Surviving the Forgotten Genocide: An Armenian Memoir by John Minassian
"Surviving the Forgotten Genocide: An Armenian Memoir" by John Minassian offers a rare and poignant testimony of a survivor of the Armenian genocide. The twentieth century was an era of genocide, which started with the Turkish destruction of more than one million Armenian men, women, and children—a modern process of erasure that began in 1895 and exploded under the cover of the First World War. John Minassian lived through this as a young man, witnessing the murder of his kin, concealing his identity as an orphan and laborer in Syria, and eventually immigrating to the United States to start his life anew. A rare testimony of a survivor of the Armenian genocide, one of just a handful of accounts in English, Minassian’s memoir is breathtaking in its vivid portraits of Armenian life and culture and poignant in its sensitive recollections of the many people who harmed and helped him. As well as a searing testimony, his memoir documents the wartime policies and behavior of Ottoman officials and their collaborators; the roles played by foreign armies and American missionaries; and the ultimate collapse of the empire. The author’s journey, and his powerful story of perseverance, despair, and survival, will resonate with readers today.
This event commemorates the Annual Mgrublian Lecture on Armenian Studies and is co-sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights, with special acknowledgement of the Minassian and Camp families for sharing their own personal history with us and our students, and now with the world.
View Video: YouTube with Roderic Camp