From Our Readers

As one of the first Armenian music producers in North America, my father became a great role model for me. He started the record company PE-KO Records and produced legendary singers like Harout Pamboukjian, Paul Baghdadlian, Adiss Harmandyan, Manuel and many more.

Ever since I was a child, I knew that being Armenian was part of my identity. Whenever I was lost, I would say things like “My name is Maral Necole Attallah, I am Armenian Orthodox, I live at…” My parents said I included the “Armenian Orthodox” part on my own.

Being Armenian is a huge part of my identity. I am a third generation Armenian, born from a line of Armenian Genocide survivors who have handed down a cross for me to carry, a reminder that as an Armenian descendant I must continue to thrive and maintain our rich Indo-European culture.

Every voice deserves to be heard and every story is worth telling. Here are five survival stories submitted by our users. More coming soon!

My heritage means everything to me. I grew up in the Armenian Youth Foundation and have made five or six trips to Armenia in the last 18 years or so, bringing in wheelchairs, shoes and medicine for the orphans in Nubarashen.

In 1915 my grandmother, Maria Ahanikovna Voskanian (born Stepanian), was only seven years old. Her father (my great grandfather, Ahanik Stepanian) managed to take his sick wife and three little daughters from the city of Kars to the south of Russia.

Both my grandmothers are survivors of the Armenian Genocide, as was my husband’s grandmother. All three women suffered from depression throughout their adult lives. Neither of my parents knew their grandparents.

My grandfather died before I was born, yet even today his spirit guides me and gives me strength. His account of the Genocide in his small town in Western Armenia is an amazing read.

Armenia is in my name – Armenoui. Even though I am far away from the historical homeland of my father’s family, I am Armenian and I feel Armenian. Our shared experiences, our memories of exile, my family’s stories… all these have emerged through my art. I am a visual artist, and my work inspired by my family’s past explores the concepts of trauma, remembering and forgetting.

Both my paternal and maternal great grandfathers escaped the Genocide. They lived in the Ottoman Empire back then and were caught in the midst when the violence erupted. Too many people helped them to be able to count and name them all - from random strangers to Russian medical personnel and American aid workers.