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Gloucestershire Echo, UK
January 9, 2013 Wednesday
Edition 2; National Edition
Genocide survivor was an 'incredible person'
by Laura Churchill
ONE of the few remaining survivors of the Armenian genocide died after
falling over and fracturing her hip.
Astrid Aghajanian, described as an "incred-ible woman" by her GP, fell
over at More Hall Convent nursing home in Stroud in April last year.
The 99-year-old was believed to be Britain's last survivor of the
Armenian massacres, which saw around 1.5 million people killed between
1915 and 1923.
Astrid was aged just two when the Ottoman rulers began the
annihilation of the Armenians and her father was killed.
She was deported with her mother and marched into the Deir ez-Zor
desert with her grandmother and baby brother dying. Her mother refused
to let Astrid go with officials, who were burning children alive, and
the pair hid under a pile of corpses for a night before venturing into
the desert alone. They were found by a Bedouin tribesman, who then
sold them to another, where they were given shelter, but lived in fear
until a Turkish officer took them to the city of Deir ez-Zor.
They made their way to relatives and began rebuilding their lives
before moving to Jerusalem in the 1920s.
Astrid became a teacher, married husband Gaspar in 1942 and the pair
had two daughters before fighting between the Arabs and Jews started.
The family fled to Cyprus, where she volunteered for the Red Cross and
ran a kindergarten.
But the Turkish invasion in 1974 saw the family lose everything again
and end up in England as refugees.
At a Gloucester inquest into her death yesterday, her GP Noah Thomson
said she was in good health before the unwitnessed fall.
In a statement he wrote: "She was an incredible person I feel humbled
and honoured to have attended and I wish her family well."
Deputy Gloucestershire coroner, David Dooley said Astrid, who died at
Gloucestershire Royal Hospital on May 11, was a "99-year-old with an
interesting, but traumatic early history".
He ruled her death an accident.
January 9, 2013 Wednesday
Edition 2; National Edition
Genocide survivor was an 'incredible person'
by Laura Churchill
ONE of the few remaining survivors of the Armenian genocide died after
falling over and fracturing her hip.
Astrid Aghajanian, described as an "incred-ible woman" by her GP, fell
over at More Hall Convent nursing home in Stroud in April last year.
The 99-year-old was believed to be Britain's last survivor of the
Armenian massacres, which saw around 1.5 million people killed between
1915 and 1923.
Astrid was aged just two when the Ottoman rulers began the
annihilation of the Armenians and her father was killed.
She was deported with her mother and marched into the Deir ez-Zor
desert with her grandmother and baby brother dying. Her mother refused
to let Astrid go with officials, who were burning children alive, and
the pair hid under a pile of corpses for a night before venturing into
the desert alone. They were found by a Bedouin tribesman, who then
sold them to another, where they were given shelter, but lived in fear
until a Turkish officer took them to the city of Deir ez-Zor.
They made their way to relatives and began rebuilding their lives
before moving to Jerusalem in the 1920s.
Astrid became a teacher, married husband Gaspar in 1942 and the pair
had two daughters before fighting between the Arabs and Jews started.
The family fled to Cyprus, where she volunteered for the Red Cross and
ran a kindergarten.
But the Turkish invasion in 1974 saw the family lose everything again
and end up in England as refugees.
At a Gloucester inquest into her death yesterday, her GP Noah Thomson
said she was in good health before the unwitnessed fall.
In a statement he wrote: "She was an incredible person I feel humbled
and honoured to have attended and I wish her family well."
Deputy Gloucestershire coroner, David Dooley said Astrid, who died at
Gloucestershire Royal Hospital on May 11, was a "99-year-old with an
interesting, but traumatic early history".
He ruled her death an accident.