The Armenians: A journey to safety and hard work
By Sarah Wolfe/ swolfe@cnc.com

CNC
Friday, April 21, 2006 – Updated: 06:57 PM EST

On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman Turk Empire attempted to rid Armenia
of its Christian population. The effort lasted seven years and it is
estimated 1.5 million Armenians died, with another million displaced.

This Sunday, Armenians in the Merrimack Valley will be commemorating
the 91st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide at 3 p.m.

at the high school. The theme for the observance is “Armenia – The
Denied Genocide,” which refers to the Turkish government’s continued
denial that such an event ever took place.

To many outside the culture, little is known about the Armenian
Genocide, or even the country itself. Even more curious is how
Massachusetts came to have one of the largest Armenian populations
in the world.

The following lends some background into the rich history of an
ancient culture.

Where is Armenia?

Armenia is located in Southwestern Asia. The mountainous region
is a little smaller than Maryland and surrounded by Azerbaijan to
the east, Azerbaijan-Naxcivan and Iran to the south, Turkey on the
west and Georgia on the north. Further out is Russia to the north,
and Syria and Iraq to the south.

The nation was the first to adopt Christianity as its official
religion, in 301 A.D. Through the centuries, the land has been occupied
and divided up under different empires including the Roman, Byzantine,
Arab, Persian and Ottoman. Russia took it over in 1828 and in 1920 it
became part of the USSR, until the Soviet Union’s fall in 1991. Since
that time Armenia has been independent.

ia/blcarmenia.htm What is the
Armenian Genocide?

In 1915, the predominantly Muslim Ottoman Turk Empire began a
campaign to rid Armenia of its Christian population that lasted seven
years. It’s estimated that 1.5 million Armenians died from starvation,
violence and death marches. Another million were believed to have been
displaced to other countries. Today, more than half of the world’s
Armenian population lives outside of Armenia.

In 1990, the Massachusetts Legislature officially designated April 24
as a Day of Remembrance of the first genocide of the 20th century. The
Turkish government continues to deny the event.

“It’s been 91 years – the Turkish-Ottoman empire still insists
it hasn’t happened,” said local resident and Armenian-American Al
Movsesian. “Another genocide is happening right now in Darfur [Sudan]
and Armenians have been sending postcards to the president urging
him to step in help. The U.N. isn’t doing much.”

Nationally, Armenians have been making efforts to get a genocide bill
passed in Congress declaring “man’s inhumanity toward mankind.”

How did Armenians end up in Mass. and the Merrimack Valley?

The largest concentration of Armenians worldwide immigrated to the
United States, beginning in the mid-1800s. Towards the turn of the
century, they were led by Protestant missionaries who had discovered
displaced Armenians in Turkey. They helped them find work in homes
as servants, in factories and on farms.

Movsesian’s father came to the U.S. at the turn of the century.

“My father emigrated from Armenia in 1904 and arrived in Worcester,”
he said.

Immigrants were often directed from Ellis Island to Worcester,
he explained, where there were jobs in wire mills at the start of
the Industrial Revolution. Watertown was also a popular destination
because of the Hood Rubber Company.

Movsesian’s father then moved to Haverhill in 1915 to work in the
shoe factories. Growing up in Bradford, Movsesian was surrounded by
a large number of immigrants with a variety of languages and beliefs.

“I was born in the 1920s. When I was in school my classmates were the
children of immigrants. They were Jewish, Irish, Italian, Polish,
Lithuanian,” he said. “As a result we got to learn about all these
different cultures.”

Resident Martha Hananian explained that a couple of people from an
ethnic population, be it Armenian or otherwise, will come to the
U.S. and then try to make enough money to bring family over.

That’s what happened with an uncle of hers, who helped eight relatives
escape from Armenia to the U.S. during the 1920s.

“If they know friends are doing OK they follow them,” she said.

“My uncle opened a shoe factory in Chelsea and then the family
followed him when he went to Haverhill. [Armenians] are a very
tight-knit culture.”

Father Vartan Kassabian of North Andover’s Armenian Apostolistic
Church of Merrimack Valley said many Armenians moved to the area,
including Andover, and became farmers. In Providence, R.I., where
his father settled, the draw was manufacturing and jewelry.

“My father was a genocide survivor who lived in an orphanage in Syria,”
Kassabian said. “He came to the U.S. in 1955, where he worked for
jewelry manufacturers.”

Armenian Genocide survivor 106-year-old Yeghsapeth Giragosian arrived
in Boston with her sister with the help of an orphanage in France after
the two escaped the genocide. Her mother, grandmother and many friends
perished. Yeghsapeth and her sister joined their father in Boston where
he’d been trying to make enough money to bring his family to safety.

“I felt free then,” said Giragosian, recalling her first years in
this country.

She later moved to Methuen to raise a family and then to North Andover
after St. Gregory’s was established in 1970.

Movsesian said the Armenians living around him went to other churches
until another St. Gregory’s – in this case St. Gregory The Illuminator
Armenian Church in Haverhill – opened in 1945. Today, the Merrimack
Valley has 3,000 Armenians representing Haverhill’s St. Gregory The
Illuminator Armenian Church and Holy Cross Armenian Church of Lawrence,
which are merging into Armenian Church at Highe Pointe, to be located
at Ward Hill; St. Artananz Armenian Church in Chelmsford, Ararat
Armenian Congregational Church in Salem, N.H. and St. Gregory the
Armenian Apostolistic Church of Merrimack Valley here in North Andover.