How my great grandmother (in law) Christine survived the Armenian Genocide

Whenever Aida, my grandmother in law, hears the word "Van” her eyes get filled up with tears, her heart with sorrow and her mind gets flooded with stories and memories. Once I asked her, “What is Van? What is the story behind it”?. She started narrating an interesting story with wet eyes which I patiently gave my ears to. It turned out to be, it was her own past that shook her very own existence! The story of her ancestry, her family, her mother who miraculaously survived the Armenian genocide! Van is the name of a town as well as a lake in the province of Turkey which is in fact not so far away from the famous mountain Ararat. It's believed that in the early 1900rds, more than 2.4 Million Armenians resided in the Old Turkish-Ottoman empire.

Maybe in 1909, a little girl named Christine was born to an Armenian parents and apparently lived in the city of Van. It was the era, when the nationalist group of the Young Turks came into power. They considered themselves a superior race over the other ethinic groups and imposed law to the detriment of all Non-Muslims. When Christine, the mother of Aida was perhaps five years old, the First World War broke out. Her Father and brothers went to fight for the turkish empire and unfortunately she hadn’t had the chance to see them again. Maybe they fell victim to one of the preliminary step of the Genocide. A short insight to the history:

In the beginning of 1915, the Armenian soldiers in the Turkish army received a new status. Even though most of them were the combatants, they all were suddenly stripped down to mere laborers. Their arms and ammunition were taken off and sidelined. Instead of serving their country in artillery and cavalry, these soldiers soon realized that they had been transformed into road labourers and pack animals. [...] In many instances Armenian soldiers were [shoot in cold blood]. In almost all cases the procedure was the same: In random places, squads of men are formed, bound together in groups of four, and march them out of their village to a secluded spot. Victims explained: “Suddenly the sound of rifle shots would fill the air, and the Turkish soldiers who escorted them soon returned to camp”. [...] A barbarius action has been taken to execute the male community not only to hinder the Armenian descent but also to weaken the existing population, thereby acheiving an easy prey. Source

The final step of the Genocide is described by american ambassador Henry Morgenthau sen. in a book:

All through the spring and summer of 1915 the deportations took place. [...] practically all other places where a single Armenian family lived now became the scenes of these unspeakable tragedies. [...] In some villages placards were posted ordering the whole Armenian population to present itself in a public place at an appointed time-usually a day or two ahead, and in other places the town crier would go through the streets delivering the order vocally. In still others not the slightest warning was given. The gendarmes would appear before an Armenian house and order all the inmates to follow them. They would take women engaged in their domestic tasks without giving them the chance to change their clothes. [...] women were taken from the wash tubs, children were snatched out of bed, the bread was left half baked in the oven, the family meal was abandoned partly eaten, the children were taken from the schoolroom, leaving their books open at the daily task, and the men were forced to abandon their ploughs in the fields and their cattle on the mountain side. Even women who had just given birth to children would be forced to leave their beds and join the panic-stricken throng, their sleeping babies in their arms. Such things as they hurriedly snatched up---a shawl, a blanket, perhaps a few scraps of food---were all that they could take of their household belongings. To their frantic questions " Where are we going? " the gendarmes would vouchsafe only one reply: "To the interior." [...] Village after village and town after town was evacuated of its Armenian population, under the distressing circumstances already detailed. In these six months, as far as can be ascertained, about 1,200,000 people started on this journey to the Syrian desert. [...] On the seventieth day a few creatures reached Aleppo. Out of a combined convoy of 18,000 souls just 150 women and children reached their destination. A few of the rest, the most attractive, were still living as captives of the Kurds and Turks; all the rest were dead. Audio Source

Christine's mother, Ginovarpe, must have heard about this atrocities or sensed something beforehand that she decided to flee in the opposite direction. That means, a tedious way through the desert towards the northern border. The earliest memory that Christine ever could recollect is the moment with her mother and the heavily pregnant sister Arschaluys when they fled by foot. They soon joined a group of armeniens who shared the same fate. At once someone in the group noticed that the turkish soldiers were fast approaching and out of panic and for the sake of self protection, the group scattered in all directions. This highly stressful situation caused the sister Arschaluys to go into preterm labor. She died giving birth to a baby boy, leaving her mother and sister Christine alone in the chaos. Christine’s mother was able to lactate the new born baby for some time. Although the baby did not survive the journey, Ginovarpe was reluctant to leave the body of the deceased on their way. She carried the body of the child for days until she left the body behind. Mother and daughter continued to flee on their own, but as the days went by, they got weaker and weaker until she decided to approach an unknown village. It was indeed a risky move but she was left out of choice. Historic context from another deported survivor from Harput:

On the 52th day, we arrived at a village. There the Kurds took everything from us, even our clothes and for five days we had to march naked under the sun. For five more days we did not get food or water. Hundreds and hundreds fell dead, their tongues like charcoal; and when they reached a well at the end of the fifth day, of course, the entire caravan rushed at it, but the police stood in their way and forbade them to drink a drop of water, because they wanted to sell the water for one up to three lira per cup.

Ginovarpe grabbed Chrisine’s hand and walked into that village. One turkish couple with a big heart spotted them there, out of mercy and pity, and gave them shelter. Although Christine was fed and cared by this couple for some days, she had to stay hidden also for the sake of their protectors. Also for the historic context its necessary to know, what the responsible interior minister Mehmed Talât Pascha ordered:

A muslim who protects an Armenian shall be executed in front of his house and his house shall be burned down.

Meanwhile Ginovarpe’s health started to degrade badly and she got confined to bed. On her deathbed, she took Christine's dress, woved their family gold coins inside it and told her never to give away this dress. When the mother didn't wake up the next morning, Christine called out for help. The turkish woman who told her, "Don't worry about your mother, she is in a deep sleep”. Later, Christine noticed that a carriage wagon had transported something covered with a blanket away. She continued to stay in that village for a while in which that turkish family took good care of her and did not harm her in any way. They neither sold her for money as it apparently happened with an estimated number of 200.000 girls in that time, nor raped her as countless other victims suffered. They were truly "Righteous Among the Nations" at the risk of their own lives. They left her untouched with all her belongings and the gold. Christine didn't remember for how long she stayed with this couple. One day, they heard/saw another group of armenian refugees approaching. They entrusted Christine to them in order to get her to a safer place. They reminded Christine never to give her dress to anyone. Thus Christine left their home and started her journey further with this new group. She kept walking until her small feet could not carry her anymore. It came to a point that she could not handle it ...just stopped, sat down and started crying all alone in the middle of nowhere. A while later, she heard the galloping noise of a horse. But Christine had neither the strength nor the will left to escape the scene. She awaited her fate as the rider, a solider in full military gear and a long beard came closer, stopping in front of her. In her eyes he was huge and when he raised his hand she covered face expecting a killing blow. But the horseman turned out to be a russian Cossack who lifted Christine up and placed her in front of him. In a very slow pace he then transported her to an orphanage in a town called Alexandropol. Christine neither knew her family name, nor her age. As most of the kids were covered in dirt and had lice, upon arrival Christine also received a hair cut and new clothes. Even Though Christine protested vehemently to keep the promise that she gave to her dying mother by refraining from changing her cloth, luck was not in her favor. As all the clothes were burned due to hygienic reasons, and certainly Christine felt betrayed. Nevertheless, after surviving such a bad fate at this small age, she found a new home at this orphanage. Story of the orphanage

She eventually was adopted and raised by the orphanage sport teacher Vahan Cheraz and went on to study in the capital city YereVan. She married and raised a son and a girl, Aida, who would study history and continue to tell her story. ---- Slide show of the genocide ---- More eyewitness accounts