ARMENIAN GENOCIDE SURVIVORS TELL THEIR PERSONAL STORIES AT NEW YORK ARMENIAN HOME
by Taleen Babayan

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Tuesday March 23, 2010

New York – Three Armenian Genocide survivors recounted their stories
of survival at the New York Armenian Home in Flushing, Queens on
Sunday afternoon March 21.

While almost a century has passed, Charlotte Kechejian, Oronik
Eminian and Arsalo Dadir, residents of the Armenian Home, vividly
remembered their tragic past and told their stories to various
reporters representing the New York Times, NY1 television channel,
Queens Gazette and Queens Tribune.

Born in Nikhda in 1912, 97 year-old Charlotte Kechejian credited her
mother in helping her survive the death marches through the Der Zor
desert during the Armenian Genocide. Barely six years old, Kechejian’s
father was killed during the genocide. "I asked my mother if my father
had left because I had done something wrong," recalled Kechejian,
an only child. She remembers walking endlessly through the desert,
thirsty for water and hungry for food. "My mother kept saying that
we just had to walk a little more, but that ‘little more’ never ended."

At the age of 10, Kechejian and her mother moved to New York with the
help of an uncle who had already settled in the US. She spoke highly
of her mother’s strength to move to a new country barely speaking
English and earn a living for her family as a seamstress. Her mother,
who insisted her daughter earn her high school diploma, eventually
opened her own grocery store on 33rd street in Manhattan, and with
her daughter’s permission remarried.

"We went through a lot," said Kechejian, "but we’re still alive."

While many survivors’ only scars are emotional, this is not true for
97 year-old Onorik Eminian, who repeatedly pointed to the scar on her
forehead, the result of being hit on the head with a rifle butt by a
Turkish soldier. Eminian, born in Izmir, witnessed the death of her
parents, sister and two brothers who were tortured and then killed
by the Turks.

At the age of eight, the Red Cross placed her in an orphanage and
she later made her way to Greece and then to the U.S. in 1930 with
her grandmother. She lived in Astoria until she moved to the New York
Armenian Home a few years ago.

Born in Shabin Karahisar in 1913, Arsaloys Dadir’s father was killed
by the Young Turks when he was 25 years old. Her uncle, a doctor,
was one of the 300 martyrs killed on April 24, 1915 when Armenian
leaders, including members of the Turkish Parliament were rounded up
and murdered.

Dadir remembers hundreds of bodies piled on top of each other.

Luckily, her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother were able to
seek refuge with a wealthy Turkish family. Despite her own family’s
wealth, they lost all of their money and land during the genocide. The
family eventually moved to Constantinople, where Dadir married and
raised two children, moving to the U.S. later in life.

All three survivors are scheduled to be present in Times Square for
the 95th Armenian Genocide Commemoration in Times Square, organized
by the Mid-Atlantic Chapters of the Knights and Daughters of Vartan,
which will take place on Sunday, April 25 from 2-4 pm.