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Our Windsor. Canada
April 19 2015
100-year shadow cast over Armenians' lives
They remember nothing of the massacre they were born into, but the
void has followed two Armenian centenarians their entire lives
By Olivia Ward
Up to 60,000 people of Armenian descent are in Canada, the end of a
long and painful exodus stretching across generations. Most of those
still alive after the "great catastrophe" are now silent forever. But
the Star interviewed two extraordinary survivors living in the Toronto
area.
Sirvard Kurdian and Eugenie Kokorian Yerganian -- silver-haired and
frail, and speaking through translators -- were in the Scarborough
apartment of Yerganian's son and daughter-in-law, Jerry and Claire
Kokorian. These are their stories.
EUGENIE YERGANIAN
When she opened her eyes as an infant, there was a black hole where
her family had been. Now, at 100 years of age, Eugenie Yerganian (born
Papazian) has lived a century of enforced amnesia.
She never knew her father, or how he met his death. What she knows --
from memories of a long-lost uncle -- is that her mother fought for her
at birth, during the death-dealing horror of the deportations. Over
the protest of other captives, who saw a baby as a burden, she refused
to abandon her.
Death of children was common in those desperate times. Eyewitness
Fayez Al Ghussein, an exiled Arab lawyer, wrote in his memoir of
servants of a local khan tossing the body of an infant, "as one might
throw out a mouse," saying the child of an Armenian woman who had
"lagged behind," too sick to nourish the child.
In the final stage of pregnancy, Yerganian's mother survived the
terrible trek from her family's home in the Black Sea port town of
Samson, where some men had tried to defend against the Turkish troops,
but eventually fell. Women and children were deported. After Eugenie's
birth her mother, exhausted, died in a place her daughter would never
know.
Eugenie's first years are an enigma. For three years, her maternal
grandmother struggled to look after her, then gave her to an orphanage
when she was no longer able to feed her.
So began her painful odyssey through three children's homes in Greece,
where an American relief organization had arranged the placement of
Armenians in 13 orphanages. Eugenie tries not to remember what
happened there.
An Armenian couple took her to Egypt, and she spent her early teens in
Cairo, where she met her husband, Garabed Kokorian, at a dance. He was
a shoemaker in his 20s.
Eugenie was 15, an age now considered too young for marriage. But at a
time of trauma and insecurity, many young girls looked to it as a
refuge. The main objection came from the community of orphans to which
she belonged: they had picked out one of their own boys for the
pretty, dark-haired teen, and Kokorian was an "outsider."
The couple lived in Alexandria and Cairo, raising five children. It
was not until the 1980s, when Eugenie met her mother's brother, then
living in France, that she learned sketchy details of her early life.
Widowed in her early 40s, she remarried and was widowed a second time
in 1997. Now, living in Toronto near her children, nine grandchildren
and 11 great-grandchildren, she is the matriarch of a thriving clan.
What remains of the past is a great void that will never be filled.
"I never saw my mother or father," she says. "I was cut off from my roots."
SIRVARD KURDIAN
Sirvard Kurdian remembers nothing of her birth land, or the terrible
events that destroyed her home and her past.
Now 102, born Sirvard Kirishjian, she was the youngest of six children
of a middle-class textile merchant and a seamstress in the Ottoman
Empire's western Armenian city of Erzerum. Three of her siblings died
in childhood.
Sirvard was only 2 when the men and boys in her town, including her
father, were rounded up and slaughtered by Turkish forces, during
massacres and deportations that began in the spring of 1915.
For the next six months, her mother and other women and children were
exiled and forced to walk toward Iraq, suffering exhaustion,
starvation and dehydration: part of a master plan to cleanse the
country of Armenians.
"Corpses were lying in great numbers on both sides of the road," wrote
eyewitness Fayez Al Ghussein, an exiled Arab lawyer. "We were deluged
by the number of corpses, mostly children's bodies."
Kurdian's mother "put the children (in saddle bags) on both sides of
an ox," she later learned. Her brother, about 5 years old, walked,
pleading for water. But Kurdian's mother told her that, "every time we
stopped at a spring, the guards would urinate in it." She had to pay
for clean water and even so the little boy died.
When the family reached Mosul, in what is now Iraq, they were taken in
by Arab residents. Soon the women were sewing dresses for a living,
hand delivering their creations for handouts of food. They moved on to
Aleppo in Syria, where more than 100,000 Armenian survivors settled,
including orphans.
There, Sirvard attended school and rose to the top of her class,
enthusiastically reading and reciting poetry. At 15, she met and
married a young orphaned Armenian man, Khatchik Kurdian. His dream was
to start a new life in briefly independent Armenia, declared in 1918
and swallowed by the Soviet Union two years later.
He never fulfilled that dream. But before he died, in 1974, he and his
wife visited Soviet Armenia. She immigrated to Canada in 1991. She
looks back on the struggle of her life and recites, in a strong voice,
the poem she has always lived by. The mantra that helped her survive.
Patience is what helps us
Overcome any challenge.
He who is patient is wise.
His land and home prosper.
God Himself guards the home
Of him who is patient.
Toronto Star
http://www.ourwindsor.ca/news-story/5565495-100-year-shadow-cast-over-armenians-lives/
April 19 2015
100-year shadow cast over Armenians' lives
They remember nothing of the massacre they were born into, but the
void has followed two Armenian centenarians their entire lives
By Olivia Ward
Up to 60,000 people of Armenian descent are in Canada, the end of a
long and painful exodus stretching across generations. Most of those
still alive after the "great catastrophe" are now silent forever. But
the Star interviewed two extraordinary survivors living in the Toronto
area.
Sirvard Kurdian and Eugenie Kokorian Yerganian -- silver-haired and
frail, and speaking through translators -- were in the Scarborough
apartment of Yerganian's son and daughter-in-law, Jerry and Claire
Kokorian. These are their stories.
EUGENIE YERGANIAN
When she opened her eyes as an infant, there was a black hole where
her family had been. Now, at 100 years of age, Eugenie Yerganian (born
Papazian) has lived a century of enforced amnesia.
She never knew her father, or how he met his death. What she knows --
from memories of a long-lost uncle -- is that her mother fought for her
at birth, during the death-dealing horror of the deportations. Over
the protest of other captives, who saw a baby as a burden, she refused
to abandon her.
Death of children was common in those desperate times. Eyewitness
Fayez Al Ghussein, an exiled Arab lawyer, wrote in his memoir of
servants of a local khan tossing the body of an infant, "as one might
throw out a mouse," saying the child of an Armenian woman who had
"lagged behind," too sick to nourish the child.
In the final stage of pregnancy, Yerganian's mother survived the
terrible trek from her family's home in the Black Sea port town of
Samson, where some men had tried to defend against the Turkish troops,
but eventually fell. Women and children were deported. After Eugenie's
birth her mother, exhausted, died in a place her daughter would never
know.
Eugenie's first years are an enigma. For three years, her maternal
grandmother struggled to look after her, then gave her to an orphanage
when she was no longer able to feed her.
So began her painful odyssey through three children's homes in Greece,
where an American relief organization had arranged the placement of
Armenians in 13 orphanages. Eugenie tries not to remember what
happened there.
An Armenian couple took her to Egypt, and she spent her early teens in
Cairo, where she met her husband, Garabed Kokorian, at a dance. He was
a shoemaker in his 20s.
Eugenie was 15, an age now considered too young for marriage. But at a
time of trauma and insecurity, many young girls looked to it as a
refuge. The main objection came from the community of orphans to which
she belonged: they had picked out one of their own boys for the
pretty, dark-haired teen, and Kokorian was an "outsider."
The couple lived in Alexandria and Cairo, raising five children. It
was not until the 1980s, when Eugenie met her mother's brother, then
living in France, that she learned sketchy details of her early life.
Widowed in her early 40s, she remarried and was widowed a second time
in 1997. Now, living in Toronto near her children, nine grandchildren
and 11 great-grandchildren, she is the matriarch of a thriving clan.
What remains of the past is a great void that will never be filled.
"I never saw my mother or father," she says. "I was cut off from my roots."
SIRVARD KURDIAN
Sirvard Kurdian remembers nothing of her birth land, or the terrible
events that destroyed her home and her past.
Now 102, born Sirvard Kirishjian, she was the youngest of six children
of a middle-class textile merchant and a seamstress in the Ottoman
Empire's western Armenian city of Erzerum. Three of her siblings died
in childhood.
Sirvard was only 2 when the men and boys in her town, including her
father, were rounded up and slaughtered by Turkish forces, during
massacres and deportations that began in the spring of 1915.
For the next six months, her mother and other women and children were
exiled and forced to walk toward Iraq, suffering exhaustion,
starvation and dehydration: part of a master plan to cleanse the
country of Armenians.
"Corpses were lying in great numbers on both sides of the road," wrote
eyewitness Fayez Al Ghussein, an exiled Arab lawyer. "We were deluged
by the number of corpses, mostly children's bodies."
Kurdian's mother "put the children (in saddle bags) on both sides of
an ox," she later learned. Her brother, about 5 years old, walked,
pleading for water. But Kurdian's mother told her that, "every time we
stopped at a spring, the guards would urinate in it." She had to pay
for clean water and even so the little boy died.
When the family reached Mosul, in what is now Iraq, they were taken in
by Arab residents. Soon the women were sewing dresses for a living,
hand delivering their creations for handouts of food. They moved on to
Aleppo in Syria, where more than 100,000 Armenian survivors settled,
including orphans.
There, Sirvard attended school and rose to the top of her class,
enthusiastically reading and reciting poetry. At 15, she met and
married a young orphaned Armenian man, Khatchik Kurdian. His dream was
to start a new life in briefly independent Armenia, declared in 1918
and swallowed by the Soviet Union two years later.
He never fulfilled that dream. But before he died, in 1974, he and his
wife visited Soviet Armenia. She immigrated to Canada in 1991. She
looks back on the struggle of her life and recites, in a strong voice,
the poem she has always lived by. The mantra that helped her survive.
Patience is what helps us
Overcome any challenge.
He who is patient is wise.
His land and home prosper.
God Himself guards the home
Of him who is patient.
Toronto Star
http://www.ourwindsor.ca/news-story/5565495-100-year-shadow-cast-over-armenians-lives/