SERJ TANKIAN READS THE TESTIMONY OF SANAM HOVHANNISIAN

April 20, 2015 09:23
EXCLUSIVE

Serj Tankian

Photo: Fabio Nascimento

Mediamax presents 100 Seconds project devoted to Armenian Genocide
Centennial. The project is based on testimonies of Genocide survivors
published by the National Archive of Armenia.

Serj Tankian is a musician and composer, frontman of System of a Down
(SOAD) rock-band.

For “100 seconds” project he reads an extract from Armenian Genocide
survivor Sanam Hovhannisian’s testimony.

National Archives of Armenia Collection of Documents

Testimony of survivor Sanam Hovhannisian on the massacre of the
village of Yershter in Mush district of Mush province

[1916] Mavrak

In the autumn Musa bek with his troops again gathered the Armenians
who had found shelter in the houses of the Kurds and the Turks. This
time we were turned over to the executioners by our guardians.

They shot my son Avetis and other escapees in front of my eyes. Then
they beat me with the butt of a rifle and drove me forward. On the
road, one of our neighbouring women had birth pangs and could not go
on walking with us.

One of the soldiers named Mamad slashed her head with a dagger, then
cut her womb open, stuck the baby on his dagger and threatening us
with it drove us out.

Our neighbour Harut’s wife Yeva was pregnant too and she was carrying
on her back her 3-year-old daughter. The child was crying of hunger,
after eight days of hunger the mother had no milk in her breasts to
feed her and was barely able to drag herself after us. The policeman
ordered her to sit and breastfeed her daughter.

The woman sat down, the policeman himself took out the woman’s breast
and put it into the girl’s mouth, and then he walked away a little
distance, took aim at them and with one sudden bullet put an end to
the lives of unfortunate mother and daughter…

Producer: Ara Tadevosyan
Filming: George Tonikian Post Production: Tumo LLC

The source of Sanam Hovhannisian’s testimony: National Archives of
Armenia, Armenian Genocide by Ottoman Turkey, 1915, Testimony of
survivors, Collection of documents, Yerevan-2013.

VivaCell-MTS is the general partner of 100 seconds project.

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