Genocide Survivor Memoirs in Armenian & English, 1918-1955

It is often said that Armenians remained mostly silent about the Armenian Genocide until the fiftieth anniversary in 1965. Although there can be little argument that there was an explosion of memoirs and historical works on the Genocide after 1965, and that many survivors did opt to remain silent, it is also evident that from the time when the Genocide itself was still going on, Armenians pursued opportunities to tell their stories of personal survival and the destruction of their communities, mainly in the Armenian language but also in English and other languages.

In this feature we highlight a group, by no means exhaustive, of memoirs by survivors of the Armenian Genocide published in Armenian and English between the years 1918 and 1955. In these memoirs we hear the voices of women and men, clergymen and political activists, natives of the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire and of western Asia Minor, Protestant and Apostolic, intellectuals and “average” women and men, as well as one non-Armenian, an Assyrian whose people suffered largely the same fate as the Armenians.

Read the entire issue of Treasures of NAASR's Mardigian Library ~ Genocide Survivor Memoirs in Armenian & English, 1918-1955