A Montreal woman believed to have been one of the last Canadians to have survived the Armenian genocide died on Thursday, just weeks shy of her 108th birthday.
Born in 1909, Knar Bohjelian Yemenidjian was only six years old in 1915 when the Ottoman Turks began their massacre. An estimated 1.5 million people were killed.
Yemenidjian鈥檚 niece, Nazan Artinian, says that she learned much of what she knows about the genocide from her aunt Knar, because other family members were unable to discuss the atrocities.
Artinian says her aunt and mother survived initially only because Yemenidjian鈥檚 father (Artinian鈥檚 grandfather) was warned by a Turkish friend that 鈥渁ll the Armenians are going to be killed.鈥�
The friend told him, according to Artinian, 鈥淚f you want to live, leave your house, take your family and go to this farm and hide yourself there.鈥�
Artinian says the family lived in the barn, sleeping amongst the stench of sheep and cows. She says they had little food and were sickened with Typhoid fever.
Eventually, the family left the farm but were forced to convert to Islam and take on Turkish names in order to survive, according to Artinian. 鈥淎 great aunt said," she adds, "it鈥檚 better to change your religion and live longer than to 鈥� remain Christians and finally die."
The family fled to Alexandria, Egypt in 1928. During the Nasser era, the family again fled to safer lands. Yemenidjian ended up in Canada in 1971.
Artinian says her aunt always encouraged the younger generation to speak Armenian -- not Arabic or Turkish -- because it was a language the Turks had denied them.
She says she鈥檒l remember her aunt as someone who always had a book or newspaper in her hand because the Turks had deprived her of a formal education.
鈥淢y aunt used to say 鈥業 always like to read now because I always wished to go to school and I couldn鈥檛 all my life,鈥欌�� Artinian says.
In 2015, at age 106, Yemenidjian one of the Armenian-Canadian survivors who attended a special ceremony on Parliament hill marking 100 years since the genocide began.
Canada鈥檚 was among the first countries to recognize the genocide, in 2004.
Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has refused to take that step. It recalled its ambassador from Germany last year after the German parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of recognizing the genocide.
Culture minister and Montreal MP Melanie Joly was among those who issued condolences to Yemenidjian鈥檚 loved ones online Friday.
Shahen Mirakian, President of the Armenian National Committee of Canada, said that 鈥渁s we witness the passing of an entire generation that did not see justice being served throughout their lifetime, we stand ever resolute in our struggle against denial and impunity and restate our steadfast commitment in our pursuit for justice.鈥�
A service is being planned for Yemenidjian on Wednesday in Montreal at Sourp Hagop Armenian Apostolic Cathedral in Montreal.
Clarification:
麻豆传媒 based this story on records kept by the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee of Canada. However, we have recently learned that there may be other survivors of the Armenian genocide currently living in Toronto.
