“I remember it as if it was yesterday—after spending the night on the banks of the Halys River, the grisly caravan that included my family was woken and driven up the Kartashlar Yokush Hill. They were scaling the Armenian Golgotha. I stood there and watched my mother and entire extended family climb over that hill never to be seen again. In total, I lost 51 members of my family that day.”

Like many Armenians of his generation, Yervant Alexanian was an eyewitness to the massacre and dislocation of his family and fellow countrymen in Ottoman Turkey during World War I. Alexanian was conscripted into the Turkish army—but unlike others so conscripted, he survived.

Forced into Genocide recalls Yervant Alexanian’s death-defying experiences in the center of the Armenian Genocide. Translated from Alexanian’s hand-written Armenian-language chronicle, the memoir includes never-before-seen documents and photos preserved by the author. Through his eyes, we relive the astonishing cruelty of the Genocide’s perpetrators, and we witness rare, unexpected acts of humanity between victim and oppressor.

The book is edited by Adrienne G. Alexanian, with an introduction by Sergio La Porta and a foreword by Israel W. Charny.

“Moving, uplifting, and richly detailed… a gift to the Armenian community and, indeed, humanity,” said Dr. Vartan Gregorian, president of The Carnegie Corporation, about the book.

Adrienne G. Alexanian is a 2010 recipient of the Ellis Island Medal, an educator, and the daughter of Yervant Alexanian. Sergio La Porta is Haig and Isabel Berberian Professor of Armenian Studies at California State University, Fresno. Israel W. Charny is executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem and past editor of the award-winning Encyclopedia of Genocide.

Alexanian will be presenting Forced into Genocide at the St. Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church of Douglaston, N.Y., on Oct. 15, following church services.