HEROES: WWII VETS’ NUMBERS DIMINISH WHILE MEMORIES LINGER
By Gayane Lazarian

ArmeniaNow
07.05.10 | 15:19

"Our knights of the Orders of Glory"

Their posture is arrogant. They walk proudly and solidly, even though
the men are around 90 years old. They remember the Armenian kochari
(Armenian national circular dance) that they danced at the walls of
the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany. "It was an incredible joy;
we could not believe that we had won, that we were alive."

The participants of World War Two — the Great Patriotic War — met at
the Armenian Veterans Union. They are mainly from the 89th Armenian
‘Tamansky Rifle Division’ (the Tamanyan Division of Armenia). They
are getting ready for the 65th anniversary of their glory.

Enlarge Photo "There was not a single drop of fear in us," recalls
Vachagan Martirosyan. "About 100 national Soviet divisions participated
in the war; however it was only the Tamansky Division, being part of
the third shock army, that participated in the seizure of Reichstag
in Berlin. On April 30, the Armenian division finished the war in
Berlin," recalls Colonel Suren Hovhannisyan, Chairman of Armenian
Veterans Union.

His companions-in-arms are next to him – with their solemn suits,
decorated with medals earned for heroism during the war; medals now
old enough to be retired themselves.

Eighty-seven-year-old Vachagan Martirosyan’s most favorite medal is
the ‘Order of the Red Banner’.

"I was only 18 when in 1942 I left for the front. There was not a
single drop of fear in us," Vachagan recalls, showing the rest of his
medals: ‘Order for the Caucasus Defense’, ‘Order for Berlin’s Seizure’.

More than 600,000 Armenians participated in WWII, 300,000 among them
were from Armenia, 200,000 – from different states of the Soviet
Union, and 100,000 – from Diaspora. About 200,000 Armenians died in
the battlefields; 66,802 Armenian soldiers were awarded with martial
orders and medals; 108 Armenians were awarded with the title ‘Hero
of the Soviet Union’.

Recalling the Tamansky Division, Hovhannisyan says that they earned
that name for liberating the Tamansky Peninsula in the Black Sea
in 1943.

"According to the decree of Supreme Commander-in-Chief Joseph Stalin,
[our] division was awarded with an honorary title," he recalls.

Eighty-six-year-old Alexander Mirzatunyan names those towns, in the
liberation of which the division participated: Kuban, Novorossiysk,
Anapa, Taman, Kerch, Sevastopol, Warsaw, Lublin, Krakow, and Lodz.

"We liberated Sevastopol within seven days. But the most horrifying
was that I saw the concentration camps of Lublin (Poland) during those
years, where fascists burnt and gassed 1.5 million people," he recalls.

They (war veterans) recall how they were counting themselves after
each battle to see who was alive and who was dead.

"And suddenly one of us saw that his friend did not exist anymore,
that he was dead. Our heart was broken of pain… but we were moving
forward again; we knew that we had to fight, that there was no way
to retreat. ‘For the Homeland, for Stalin, Forward’ – these slogans
kept us alive," 89-year-old Georgi Asryan recalls.

The Great Patriotic War produced four Armenian marshals, namely
Marshal of the Soviet Union Hovhannes Baghramyan; General Marshal of
Armored Troops Hamazasp Babajanyan, Marshal of Engineering Troops
Sergey Oganov, Marshal of Military Aviation Armenak Khanperyants
(Sergey Khudyakov), and one Soviet Union Navy Admiral Hovhannes Isakov.

Members of the Tamansky Division say that Armenian soldiers were
distinguished with bravery, self-discipline, and ability to fulfill
commands in the battle field. However, all of them touched upon an
important circumstance.

"We were fighting against Germans, who were Turkey’s allies,
and who allowed them [Turks] to organize the Armenian massacres
in 1915," says Mirzatunyan. "We knew that Germany and Turkey had
a preliminary agreement. Had Stalingrad fallen, Turkey would have
launched an attack against Armenia. Turkey had amassed 26 divisions
on the Armenian-Turkish border. Had the Soviet Union lost that war,
Armenia would not exist now."

Revealing the key to victory, they say, "There was one homeland for
all of us, and we won because people of the Soviet Union were united,
and, of course, there was a powerful leader – Stalin."

This year eight Armenian war veterans will participate in the May 9
(Victory Day) parade in Red Square, in Moscow, Russia. Six of them
leave for Russia by the invitation of the Ministry of Defense of
Russia, and two are invited by President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev.

To the question if they will meet their old komrads in Moscow,
92-year-old Suren Hovhannisyan replies with a sad smile: "How? In
2000, when we went, they were still alive, but when we went in 2005,
they did not exist anymore, and now they will not, either."

Members of the Tamansky Division gradually become fewer and fewer. The
youngest member is 86 years old. Every time meeting each other,
they ask from each other who is alive and who passed away.

And Georgi Asryan says, "The most important thing is that we would
never think then that 65 years after the war we would still be alive;
it is amazing."