Hi, I’m Elda, an executive producer working in television, a filmmaker, a wife and a mother and not necessarily in that order. In fact the order changes according to the day and the crisis. Today April 24th is the date of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide. So, to introduce myself properly – I am Elda Khanamirian. The ‘ian’ is a dead give away for all Armenians on the planet… And it was a problem in my life growing up but I will tell you that story later.

Today Armenians, the world over, are commemorating the beginning of the Armenian Genocide and because of that, I wanted to share snippets of my grandfather Daniel Vosgian’s diaries with anyone interested in stories of courage against all odds. Daniel became a man at the age of six. See, he had to take charge of his life when he found himself completely alone with no adults to take care of him. The world was at war and everything around him was burning or dying. Daniel didn’t understand what was going on or what genocide meant.

When I read his diary over twenty years ago, it was a turning point for me. Since then I have wanted to share them but not being a writer or a historian or an expert of any kind on the Armenian Genocide, I really didn’t know how to start and what to do and I really wanted to do them justice. However, Daniel was a historian and more significantly an eyewitness to the Genocide and the events of 1915.

So last week, I decided to start this blog but most importantly decided not to chicken out as this story has been pricking my conscience for over two decades and today is the perfect day to start. To be honest I’m not sure how this blog is going to develop but I hope you will enjoy this journey with me as I relive Daniel’s stories with their messages of courage, perseverance, ambition and hope in the face of hopelessness but also his humour at the most un-expected of moments and his joys in the small gifts of life… Well, I need an injection of some of these qualities right now in my life…

A hundred years ago today my life changed and that is the story I want to tell you. Ready?

FROM DANIEL’S DIARY.

1- “I WISH I COULD DIE INSTEAD OF DANIEL, MY BROTHER.”

“I must have been about four or five years old (1914) when I seemed to be living my last days, suffering from measles. Dr. Levon Melidonian, a maternal uncle, and the only M.D in Zeitun believed there was no hope for me.

I remembered vividly my younger sister, Antaram (the unfading), only four years old saying : Ah, God I wish I could die instead of Daniel, my brother.
A few days later she was in bed with measles, I was well and she died of it.”

2- “OUR MICHOV KOEFTE IS AT THE TOP OF THE POPULAR TREE”

In Zeitoun, every family that can afford has ‘Michov Koefté’ ( a popular Armenian dish) for lunch on Sundays. Father having died early, one Sunday mother was not able to prepare Michov Koefte; she could not afford it, when Antaram asked for it she received the above answer from mother. Fifteen years later in 1929, Daniel was able to bring down the ‘Michov Koefté’ but Antaram was no longer there to enjoy it.”

 3–“I THRUST A BLADE INTO THE NOSTRILS OF A PLAY MATE”

In the mud I found a rusted blade of a knife and was very happy about it. A playmate insisted that it was not worth much because it couldn’t cut. To prove him wrong I thrust the blade into his nostrils causing profuse bleeding. That day I couldn’t go home for lunch, I had to take refuge from my parents and spend the day with my aunt, who was married to Mr. Nishan Yezegielian.

 4– “ARMED TO THE TEETH AT THE AGE OF SIX”

“It must be around March 1915, when the government had gathered the young men of military age and now was searching homes for firearms and other weapons.
To avoid the consequences people were throwing their weapons out of their homes. With some playmates, I found a great number of these with much ammunition under the aqueducts of a flourmill.
I returned home armed with a curved sabre and a big revolver with some ammunition and partly aware of the situations, hid things under some plants in our house.
Mother discovering this terrible thing gave me a good beating and sent the arsenal back to its original place”. 

 

I was stunned when I first reread these snippets recently because my own, then six-year-old son would be ‘Mine Crafting’ on his iPad, and demanding things to happen right this second not paying attention to the world around him. My life sometimes resembles a three-ring circus with me as the juggling act. In one hand motherhood, in the other a wife and the third hand holds my career (and my career sits in the palm of my third hand). But when I think of what 6-year old Daniel had to go through to survive the famines, forced marches and loss of childhood, I feel that perhaps I am whining. Of course my grandfather’s young life growing up in a Turkish province at the turn of the 20^th century cannot be compared to my life growing up in the middle of the Lebanese Civil War which forced me to re-evaluate my options. Looking at my children’s lives, I wonder how can we prepare them for when life turns on a dime. Any thoughts?

To be continued…

Menak parov…See you next time.