My Armenian Story of Survival

Assanna with father Avedis	Guiragos is the boy with hat at the top left	Oghida and Jale with little children	Wedding photo of Assanna and Guiragos

Our grandfather Guiragos Demirdjian was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, his mother Heripsime Dedeyan and his father Harutyun Demirdjian, both of unwavering Christian faith.

Guiragos was born on September 27, 1908 in Yozgat, today a land usurped by Turkey. Our grandfather remembered that at the age of 5 years "sitting on his grandfather's knees, he felt his face get wet without knowing why, years later he would realize that they were his grandfather's tears, which wet him as he ran through his long white beard. It was that night that he saw his family killed before his eyes.” Only our grandfather with 3 of his brothers and some of his nephews managed to escape. Days later they were caught and deported to the desert of Aleppo, Syria. Besides surviving death, our grandfather had to survive the caravan, in harsh conditions, in which he encounters horror again, one night his little brother who was sleeping in the tent next to him was robbed. That tortured him forever, that's how he and his nephews and his sister tried to stay together all their lives.

In Syria he lived in an Italian orphanage, he learned to cook, then he is sheltered by an Arab family, who gave him a home, but he wouldn’t not stay there, he would help his nephews Aram, Baitzar, Ieghish and his sister Gussuma to travel to America in search of a new life.

Guiragos recalled that, in that context of despair, in the midst of horror, the churches were a shelter and that the priests told everyone that America was a destination where they would find peace. At the age of 23, Guiragos embarked in the port of Cherbourg on a British-flagged ship called ALCANTARA, on August 2, 1929 he left the Port of Southampton and arrived at the port of Argentina on August 20, 1929, with his memories, following his nephews, and his sister Gussuma Demirdjian de Kasparian being reborn.

LONGING TO RETURN TO ARMENIA ONE DAY

In South America, in Argentina, he meets Assanna Sarkissian, another survivor of the Genocide; they get married and have 3 children. Our grandmother Assana was the last survivor of the genocide in the city of Rosario, she was born in 1921, in Armenia, in the province of Diaberkir. Assana’s mother, Oghida Ohannessian saw her mom beaten to death by Turkish gangs.

Assana did not have grandparents, she says that her parents Avedis, Oghida and Jale, her mother's older sister with her two children, hid in a basement, weeks later the children died of starvation.

Fleeing death, for "being Armenians", they arrive in Aleppo - Syria, and remain in a refugee camp, until the orders to annihilate the children of the Armenians come from the Turkish Deportation Committee.

Following the journey of survival, they flee to Mosul, Iraq, in that city their brother Garabet is born. They remain for 2 years until they try to reach Beirut, Lebanon. From there to the port of Marseille, to board the ship called "Silver", with the French flag. On November 30, 1926 they left for Argentina, arriving on December 23, 1926.

Argentina would be their Paradise; this is how they expressed it when they gathered in the house of their mother Oghida together with other Armenians from the West Zone of the city of Rosario, remembering what they had left behind in Armenia, the longing for their homes and their decimated families. A tribute to them was cooking typical Armenian food, speaking the Armenian language that was forbidden to them in the Ottoman Turkish Empire. From that moment Argentina sheltered them and allowed them to "be Armenian", to maintain their identity without being persecuted.

My grandparents had 3 children, 10 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren, my sisters and I inspired by their lives, since 1994 we have established a space for study, research and teaching on Armenia and the Armenian Question at the National University of Rosario, remaining institutionalized in the UNR Armenian Free Chair and the Center for Armenian Studies. Memory, commitment, and solidarity are part of our education, and we believe that the task of raising awareness and visibility helps to prevent other genocides to a large extent to heal the wounds and honor the victims.

Florencia Demirdjian