The Act of Returning

Remembering the Armenian Genocide 111 years later

“I found one day a great mass of human bones, thirty feet high, and I said to my Turkish guide: “How do you account for this?” He replied: “We got tired of driving them, we got tired of hearing their moans and cries, and took them up to that precipice one day and flung them down to get rid of the job.” — Frederick G. Coan, “We Need the Armenians,” The New Armenia, vol. 10, no. 6 (1918), p. 84.

I was staring up at the ceiling of the Etchmiadzin Cathedral. The faces of Seraphims were staring back at me. Several of them were on the walls leading up to the main altar in Armenia’s first Christian church. The walls were an eggshell white until halfway up, when they abruptly transitioned into a palette of reds, greens, and intricately woven details of color.

The church was the first of thousands built in Armenia, constructed in 303 A.D. Standing for over 1,700 years in the plains of Mount Ararat, it has been destroyed and rebuilt many times.

Just recently, a six-year renovation project ended, the scaffolding came down, and the ancient church was open to the public again.

And now that I’m finally able to enter the church, I can’t help but think about its history and my own reasons for being here.

Returning to Armenia as a volunteer is a double-edged sword. I’ve been able to reconnect with my family and my culture here. I’m learning the language, and I’ve been granted the opportunity to explore these ancient and seemingly endless lands full of monasteries, mountains, and forests.

But the act of returning begs the question of why we had to leave in the first place.

Like many Armenians in the diaspora, I carry stories that began long before I was born. One part of that story is that of my grandmother, who was born in Lebanon because her parents fled Western Armenia during the Armenian Genocide.

And today, April 24th, marks the 111th anniversary of the genocide. On this day in 1915, the Ottoman Empire commenced the attempted systematic eradication of the Armenian people in Turkey. Over the two years of the genocide, 1.5 million Armenians would die on endless death marches into the desert, where they would be starved, shot, raped, or otherwise brutally murdered.

Growing up, you get glimpses of these stories, not fully understanding what they mean. It was horrific hearing these stories growing up, but it wasn’t until much later that I began to understand the full brutality of the genocide. In my own journey of learning my history, I learned of the torture my own family has faced; family members being assaulted and murdered by Turkish Gendarmes while being forced to leave their homes in the cities of Sis and Vahka. Both cities carry different names today.

The Ottoman Empire commenced the genocide by arresting Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople (Istanbul), first targeting intellectuals, priests, and other leaders of the Armenian community. Talaat Pasha, Minister of the Interior, directed orders to begin the deportations. And thus began the systematic destruction of the Armenian people. While the rest of the world was distracted by the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman Empire took full advantage.

Many of the military-aged men were separated, bound, and executed by firing squad and with blunt weapons. Many were forcibly loaded onto boats and drowned in the Black Sea. The majority were deported and forced to leave immediately to begin months of marching towards the deserts of Syria. Those who couldn’t keep up with the death marches were murdered, with their bodies left behind, littering the landscape or floating in the Euphrates River. Mass executions occurred in villages, and several killing sites existed as the Armenians marched towards a destination unknown to them, but knowing it would ultimately lead to their death.

Sexual violence was a common tactic used during these marches. Seen as less than human, Armenian women and girls were raped, sold, often in front of their own families, as a method of torture. To prevent this from happening, many women killed themselves, or otherwise disfigured themselves to prevent being chosen by the Turkish Gendarmes.

Those who survived were trafficked into sexual slavery by the Turkish, Kurdish, or Syrians. Forced impregnations were common in order to deliberately erase the Armenian lineage. Children young enough not to remember the torture their parents endured were sent to orphanages and forcibly converted to Islam.

Thousands of eyewitness accounts reported on the inhuman treatment, missionaries attempted to support, and pleas to stop the persecutions were met with demands not to interfere with the internal politics of the Turkish government. Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador from the United States in Turkey, routinely reported what was occurring to the Armenians at this time.

Reports from widely scattered districts indicate systematic attempt to uproot peaceful Armenian populations and through arbitrary arrests, terrible tortures, wholesale expulsions and deportations from one end of the Empire to the other accompanied by frequent instances of rape, pillage, and murder, turning into massacre, to bring destruction and destitution on them. These measures are not in response to popular or fanatical demand, but are purely arbitrary and directed from Constantinople in the name of military necessity, often in districts where no military operations are likely to take place.” — Henry Morgenthau, the United States Ambassador in Turkey in a telegram to the Secretary of State.

Despite this, the persecutions continued unabated.

Next to the Etchmiadzin stands a memorial honoring the victims of the Armenian Genocide. Several khachkars (Armenian cross stones) are stacked on top of each other, with an eagle flanking from the side. Many Armenians escaped into the Russian Empire, and became refugees at the Etchmiadzin.

A German Ambassador recounted a conversation with Talaat Pasha, “When I kept on pestering him about the Armenian question, he once said with a smile: ‘What on earth do you want? The question is settled, there are no more Armenians’”

The torment and pain are carried in our blood, but so is the resilience of those who survived. And those who came back and rebuilt.

As a diasporan Armenian, I’m taking this journey of returning. To understand the truth of what happened to our people is a lesson in not letting it happen again. To make sure the sufferings of my ancestors are not forgotten, but rather transmuted into steps forward.

The act of returning is, in and of itself, an act of defiance to the forces that wanted to see our extermination. Learning our own history, learning our own language, and understanding the wisdom of our ancestors is an act of disobedience to the forces of evil who sought our destruction.

As it is said, every word written is a blow that smites the devil, and so too, every Armenian letter written is an act of rebellion.

Many of the churches in Armenia are rebuilt time and time again. The foundation still stands, but newer stones are in the place of old; a new dome is added, glass windows, and electric wiring are installed.

It feels symbolic of what I’m able to learn from my own ancestors and the Armenian people as a whole. Resilience is in our nature, and the ability to rebuild from ashes is ingrained in us. It’s now 111 years later from enduring some of the worst atrocities to ever happen to man, and the foundation of this nation is still standing, and Armenia is putting its foot forward on the global stage.

And for us diasporan Armenians, displaced around the world, we are now citizens in new lands, and have rebuilt new lives across many generations. But there is a calling home that we still hear, no matter how far away we are.

And for me, this journey home is an opportunity to reclaim my own story. It evokes in me the wisdom of my ancestors, both those who survived and those who were murdered. These lessons are ones that I’ve always known, buried somewhere inside of me, but are only now being remembered.

It was Rumi who said that the wound is the place where the light enters you. And today we remember not only a wound for the Armenian people, but for all of mankind. Still, despite our attempted destruction, it was by no means the end of our story.

So I stand in the Etchmiadzin. Both the Seraphims and Mount Ararat watch over our home as we continue to march forward, remembering the wisdom that they never forgot.