33,260 --> 01:10:35,543
They were ceasing to exist as Armenians.
1161
01:10:36,860 --> 01:10:38,570
Probably not as cheap as killing them,
1162
01:10:38,570 --> 01:10:41,900
but mass killing in a place like Lebanon,
1163
01:10:41,900 --> 01:10:43,250
where it was a little bit more public
1164
01:10:43,250 --> 01:10:44,800
would have been more difficult.
1165
01:10:45,880 --> 01:10:47,650
Antoura, a small town nestled
1166
01:10:47,650 --> 01:10:50,640
between the cornucopia of
the mediterranean turquoise
1167
01:10:50,640 --> 01:10:53,560
and the verdant pine
forests of Mount Lebanon was
1168
01:10:53,560 --> 01:10:56,880
once home to 1,000
Armenian Genocide orphans
1169
01:10:56,880 --> 01:10:58,593
destined for Turkification.
1170
01:10:59,766 --> 01:11:02,860
Missak Kelechian, a silicon
valley electrical engineer,
1171
01:11:02,860 --> 01:11:06,220
conducted thorough primary
and secondary research
1172
01:11:06,220 --> 01:11:08,430
and was able to conclude
that the building,
1173
01:11:08,430 --> 01:11:11,840
currently used by the Antoura
Lazarite College in Lebanon
1174
01:11:11,840 --> 01:11:13,810
was once under the Ottoman rule
1175
01:11:13,810 --> 01:11:16,763
and a Turkification center
for Armenian orphans.
1176
01:11:18,160 --> 01:11:21,570
- According to Antoura
French College Archives,
1177
01:11:21,570 --> 01:11:24,200
there were 1,200 orphans.
1178
01:11:24,200 --> 01:11:27,980
200 of them being Kurds and Turks
1179
01:11:27,980 --> 01:11:31,000
and the rest, Armenian children.
1180
01:11:31,000 --> 01:11:33,883
There ages between three to 14 years old.
1181
01:11:34,955 --> 01:11:36,517
In March of 2010,
1182
01:11:36,517 --> 01:11:38,720
"The Independent"
publishes an article penned
1183
01:11:38,720 --> 01:11:41,560
by the Award winning British
journalist, Robert Fisk
1184
01:11:41,560 --> 01:11:45,570
under the title of "Living
Proof of the Armenian Genocide."
1185
01:11:45,570 --> 01:11:48,270
In that article, Mr. Fisk provides details
1186
01:11:48,270 --> 01:11:50,028
of Mr. Kelechian's findings.
1187
01:11:50,028 --> 01:11:52,410
He describes how Mr. Kelechian was able
1188
01:11:52,410 --> 01:11:56,140
to trace a photo in a rare
Book called, "Lions of Marash"
1189
01:11:56,140 --> 01:11:59,283
written by a Near East
Relief officer, Stanley Kerr.
1190
01:12:00,640 --> 01:12:04,360
- This was the key
element for my research,
1191
01:12:04,360 --> 01:12:07,580
because I looked for the
French College of Antoura
1192
01:12:07,580 --> 01:12:11,590
in Lebanon and I did
find the main entrance
1193
01:12:11,590 --> 01:12:14,040
and I was able to stand exactly
1194
01:12:14,040 --> 01:12:17,093
at the same spot where Jemal Pasha stood.
1195
01:12:18,620 --> 01:12:21,310
And it was an amazing discovery
1196
01:12:21,310 --> 01:12:25,400
to find the exact location where in 1916,
1197
01:12:25,400 --> 01:12:29,030
Commander of the Fourth
Army in Syria, Jemal Pasha
1198
01:12:29,030 --> 01:12:31,960
with Halideh Edib, the
director of the college
1199
01:12:31,960 --> 01:12:34,310
were standing side by side.
1200
01:12:34,310 --> 01:12:39,240
And here I am standing at
the same exact position.
1201
01:12:39,240 --> 01:12:43,600
- What Missak did is, he found a location
1202
01:12:43,600 --> 01:12:45,327
and he found documents
and he found photographs
1203
01:12:45,327 --> 01:12:46,630
and he put them all together.
1204
01:12:46,630 --> 01:12:49,363
So it became a real, a live issue.
1205
01:12:50,880 --> 01:12:54,910
You know, what was so
significant about it is that,
1206
01:12:54,910 --> 01:12:57,060
you could talk to people who knew
1207
01:12:57,060 --> 01:12:59,420
where corpses of children were buried.
1208
01:12:59,420 --> 01:13:01,950
You could actually go to the
place where they were buried.
1209
01:13:01,950 --> 01:13:04,450
You could see the church behind them.
1210
01:13:04,450 --> 01:13:07,490
You could the place
where the Turks insisted
1211
01:13:07,490 --> 01:13:10,420
that Mouazin called the morning prayer
1212
01:13:10,420 --> 01:13:14,593
after Islamicizing the
Christian college at Antoura.
1213
01:13:16,230 --> 01:13:17,230
According to journals
1214
01:13:17,230 --> 01:13:20,670
of the Lazarite fathers found
at the Antoura orphanage,
1215
01:13:20,670 --> 01:13:22,430
the Turkification process called
1216
01:13:22,430 --> 01:13:25,510
for all male orphans to be circumcised.
1217
01:13:25,510 --> 01:13:27,950
All the orphans were
taught the Turkish language
1218
01:13:27,950 --> 01:13:29,940
and cultural values in an effort
1219
01:13:29,940 --> 01:13:32,483
to strip them of their
true cultural identity.
1220
01:13:35,700 --> 01:13:38,673
- Here again, we see a
picture right at the entrance.
1221
01:13:39,920 --> 01:13:44,920
With lots of Turkish flags,
all the Turkish dignitaries,
1222
01:13:45,460 --> 01:13:47,590
with Halideh Edib in the middle
1223
01:13:47,590 --> 01:13:50,890
and Fowzi Bey on her left hand side.
1224
01:13:50,890 --> 01:13:53,850
We also see flowers in
front of the children,
1225
01:13:53,850 --> 01:13:56,850
trying to portray that this orphanage
1226
01:13:56,850 --> 01:13:59,343
was an excellent orphanage.
1227
01:14:00,330 --> 01:14:04,260
As you can see, both sides of the picture,
1228
01:14:04,260 --> 01:14:06,280
there are those arched windows
1229
01:14:07,410 --> 01:14:11,013
and right in the middle we can read 1898.
1230
01:14:16,550 --> 01:14:20,740
And here it is today, the same spot,
1231
01:14:20,740 --> 01:14:24,890
with the same windows
and the entrance door
1232
01:14:24,890 --> 01:14:28,433
with the 1898 right on top of the arch.
1233
01:14:30,270 --> 01:14:31,850
Halideh Edib Adivar,
1234
01:14:31,850 --> 01:14:34,530
one the most prominent
women of the Ottoman era,
1235
01:14:34,530 --> 01:14:35,780
was appointed the directress
1236
01:14:35,780 --> 01:14:37,883
of the orphanage by Jemal Pasha.
1237
01:14:38,940 --> 01:14:41,610
- Halideh Edib narrates
in her autobiography
1238
01:14:41,610 --> 01:14:46,610
printed in 1926, that sometimes,
in the middle of the meals,
1239
01:14:48,230 --> 01:14:51,490
when the children seamed happiest,
1240
01:14:51,490 --> 01:14:55,353
one of the little ones
would suddenly begin to cry.
1241
01:14:56,504 --> 01:15:01,504
It was a screeching, cutting
cry, which lasted for hours,
1242
01:15:01,700 --> 01:15:05,283
no doubt caused by some
association with their home.
1243
01:15:06,120 --> 01:15:10,330
Also, that one felt that these children,
1244
01:15:10,330 --> 01:15:14,590
whatever happened would
carry something cripple,
1245
01:15:14,590 --> 01:15:17,050
something mutilated in them.
1246
01:16:08,780 --> 01:16:10,130
Old archives found
1247
01:16:10,130 --> 01:16:13,760
in the library of Antoura
College including photos,
1248
01:16:13,760 --> 01:16:17,520
handwritten documents and
memorabilia prompted Mr Kelechian
1249
01:16:17,520 --> 01:16:19,247
to yet another discovery,
1250
01:16:19,247 --> 01:16:21,177
"The Memoirs of Karnig Panian,"
1251
01:16:22,100 --> 01:16:25,010
one of the orphans at
the Antoura Orphanage.
1252
01:16:25,010 --> 01:16:27,090
- You see you can either kill a people
1253
01:16:27,090 --> 01:16:29,200
or you can totally take
away their identity
1254
01:16:29,200 --> 01:16:30,320
and inject them with a new one,
1255
01:16:30,320 --> 01:16:32,770
which was what happening in Antoura.
1256
01:16:32,770 --> 01:16:34,140
And effectively you have killed them,
1257
01:16:34,140 --> 01:16:35,100
'cause you've killed their race,
1258
01:16:35,100 --> 01:16:36,780
you've killed their religion,
you've killed their culture,
1259
01:16:36,780 --> 01:16:38,790
you've killed their name.
1260
01:16:38,790 --> 01:16:42,680
Of course, the children were
treated so badly in Antoura
1261
01:16:42,680 --> 01:16:45,160
that some of them died there.
1262
01:16:45,160 --> 01:16:50,160
We know from actual survivors' accounts
1263
01:16:50,250 --> 01:16:51,700
that some of the children were going
1264
01:16:51,700 --> 01:16:55,170
and actually trying to grind up the bones
1265
01:16:55,170 --> 01:16:58,550
of other dead children who had
died in the forest of hunger
1266
01:16:58,550 --> 01:17:02,300
and eat what was left of the
bones to try to stay alive.
1267
01:17:02,300 --> 01:17:04,150
Almost a form of cannibalism.
1268
01:17:04,150 --> 01:17:05,400
That shows what happened.
1269
01:17:06,450 --> 01:17:07,283
Karnig Panian,
1270
01:17:07,283 --> 01:17:11,560
orphan number 551 was renamed Mahmoud.
1271
01:17:11,560 --> 01:17:15,123
He arrived at Antoura in 1916 at age six.
1272
01:17:16,203 --> 01:17:18,533
- When we were little, my sister and I,
1273
01:17:20,020 --> 01:17:25,000
during dinner or lunch time,
when we didn't finish our food,
1274
01:17:26,550 --> 01:17:30,217
my father used to say,
1275
01:17:30,217 --> 01:17:32,447
"God will be unhappy with you,
1276
01:17:32,447 --> 01:17:36,267
"when I was a little
boy, in the orphanage,
1277
01:17:36,267 --> 01:17:41,040
"there were days when I
was obliged to grind bones
1278
01:17:43,187 --> 01:17:48,187
"and eat bones in order to survive.
1279
01:17:48,357 --> 01:17:50,077
"Sometimes grass."
1280
01:17:50,990 --> 01:17:55,990
And he said, "I didn't know if
these bones were animal bones
1281
01:17:57,667 --> 01:18:02,663
"or the bones of my fellow orphans,
1282
01:18:03,537 --> 01:18:08,537
"because those who
perished in that orphanage,
1283
01:18:08,737 --> 01:18:11,457
"they were thrown in a pit
1284
01:18:11,457 --> 01:18:16,457
"and at night animals used
to come and eat their flesh."
1285
01:18:32,330 --> 01:18:35,090
In his memoirs, Mr. Panian writes:
1286
01:18:35,090 --> 01:18:38,480
At every sunset in the
presence of over 1,000 orphans,
1287
01:18:38,480 --> 01:18:40,817
when the Turkish flag was lowered,
1288
01:18:40,817 --> 01:18:44,060
"Long Live General Pasha," was recited.
1289
01:18:44,060 --> 01:18:46,143
That was the first part of the ceremony.
1290
01:18:48,400 --> 01:18:53,140
- And after that it was time
for punishing the children
1291
01:18:53,140 --> 01:18:54,423
for what they've done.
1292
01:18:55,400 --> 01:18:58,500
Which was daring to speak Armenian
1293
01:18:58,500 --> 01:19:01,010
or making any Christian references,
1294
01:19:01,010 --> 01:19:05,530
say by crossing their heart
or stealing food to eat.
1295
01:19:05,530 --> 01:19:08,613
And all these acts were
punishable by falakha.
1296
01:19:10,240 --> 01:19:13,760
Falakha, which a Turkish
Ottoman way of punishment
1297
01:19:13,760 --> 01:19:17,530
by hitting the soles of
the punished individual
1298
01:19:17,530 --> 01:19:20,173
using an iron rod or a stick.
1299
01:19:21,560 --> 01:19:24,510
They tied the feet of
the victim to a stick,
1300
01:19:24,510 --> 01:19:27,630
which was held up by two individuals
1301
01:19:27,630 --> 01:19:31,700
and the third one would
strike the soles of the victim
1302
01:19:31,700 --> 01:19:35,593
using an iron rod to inflict maximum pain.
1303
01:19:36,870 --> 01:19:40,880
In this case the victims were children
1304
01:19:40,880 --> 01:19:45,880
aged three, four, five,
and sometimes 10 years old,
1305
01:19:46,480 --> 01:19:51,480
who would call for their dead
mothers in unbearable pain.
1306
01:19:58,580 --> 01:20:00,990
Out of the 1,000 Armenian children
1307
01:20:00,990 --> 01:20:04,630
at Antoura Orphanage, only 456 survived.
1308
01:20:04,630 --> 01:20:06,100
Hundreds died as a result
1309
01:20:06,100 --> 01:20:08,430
of deplorable conditions at the orphanage.
1310
01:20:08,430 --> 01:20:11,200
The remains of over 300
orphans were discovered
1311
01:20:11,200 --> 01:20:14,730
in 1993 when the Lazarite
fathers began construction
1312
01:20:14,730 --> 01:20:16,280
for new classrooms.
1313
01:20:16,280 --> 01:20:18,560
The remains found in the
foundation of the college,
1314
01:20:18,560 --> 01:20:20,680
were moved to a mass grave on the grounds
1315
01:20:20,680 --> 01:20:24,503
of the college cemetery,
unmarked, carrying no epitaph.
1316
01:21:08,240 --> 01:21:10,820
In September of 2010, through the efforts
1317
01:21:10,820 --> 01:21:12,090
of the KOHAR Ensemble
1318
01:21:12,090 --> 01:21:15,050
and its benefactor the
Khatchadourian family,
1319
01:21:15,050 --> 01:21:18,210
a special monument was erected
at the Antoura cemetery
1320
01:21:18,210 --> 01:21:20,893
in memory of the 300 Armenian orphans.
1321
01:21:21,853 --> 01:21:24,620
The monument is topped by a
replica of the crown donned
1322
01:21:24,620 --> 01:21:27,063
by the last Armenian King Levon V.
1323
01:21:28,380 --> 01:21:29,830
Underneath the crown lies
1324
01:21:29,830 --> 01:21:33,673
the Cilician Armenian coat
of Arms, the roaring lion.
1325
01:21:33,673 --> 01:21:37,020
It represents a symbolic
posthumous inauguration,
1326
01:21:37,020 --> 01:21:40,000
honoring the 300 Armenian Genocide orphans
1327
01:21:40,000 --> 01:21:41,563
as Armenian kings.
1328
01:21:45,920 --> 01:21:49,240
Nearly 2,000 community members
and dignitaries gathered
1329
01:21:49,240 --> 01:21:51,010
for the inauguration of the site
1330
01:21:51,010 --> 01:21:54,533
to pay respect to the souls
of the 300 Armenian orphans.
1331
01:21:55,380 --> 01:21:56,890
A special requiem service,
1332
01:21:56,890 --> 01:21:59,250
officiated the opening
of the monument followed
1333
01:21:59,250 --> 01:22:01,810
by a special performance
of Armenian liturgy
1334
01:22:01,810 --> 01:22:04,190
by KOHAR ensemble under the direction
1335
01:22:04,190 --> 01:22:06,683
of Maestro Sebouh Apkarian.
1336
01:22:09,380 --> 01:22:12,896
Today, the Antoura Monument
is a pilgrimage site visited
1337
01:22:12,896 --> 01:22:15,370
by thousands who travel
from around the world
1338
01:22:15,370 --> 01:22:17,160
to come and honor the memory
1339
01:22:17,160 --> 01:22:20,190
of the orphaned Armenian
children of Antoura.
1340
01:22:20,190 --> 01:22:24,060
They come to touch their epitaph
and to feel their sorrow,
1341
01:22:24,060 --> 01:22:26,610
giving voice to the
silenced crime committed
1342
01:22:26,610 --> 01:22:31,117
nearly 100 years ago and
still left unrecognized.
1343
01:26:04,003 --> 01:26:07,630
The next day, April 24, 2011,
1344
01:26:07,630 --> 01:26:11,280
marked the 96th anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide,
1345
01:26:11,280 --> 01:26:13,790
the 20th century's most documented,
1346
01:26:13,790 --> 01:26:16,873
least recognized ethnic
cleansing campaign.
1347
01:26:21,300 --> 01:26:23,370
Descendants of hundreds of thousands
1348
01:26:23,370 --> 01:26:27,020
of Armenian Genocide orphans
from around the world arrive
1349
01:26:27,020 --> 01:26:30,060
at Dzidzernagapert, at
Armenia's capital city
1350
01:26:30,060 --> 01:26:32,970
of Yerevan to commemorate the darkest day
1351
01:26:32,970 --> 01:26:35,793
of the Armenian reality and world history.
1352
01:26:37,290 --> 01:26:41,210
Nearly 100 years later,
with 21 world governments
1353
01:26:41,210 --> 01:26:46,110
and 43 U.S. states having
recognized the Armenian Genocide,
1354
01:26:46,110 --> 01:26:48,910
the memory of the 1 1/2 million victims
1355
01:26:48,910 --> 01:26:51,050
is simultaneously commemorated
1356
01:26:51,050 --> 01:26:53,293
around the globe on April 24th.
1357
01:26:54,490 --> 01:26:57,140
The largest Armenian
Genocide monument built
1358
01:26:57,140 --> 01:27:01,270
on the 50th anniversary
of the genocide, in 1965,
1359
01:27:01,270 --> 01:27:04,700
with 12 massive pylons rising as reminders
1360
01:27:04,700 --> 01:27:07,350
of the 12 Armenian provinces obliterated
1361
01:27:07,350 --> 01:27:10,840
overshadows the eternal flame at its core.
1362
01:27:10,840 --> 01:27:13,470
The Citadel of Swallows named for the bird
1363
01:27:13,470 --> 01:27:17,420
that always returns to its
nest even if it is destroyed,
1364
01:27:17,420 --> 01:27:21,190
keeps alive the memory of 1.5 million
1365
01:27:21,190 --> 01:27:24,230
as massive crowds gather
for a collective prayer
1366
01:27:24,230 --> 01:27:26,090
around the eternal flame,
1367
01:27:26,090 --> 01:27:30,610
representing perhaps countless
candles lit worldwide.
1368
01:27:30,610 --> 01:27:32,760
As mourners climb into the monument,
1369
01:27:32,760 --> 01:27:35,900
steep stairs force them
to bow their heads.
1370
01:27:35,900 --> 01:27:38,120
And as they depart, a second monument,
1371
01:27:38,120 --> 01:27:40,580
a shaft rising high into the sky,
1372
01:27:40,580 --> 01:27:43,870
symbolizes the rebirth of a nation
1373
01:27:43,870 --> 01:27:47,252
from the ashes of annihilation.
1374
01:31:01,160 --> 01:31:02,940
This program was made possible
1375
01:31:02,940 --> 01:31:06,303
by generous contributions
from the Bezikian Family.
1376
01:31:07,240 --> 01:31:11,440
Additional support was provided
by Dr. Noubar Ouzounian,
1377
01:31:11,440 --> 01:31:14,967
the Chitjian Foundation
and viewers like you.
105001