Words: Ara Zada

Growing up Armenian in America, I was constantly reminded about the Armenian genocide. I remember sitting with my dede, grandfather, the first time he told me the story of what happened to our family. Afterward, he rarely missed an opportunity to remind me, raising a finger in front of his face, pointing to the sky and, with a stern voice, saying, “My grandfather, God rest his soul, was from Mardin!”

In the early 1900s, my great-great-grandfather Farosh Manooshian was a well-known artist in Mardin, a once-peaceful city perched on a rocky hill in what is today southeastern Turkey. But despite stories from my grandfather, the scope of what happened to make Farosh leave his hometown never really hit me until I set foot in the Genocide Memorial and Museum at Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan. The cold, gray concrete walls were filled with images of death and torture, telling stories of soldiers who killed thousands of men, women, and children as if it were a game. As I stared at images of bodies piled up, I began to realize that the only reason I was standing in this room was because some of my family members were among those who survived.

Ara’s family in Los Angeles, 1986. Ara is second left at bottom.

Over the years, I’ve pieced together more of what happened to my great-great-grandfather. Leading up to 1915, the people of Mardin had a tradition of banding together no matter their race or religion. The governor of Mardin at the time, who had always viewed Muslims and Christians as equals, refused Ottoman orders to turn in Armenian citizens. His refusal cost him his life and the lives of his ranked officers. The next governor stuck to the Ottoman script and began carrying out orders to deport and murder all Armenians in the city. In Mardin, this time became known as “the year of the sword” for the countless Armenians who were marched through the city and massacred while everyone watched.

Since my great-great-grandfather had a reputation as an artist, however, he was told that his family’s lives would be spared as long as he continued working on a painting inside a mosque. The night before he finished, a soldier who had been guarding him—and who had become a friend—told him that he and his family would be murdered the next morning if he stayed. That soldier helped him flee with his family in the dead of night. They traveled by mule to Syria and then to the city of Tafilah in Jordan, eventually making their way to Cairo, where he changed the family’s last name from Manooshian to Zada to avoid more persecution. Since my great-great-grandfather spoke Arabic, he fit in easily with his Egyptian neighbors, though he didn’t forget his heritage.

As my kids grow older, I will make sure that they, like me, learn the same story that my grandfather told me and that they understand their heritage. It’s up to us and every Armenian to preserve our culture and honor those who lost their lives more than a century ago. We are the survivors.

This essay is an excerpt from our book Lavash.