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The Anne Frank of the Armenian Genocide
April 29, 2014
Vartan Matiossian and Alan Whitehorn,
National Post
April is Genocide Awareness Month, an opportunity for people around
the world to remember the victims of such events as the Rwandan
Genocide, the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide.
Amidst the mass deportations and killings of Armenians that began in
April, 1915, some of the targeted civilian victims survived. One was a
young orphan girl, Arshaluys Mardigian (1901-1994), who lived just
north of the city of Harpout in the Ottoman Empire. While most of her
family was killed, she managed to flee the massacres and eventually
immigrated as a teenager to the United States, where she lived
initially under the auspices of an official of the American Committee
of Armenian and Syrian Relief (later to become the highly influential
international aid organization Near East Relief).
Upon her arrival, the young orphan was interviewed by American
reporters about her horrific experiences. Around this time, she
changed her name to Aurora Mardiganian.
Her book-length account, initially titled `Ravished Armenia: The Story
of Aurora Mardiganian ' The Christian Girl Who Lived Through the Great
Massacres,' was serialized in the Hearst newspapers and later
published as a book in 1918. There were several editions, with over
300,000 copies eventually sold.
The strong public interest in Aurora's life story attracted the
interest of Hollywood, and the memoir was turned into a film script.
The resulting historically-based 85-minute movie was a silent film
(with sub-titles) that vividly portrayed the mass deportations, rapes
and massacres of Armenians. It had a young attractive female lead
character in Aurora Mardiganian, playing herself.
Surviving genocide and witnessing, as a young girl, the killing of
most of her own family was horrific enough. But to be asked within a
few short years to relive and re-enact those scenes as a teenage
immigrant was additionally traumatic. Remarkably, the movie also
featured the former U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry
Morgenthau, playing himself. The film was shot in California in 1918
with a large cast of thousands of extras.
Initially titled `Ravished Armenia,' the movie was later renamed
`Auction of Souls.' It was, in all likelihood, the first major
Hollywood picture to portray genocide. Either way, it was a pioneering
film: To cast a genocide survivor as the lead actress was a rare deed.
As a post-WW I film, it challenged conventional mores by containing
themes of violence, rape, nudity and mass crucifixion. It also raised
the issue of censorship based both on public morals and politics.
Turkish opposition in later years reinforced the latter.
The U.S. film premieres took place in Los Angeles and New York in
1919. Leading American personalities and benefactors were present. The
showing also was an opportunity for fund-raising. The Canadian and
British premieres took place that same year, followed by Latin
American premieres in 1920. Present at the London showing was Lord
James Bryce, the author of the famous and still highly influential
British Government Blue Book on the mass atrocities of the Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire.
Despite the moral aura surrounding the film, the production was for
the most part a commercial venture. The young genocide
survivor/actress strained under the pressure to attend many of the
showings in order to promote the film and help raise humanitarian
relief funds. In 1920, she collapsed from the ongoing ordeal. (The
Hollywood publicity machine, however, did not rest, and hired a number
of female look-alikes to play her in public.) Time would heal some
wounds. Later in life, she married and became a suburban housewife.
She died on February 6, 1994.
The Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan, Armenia has an important
section of its exhibition devoted to Aurora Mardiganian, her memoirs
and the film
Over time, copies of the film were lost, destroyed or deteriorated '
not an untypical fate for the films of that era. No known remaining
full copy exists today. And the history books on the early silent-film
era have mostly ignored `Ravished Armenia/Auction of Souls.' What had
been a pioneering movie attended by many influential persons is now
mostly ignored. However, it has not fallen into total obscurity:
Canadian-Armenian film-maker Atom Egoyan and Armenian Genocide
scholars continue to search for missing footage of this landmark film.
While the complete film itself may be missing, the text of the
sub-titles survives, along with some stills and fragments of the
movie. The Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan, Armenia has an
important section of its exhibition devoted to Aurora Mardiganian, her
memoirs and the film.
For some, Aurora Mardiganian is the `Anne Frank of the Armenian
Genocide.' She is the Armenian personification of humanity's attempt
to survive the scourge of genocide.
National Post
' Vartan Matiossian, PhD, is an independent scholar living in the
United States. Alan Whitehorn is an emeritus professor at the Royal
Military College of Canada.
http://www.horizonweekly.ca/news/details/37306
From: Baghdasarian
April 29, 2014
Vartan Matiossian and Alan Whitehorn,
National Post
April is Genocide Awareness Month, an opportunity for people around
the world to remember the victims of such events as the Rwandan
Genocide, the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide.
Amidst the mass deportations and killings of Armenians that began in
April, 1915, some of the targeted civilian victims survived. One was a
young orphan girl, Arshaluys Mardigian (1901-1994), who lived just
north of the city of Harpout in the Ottoman Empire. While most of her
family was killed, she managed to flee the massacres and eventually
immigrated as a teenager to the United States, where she lived
initially under the auspices of an official of the American Committee
of Armenian and Syrian Relief (later to become the highly influential
international aid organization Near East Relief).
Upon her arrival, the young orphan was interviewed by American
reporters about her horrific experiences. Around this time, she
changed her name to Aurora Mardiganian.
Her book-length account, initially titled `Ravished Armenia: The Story
of Aurora Mardiganian ' The Christian Girl Who Lived Through the Great
Massacres,' was serialized in the Hearst newspapers and later
published as a book in 1918. There were several editions, with over
300,000 copies eventually sold.
The strong public interest in Aurora's life story attracted the
interest of Hollywood, and the memoir was turned into a film script.
The resulting historically-based 85-minute movie was a silent film
(with sub-titles) that vividly portrayed the mass deportations, rapes
and massacres of Armenians. It had a young attractive female lead
character in Aurora Mardiganian, playing herself.
Surviving genocide and witnessing, as a young girl, the killing of
most of her own family was horrific enough. But to be asked within a
few short years to relive and re-enact those scenes as a teenage
immigrant was additionally traumatic. Remarkably, the movie also
featured the former U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry
Morgenthau, playing himself. The film was shot in California in 1918
with a large cast of thousands of extras.
Initially titled `Ravished Armenia,' the movie was later renamed
`Auction of Souls.' It was, in all likelihood, the first major
Hollywood picture to portray genocide. Either way, it was a pioneering
film: To cast a genocide survivor as the lead actress was a rare deed.
As a post-WW I film, it challenged conventional mores by containing
themes of violence, rape, nudity and mass crucifixion. It also raised
the issue of censorship based both on public morals and politics.
Turkish opposition in later years reinforced the latter.
The U.S. film premieres took place in Los Angeles and New York in
1919. Leading American personalities and benefactors were present. The
showing also was an opportunity for fund-raising. The Canadian and
British premieres took place that same year, followed by Latin
American premieres in 1920. Present at the London showing was Lord
James Bryce, the author of the famous and still highly influential
British Government Blue Book on the mass atrocities of the Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire.
Despite the moral aura surrounding the film, the production was for
the most part a commercial venture. The young genocide
survivor/actress strained under the pressure to attend many of the
showings in order to promote the film and help raise humanitarian
relief funds. In 1920, she collapsed from the ongoing ordeal. (The
Hollywood publicity machine, however, did not rest, and hired a number
of female look-alikes to play her in public.) Time would heal some
wounds. Later in life, she married and became a suburban housewife.
She died on February 6, 1994.
The Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan, Armenia has an important
section of its exhibition devoted to Aurora Mardiganian, her memoirs
and the film
Over time, copies of the film were lost, destroyed or deteriorated '
not an untypical fate for the films of that era. No known remaining
full copy exists today. And the history books on the early silent-film
era have mostly ignored `Ravished Armenia/Auction of Souls.' What had
been a pioneering movie attended by many influential persons is now
mostly ignored. However, it has not fallen into total obscurity:
Canadian-Armenian film-maker Atom Egoyan and Armenian Genocide
scholars continue to search for missing footage of this landmark film.
While the complete film itself may be missing, the text of the
sub-titles survives, along with some stills and fragments of the
movie. The Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan, Armenia has an
important section of its exhibition devoted to Aurora Mardiganian, her
memoirs and the film.
For some, Aurora Mardiganian is the `Anne Frank of the Armenian
Genocide.' She is the Armenian personification of humanity's attempt
to survive the scourge of genocide.
National Post
' Vartan Matiossian, PhD, is an independent scholar living in the
United States. Alan Whitehorn is an emeritus professor at the Royal
Military College of Canada.
http://www.horizonweekly.ca/news/details/37306
From: Baghdasarian