Armenian acts as spokesman for tragedy

Southfield man, 97, survived mass killings of 1915-16, shares story with
Metro area students

The Detroit News
Wednesday, May 18, 2005

By Ellen Piligian / Special to The Detroit News

SOUTHFIELD — Souren Aprahamian, a small man wearing thick spectacles, a
neat gray suit and maroon tie, is enjoying a meal of ham and potatoes at
his weekly senior citizens lunch, held every Tuesday at the recreation
center of St. John’s Armenian Church on Northwestern Highway.

It’s something Aprahamian of Southfield has been doing since his wife of
71 years died in 2002.

It is here that the 97-year-old grandfather of three and
great-grandfather of two, who lives on his own and still drives is among
friends, mostly Armenians, in the crowd of about 100 people.

The oldest parishioner at the church, he is a treasured member of the
Armenian community. But his kind smile and quiet manner belie a tragic past.

Aprahamian is a survivor of what is known as the first genocide of the
20th century, the Armenian genocide of 1915 and 1916.

He is sitting with Simon Tashjian, 92, of Bloomfield Township, another
survivor of the genocide.

“He’s a very nice man. He’s quite intelligent,” said Tashjian, who has
known him since 1921, when his family immigrated to the U.S. “They came
to this country without much and they made a life for themselves.”

Aprahamian has many devout friends. “He amazes me. He’s so alert. He
remembers everything,” said Rosalie Papazian, 77, who often drives
Aprahamian to the lunches.

“He’s proof positive of the Armenian genocide. But he didn’t let it
hinder him. He remembers the past but he’s active in the future.”

The Armenian genocide occurred during World War I in eastern Turkey. The
Armenians say the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire killed 1.5
million Armenians through massacres and mass deportations and forced
death marches into the desert where they succumbed to starvation and
disease.

Armenians, who are Christians, say the nationalistic Muslim Turks wanted
to purge them from the country. Turkey, meanwhile, has never
acknowledged the genocide.

Aprahamian, who was right in the middle of the persecution, has no doubt
what he witnessed was a genocide. Women, children and the elderly were
left behind to fend for themselves, he said.

Aprahamian, the youngest of four children, recalls heroic battles in
Van, near Lezk in 1915. Despite being heavily outnumbered and with few
weapons, the Armenians, including his father, held off their Turkish
attackers for a month.

Eventually, the Armenians were forced to leave their homes for Soviet
Armenia. Though his family later returned to their village, they would
leave three more times until they left for good in 1918. Over the years,
they endured marches of hundreds of miles, at times under enemy attack,
to live in camps, finally ending up in Iraq under the protection of the
British military before coming to the U.S.

Aprahamian recalls a march in 1918 with his mother and sister-in-law. He
was so ill he was strapped to their donkey’s back. When they came upon
an uncle, Aprahamian said his mother was scolded for carrying this “dead
body” when others were abandoning healthy children.

His mother replied that her sick son was her only hope: “What else is
there for me to live for?”

On July 4, 1921, Aprahamian, then 14, arrived in Detroit with his
mother, an uncle, an aunt and a nephew. Aprahamian said that night the
fireworks alarmed his mother, who at first thought the Turks had
followed them to the United States.

“Of our family of 50, only 15 survived,” said Aprahamian, whose father
and one sister died during the deportations. Today, he is the sole
survivor of those 15 and indeed one of the few living witnesses to the
genocide.

Dyana Kezelian, assistant principal of the elementary and middle schools
of the AGBU Alex and Marie Manoogian School, which is attached to the
recreation center in Southfield, understands the value of having
Aprahamian speak with her students. It’s something he has done often
over the years.

“He’s a person they can see and relate to,” she said. “We’re losing that
generation (of survivors).”

After the senior citizens lunch, she escorts Aprahamian, who walks
slowly but needs no assistance, to a seventh-grade classroom, where he
recounts stories he’s told many times before.

“It’s interesting that you can talk about all these things in school and
then see someone who saw it all in front of him,” said Vartan Kurjian,
12, who said his grandfather survived the genocide.

Another student, Haigan Tcholakian, 12, of Farmington Hills, said, “I
give him credit for going through something like that and being able to
talk about it. I find it very interesting to hear about (the genocide)
from someone who went through it.

“He keeps a straight face about it but I think on the inside he’s
breaking down.”

According to Aprahamian’s daughter, Elizabeth, 66, of Farmington Hills,
a retired administrator with Detroit Public Schools who spends most days
now with her father, growing up she and her two older brothers did not
hear much about the genocide from their father or mother, Arminuhe, who
was also a survivor from Lezk.

“We had a sense of it,” she said, adding that it wasn’t until 1965, when
the 50th year was commemorated, that they began to talk about it.

Still, said Elizabeth, she learned many details about her father’s early
life from his autobiography, “From Van to Detroit: Surviving the
Armenian Genocide,” self-published in 1993.

“I think some of the stuff is too painful,” she said, tearing up. “It’s
in the book but it’s never been verbalized.”

Despite a horrific past, Aprahamian created a good life in Detroit and
found something to be thankful for.

“From every evil some good would come,” he said. “If it wasn’t for the
genocide, I wouldn’t be (in the U.S.). I wouldn’t have this education. I
was the first person from that village to have a college degree.”

In 1931, Aprahamian finished school with two bachelor’s degrees in
chemical and mechanical engineering from what is now Wayne State
University. That same year, he married Arminuhe, then 18, whom his
mother had introduced him to two years earlier.

While she raised their children, he ran a couple of grocery stores with
his brother between jobs as an engineer with the U.S. Department of
Defense, first during World War II and again from 1958 until his
retirement in 1974.

“He was a hard worker. We didn’t see him until Sunday,” said Elizabeth,
who said her father taught her to “be the best you can be because it
reflects on your heritage.”

Perhaps Aprahamian’s most important role now is as a spokesman for the
genocide. The Rev. Garabed Kochakian, pastor at St. John’s Armenian
Church, calls him courageous and an important thread of history for the
community.

“He fears not to speak the historical truth of the Armenian people and
the genocide,” he said. “He’s kind of a living example and reference to
that truth.”

Ellen Piligian is a Metro Detroit freelance writer.

PHOTO CAPTION (Morris Richardson II / The Detroit News):
Students Samantha Hart, Arev Tossounian and Alex Kurdian listen to
Souren Aprahamian. He is a survivor of what is known as the first
genocide of the 20th century, the Armenian genocide of 1915 and 1916.

PHOTO CAPTION (Morris Richardson II / The Detroit News):
Aprahamian speaks with Simon Tashjian, 92, another Armenian genocide
survivor, during lunch at the Armenian American Veteran’s building.

Profile of Souren Aprahamian
Age: 97
Born: June 15, 1907
Hometown: Lezk, village in Turkey
U.S. home: Southfield, since 1964
Education: Bachelor’s degrees in mechanical and chemical engineering
from Wayne State University
Church: Founding member of St. John’s Armenian Church in 1931
Occupations: Owned Henry’s Market in Detroit and Telegraph Shopping
Center in Taylor; engineer with the U.S. Department of Defense

Source: Detroit News research