The Armenian Genocide: My Family Story

I finished researching my fathers side of the family, and filmed my great aunt, Azniv Kouyoumdjian in Beirut using the Survivor Interview Guide. My paternal grandmother Knar (last name unknown) was a very young orphan from Gesaria, with all of her immediate family dead or MIA due to the genocide. She was living in Aleppo, Syria with some relatives when a marriage was arranged for her to wed my grandfather in Ethiopia.

Hovanes Kouyoumdjian, my paternal grandfather was from Marash. His parents (Manoug and Maritsa) were married in 1894 and he was born in 1895. That same year his father was killed in the pogroms against Armenians by Sultan Abdul Hamid. Maritsa remarried ?? sixteen years later, and Azniv was born in 1909, followed by ???. ??? returned from the USA after a couple of years there working just 3 months before WWI broke out, and was drafted by the Ottoman Govt, and of course never heard from again. When Maritsa was given the deporation order, she told her neighbor, an Armenian Doctor who told her to hide in his basement, as he was one of the very few who was allowed to remain being so valuable. A few days later she emerged with her children and returned to her home. After WWI ended thousands of those who escaped the massacres returned to Marash, and in 1924 were driven out for the last time by Mustafa Kemal's forces who were establishing the current Turkish Republic, which would never again allow Armenians to return to this day. The family headed to Aleppo, then Ethiopia, where they all remained, except his sister Azniv who got married to an Armenian in Lebanon while on a trip there. Hovanes had nightmares of the genocide until his dying day.

My mothers family is even more of a mystery to me. I know that they are from Constantinople/Egypt and maybe Russia (Minassian and Kevorkoff). They were established in Ethiopia I think even before the genocide.

Kalfayan and Funduklian are the names of my grandmother and great grandmother on my mothers side.

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© Raffi Kojian n_w$$h