Armenian Genocide survivor’s daughter publishes father’s story

Armenian Genocide survivor’s daughter publishes father’s story

PanARMENIAN.Net - From 1915 through 1923, Armenians -- and other ethnic minorities -- were systematically rounded up and expelled from Turkey in an ethnic cleansing that bore many resemblances to the Holocaust in Germany, an article in San Jose Mercury News says.

Ellen Sarkisian Chesnut has published a new memoir based on her father's eyewitness account of the genocide entitled "Deli Sarkis: The Scars He Carried: A Daughter Confronts the Armenian Genocide and Tells Her Father's Story."

Chesnut, 75, has lived in Alameda, CA, with her husband, Glen, since 2006. She was born in Iraq and came to the United States with her father, mother and brother when she was 2 years old -- to also escape threats in Iraq, the article says.

The author said that, to this day, the Turkish government denies the Armenian Genocide and has basically written it out of textbooks and history books.

"From 1915 to 1923, 1.5 million Armenians died as a result of outright massacre or deportation. The killings went on for eight years," said Chesnut, whose father was only 10 years old when his family was forced to leave their home in Turkey -- or face death. "I wrote my book because I don't want this to be a hidden genocide anymore."

She explained that in 1915, the Turkish government passed a law stating that all Armenians were to be deported and were forbidden from selling their land or property. They were to leave with the clothes on their backs. If they refused to leave, they would be killed.

"That law remains in the archives of Turkish history, all other records of the period were systematically expunged. For 99 years, successive Turkish governments have denied that there was a genocide," Chesnut said.

She said that what followed the forced departure from their home for the 10-year-old Deli Sarkis and his family -- along with millions of other Armenians -- was a horrific journey marked by cruelty, dangers and atrocities. They were first loaded into cattle trains -- with little food and train cars filled with hay for toilets -- then forced to walk through the Syrian desert, where many died from massacre, exhaustion or starvation.

"The intent was for our people to die, whether at home or on the death march," said Chesnut, whose grandfather died en route, saying he couldn't make it anymore. Chesnut said her then-10-year-old father witnessed many atrocities along the way, including watching dead bodies being thrown into a pit and covered with lime to make them decompose faster and a massacre at Raqqa in Syria, where the Armenians were attacked by a group of Arabs, who killed the able-bodied men and stole the young girls.

Her father survived and reached Mosul, Iraq, with his mother and brothers. Later, he met and married his wife, a fellow survivor of the Armenian genocide. The young family, including then-2-year-old Chesnut and her baby brother, subsequently moved to San Francisco, where Deli Sarkis lived and worked for the rest of his life, including a stint in the shipyards during World War II. Chesnut, who taught 42 years with the San Francisco Unified School District, has carefully documented this history in her 186-page book, which contains 111 photographs. She said it's been a labor of love over the past 26 years through interviews with her father, who died in 1995, and her own intensive research on the subject.

"One day my father, who always talked to me about what had happened, looked at me with a serious expression and said, 'Tell my story,' " Chesnut said. "That was my inspiration -- it's a miracle he ever made it."

Three years ago, working closely with longtime Alameda resident and graphic designer Valerie Turpin, Chesnut began writing her father's story.

"We worked in unison together for three years; it was a big project," Chesnut said. "Valerie designed the front cover and worked on maps with me while I wrote all the captions for the photos -- I wanted it to be very historically accurate."

The book launch will feature a talk by Chesnut, followed by readings from the book and an audience question-and-answer session. Coffee and Armenian pastries will be served, and the book will be available for purchase for $14.95 plus tax.

"It will be an informal affair, but I hope that people will come away with more knowledge than they had going in," Chesnut said. "The Turkish government has spent so much time and money denying what happened. It would be so much easier to dissociate from the past and say, 'We are different from those people. We are not the monsters they were.' "

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres and deportations, involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.

Present-day Turkey denies the fact of the Armenian Genocide, justifying the atrocities as “deportation to secure Armenians”. Only a few Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and scholar Taner Akcam, speak openly about the necessity to recognize this crime against humanity.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, Italy, 45 U.S. states, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Argentina, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Switzerland, Canada, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, the Vatican, Luxembourg, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Sweden, Venezuela, Slovakia, Syria, Vatican, as well as the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.

 Top stories
The EU does not intend to conduct military exercises with Armenia, Lead Spokesperson for EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Peter Stano says.
Hikmet Hajiyev has said that there is no place for USAID operation in Azerbaijan any longer.
A telephone conversation between Putin and Pashinyan before the CSTO summit is not planned, Peskov says.
London’s Armenian community has been left feeling “under attack” after the city’s Genocide monument was vandalised.
Partner news
---