Armenians to mark 90th anniversary of genocide
Reign of terror led to deaths of 1.5 million people
By Linda Bock TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
[email protected]
The 1915 Armenian genocide directly touched the lives of Almas
Boghosian, 97, and the Rev. Aram A. Stepanian, shown at the
Asdvadzadzin Armenian Apostolic Church of Whitinsville.
“It was the worst day in my life. My mother died the next day after
she gave me away.”
Almas Boghosian, 97, of Whitinsville,,
REFLECTING ON THE 1915 ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
NORTHBRIDGE – The Rev. Aram A. Stepanian said he is living proof that
the Armenian genocide took place 90 years ago, and that his own name
is a poignant reminder of an unthinkable tragedy – one of tens of
thousands of tragedies – that took place along the Euphrates River
and regions now known as Syria and Lebanon.
On April 24, 1915, Turkish soldiers rounded up 250 Armenian
intellectuals, clergy and leaders and killed them, beginning a
widespread reign of terror that led to the deaths of 1.5 million
Armenians. The soldiers went from village to village, rounded up the
men and killed them. Subsequently, women and children were led out
to the deserts on death marches.
April 24 is commemorated each year by Armenians as Martyrs Day.
Rev. Stepanian’s father was the oldest of six children, four boys and
two girls. His father remembered during the mass exodus that took
place during the massacre that his mother led five of the children
and carried the sixth, a toddler, in her arms along the Euphrates to
escape. The toddler’s name was Aram.
“She couldn’t carry Aram anymore, so she threw him into the river,”
Rev. Stepanian said. “That’s why my father named me Aram, after his
youngest brother.”
There were so many bodies in the river, the father of Rev. Stepanian’s
wife once told him, that he saved himself by swimming through the
bodies for protection.
Rev. Stepanian’s grandmother was able to cross the river successfully
with the remaining brothers and sisters, but died afterward.
“The reason I was born was because the massacre and deportation
took place. I am the proof,” Rev. Stepanian said. “I’m the child of
a survivor.”
Rev. Stepanian, pastor of St. Asdvadzadzin Armenian Apostolic Church
of Whitinsville, was born 66 years ago in Der-El-Zor, Syria, where
the Armenian massacre took place. His grandfather and great-uncle
were killed in the genocide.
His mother was 4 or 5 years old, he said, when Turkish police came
and took her father away and killed him. His grandmother was urged
to marry to avoid an arranged marriage with a Turk, he said.
His father’s uncle, Krikor, was a priest when they arrested him in
1915, Rev. Stepanian said. Because he was a member of the clergy, Rev.
Stepanian’s great-uncle had a traditional long beard. Krikor was asked
by the Turks to deny his Armenian Christian faith and become a Muslim,
he said.
“I’d rather be tortured than deny my faith,” my great-uncle responded,
Rev. Stepanian said. The Turks took great pains to torture him by
pulling out his fingernails and the long hairs of his beard, he said.
His great-uncle’s 5-year-old son was standing beside Krikor when they
gave him a choice: be killed first or watch your son killed.
Rev. Stepanian said his great-uncle responded, “Please kill me first.
I don’t want to see my son killed.”
“The Turks laughed,” Rev. Stepanian said, and it was their pleasure
to kill his son first.
“They burned him alive,” Rev. Stepanian said. Upon witnessing the
horrific death of his son, he added, “my uncle had a heart attack
and died.”
Rev. Stepanian said his father named his youngest brother Krikor
after his great-uncle.
Stories such as these from countless Armenians bear testament to the
genocide that took place from 1915 to 1923.
“Generally, Armenians are tough,” Rev. Stepanian said. “All these
tragedies made us fighters. We’re hard and tough like gold that goes
through the fire to be purified.”
Beginning Thursday, Armenians in Central Massachusetts will commemorate
the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide for 90 hours.
Almas Boghosian, 97, of Whitinsville was born in Hussenek and is a
longtime, faithful parishioner at the Armenian Church in Whitinsville.
In 1915, her family was deported and sent on the march through the
desert of Der Zor, Syria, where thousands of Armenians perished. Mrs.
Boghosian was the only survivor of her family; her mother, father and
two sisters died. The younger sister died of thirst while being carried
on her mother’s back, she said. During the journey, a wealthy Arab
family offered to adopt her, and after a long, painful deliberation,
her mother consented and turned her over to the family.
“What kind of mother would leave a little child?” Mrs. Boghosian’s
mother asked rhetorically.
But the wealthy shopkeeper said to her mother, “All of you are going
to die, let me adopt the little girl.”
“It was the worst day in my life,” Mrs. Boghosian said. “My mother
died the next day after she gave me away.”
However, a few years later, an edict was delivered to those harboring
Christian children to surrender them to a Protestant orphanage,
and the Arab family turned Mrs. Boghosian over to the orphanage.
Mrs . Boghosian lived in the orphanage in Aleppo, Syria, for a few
years until two women who came to work there recognized her and told
her she had an aunt living in the United States. The aunt agreed to pay
her passage to America, and in 1922, Mrs. Boghosian boarded a ship at
Beirut and traveled 17 days to Providence to begin the next chapter
of her life. Her uncle weighed her teenage frame when she arrived:
79 pounds.
A year after she arrived, a marriage to Kachadoor Boghosian was
arranged. They had three children. Mrs. Boghosian has six grandchildren
and seven great-grandchildren.
When asked how she found the strength to endure the massacre, mass
exodus and abandonment by her mother, living with virtual strangers
and coming to a foreign country alone, Mrs. Boghosian said, “You have
to fight alone. I had to fight to survive.”
Though she said she doesn’t like to look back, Mrs. Boghosian said she
agreed to share her personal stories as a witness, and to commemorate
the nine decades since the Armenian genocide.
For years and years, “I always wanted to just look forward,” Mrs.
Boghosian said.
Rev. Stepanian called Mrs. Boghosian a “shining lady” and an
inspirational woman who has important Armenian history to share.
The message of a sermon he preached a couple of weeks ago, he said, was
for his congregation to “be content now.” But to honor all the martyrs
who died in the genocide and to honor survivors such as Mrs. Boghosian,
Rev. Stepanian said, it is important also to live courageously.