Well, this whole disaster could be defined as one word, Hell. People getting murdered right and left. People getting shot, beaten, starved, and even drowned. The Tesh Kilati Mahsus (the organizers of the genocide) seemed as if they had no heart inside them. They murdered us as if they were swatting flies. Families were separated and when they did meet, it was to see a dead corpse of a family member. They took advantage of us "loyal millets." They used and abused us as if we were nothing. They feared the men as a threat so they annihilated them first. They sent them to the army where they would be executed or stared to death. They confiscated the weapons that the we had. They lied of how they were in need of firearms to fight a war. With only the helpless women, children, and elderly remaining, the massacre was on. They forced these powerless people through death marches. They made them march through the scorching desert with no food and water few survived death marches and even when they did, they had no where to go. Dying by a gunshot was a privilege when compared to being raped, or starved to death.

Why did this horrible event take place? Armenians were very low in society. We were never given equal rights as the Turkish. They always looked down upon us and we were subject to a horrible life as it was. We were the servants, the "loyal millets"; we had no say in what happened in our country. The Turks decided on what we wanted and they decided on what should be done. They never listened to us and even through this pain and torture we lived in relative peace and even though times were hard, we did not rebel much. We accepted life as it was, knowing that if we tried to start a movement we would be crushed. So why did they spend millions of dollars in trying to eliminate us: Life was not worth living even before the genocide. The Nationalist movement was spreading and if you weren’t Turkish in the Ottoman Empire, you were at a great risk. Armenians were not only the minority, but also they were the ideal group the Turks could assault. Not only due to the nationalist movement, but also because the Armenians were a large Christian minority. This went against the rules and regulations in the Turkish point of view. After months of discussion, the Tesh Kilati Mahsusa had the perfect group to attack.

Every time my father had told me about the genocide, I realize how fortunate I was. Out of 2.5 million people, I was one of the few to survive. Life was not great in Serbia, and sometimes our family would lose hope of ever making it back, but it was a lot better than getting shot in the back of the head or starving to death in the Ottoman Empire. With the money he had saved, my grandfather bought a small piece of land. Our family lived on the land for about eight years. My father was nineteen and was anxious to return to his homeland. When he finally returned, the country was in a horrible state. It was as if our country had just hosted the worst war. The soil would not produce food as it had in Serbia. The country was in ruins. No member of our family had survived. Two of my grandfather’s friends had somehow survived the genocide. The number of lives lost was countless. Many people were still mourning the death of their loved ones. I wondered if God had planned this to happen this way. Although the independent country of Armenia was established, the amount of pain and suffering could not be reimbursed by this small piece of land. And every year we commemorate this tragic day, we can’t help but be thankful for all God had done for us.

                                                                                                                            Interviewed by: Matthew Shin