DARK TIMES: AREA ARMENIANS URGE OFFICIALS TO CONDEMN 1915 MASS KILLINGS
By Carol Azizian

MLive.com, MI
Oct 29 2007

Once while giving her mother, Varsenig Gholdoian, a bath after she’d
had a stroke, Rose Byder of Grand Blanc noticed something she hadn’t
seen before. It horrified her. "She had indentations or grooves on
her back," Byder said. "It wasn’t something a person would inflict on
(herself)." Then she recalled the story that her mother, an Armenian,
had told her about surviving a "death march" in 1915 in Turkey. "All
the (Turkish) soldiers carried bayonets," said Byder, who’s lived in
Grand Blanc since 1972. "If you didn’t move along, you were hit by
a rifle butt."

Some 1.5 million Armenians living in Turkey during the time of the
Ottoman Empire were killed in 1915. Many scholars call the mass
killings a "genocide." The term was defined by Raphael Lemkin,
a Polish-Jewish jurist, in his 1944 book, "Axis Rule in Occupied
Europe," as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group."

Earlier this month, a U.S. House committee voted to condemn the mass
killings as genocide, "rebuffing an intense campaign by the White
House and warnings from Turkey’s government that the vote would
gravely strain its relations with the United States," the New York
Times reported. Last week, House sponsors of the resolution asked
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a strong supporter, to delay a vote on the
measure because they feared it would fail. Support for the resolution
deteriorated this month after Turkey recalled its U.S. ambassador in
protest. Turks acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of Armenians
died nearly a century ago, but contend the deaths resulted from
the war that ended with the creation of modern Turkey in 1923, the
Times said. The Armenian genocide has been officially recognized,
through legislation or proclamation, by 40 states and also by a growing
number of countries, including Canada, France, Italy, Sweden, Belgium,
Argentina, Russia and Switzerland. Byder said she called U.S. Rep. Dale
Kildee’s office to request that he support the resolution. "I told
his office that I felt it was about time Americans recognize the
Armenian genocide," she said. "I mentioned that my mother was one
of the few survivors of the death march." Gary Keoleian, a surgeon
with the Michigan Eye Institute of Flint Township and an Armenian,
said he is pleased "that the primary goal has been met – at least
it’s reached the national stage and it’s in people’s awareness and
part of people’s discussion. "The dialogue of the genocide is on
people’s minds." Keoleian said he grew up listening to tales of his
great-grandparents’ and grandparents’ escapes from Turkey. One of
his great-grandmothers lived on a farm in eastern Turkey. Turkish
soldiers came to her house and executed her brothers and father,
Keoleian said. "The Turks were doing a sweep of the towns to get rid
of able-bodied Armenian males," he said. "She (his great-grandmother)
high-tailed it out with her son – my grandfather – and they hid
in the hay in the barn for a long period of time. She could hear
the screams and the gunfire. "After nightfall, she made her way
to a friend’s house," he added. "They got to a port town, got on a
boat and made their way to Marseilles, France." Byder’s mother was
the youngest of nine born in the village of Yalova, near Istanbul,
Turkey. Gholdoian’s father was a farmer and a businessman.

"Her family was wealthy enough to hire people to do the farm
labor," Byder said. "She (Gholdoian) was sent to boarding school in
Constantinople (now Istanbul)." During the week of April 24, 1915,
Gholdoian, then 15, decided to come home to visit her family. The
timing was unfortunate. That same week, Turkish soldiers knocked on
their door and gave the family 24 hours to vacate their home. "They
could take only things they could carry," said Byder. "When my
grandmother asked why, the soldiers said ‘it’s only a temporary
leave.’ That’s been imprinted in my memory (ever since). No reason was
given." Gholdoian and her family members were sent on a "death march"
across Turkey that lasted for months. "She cried a lot, especially
when she saw people she grew up with being killed," Byder said. "You
had to keep moving because if you fell, you were left to die or
they killed you." At 4-feet-9, her mother was a petite, but feisty
woman, Byder said. "She had a high IQ. She also made sure she didn’t
antagonize the soldiers." Still, she was subjected to many beatings,
Byder said. Along the way, some Turkish villagers gave the deported
Armenians food and water, Byder said. Byder’s great-grandmother died
in her daughter’s arms. "She (Gholdoian) was devastated because her
mother was her closest friend." Her father had died two months before
she was born and most of her brothers and sisters were married and
living elsewhere. Once, Gholdoian was in such despair that she threw
herself into a river, hoping to drown. A Kurdish person rescued her,
Byder said. "My mother kept saying, ‘What’s my crime? What did I do to
deserve this?’ That was her litany." Gholdoian ended up in Aleppo (in
present-day Syria) and worked as a "slave" for a Turkish family. She’d
heard that British soldiers were in the city. One night, she and
a friend snuck out of the house and persuaded a couple of soldiers
to help free them. The soldiers later arranged her escape to Paris,
where she temporarily stayed with an aunt, Byder said. Eventually,
Gholdoian agreed to an arranged marriage with an American-Armenian
man who was a foundry worker in Detroit. They were married in 1921
and had three children.

"My mother always said that it was important to learn English,"
recalled Byder whose late husband, John, was a senior vice-president
of Braun & Braun Insurance Agency. "She went to night school to learn
English and become a citizen," Byder added. "She was proud that she
could vote and felt we all should be grateful to live in America."

Writer Carol Azizian’s grandmother, great-aunts and great-uncle also
survived the Armenian genocide.

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress