A Fresno woman recalls her father, an Armenian genocide survivor
Throughout my childhood, living in the Armenian community of Fresno, I grew up in the silent shadow of the 1915 genocide, the systematic destruction and annihilation of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian Christians living in the Ottoman Empire.
Somehow, my 27-year-old father, Paul, and his uncle, Hampartzoom, who was 25, escaped into the desert and were found by the American Red Cross. That humanitarian organization played a major role in saving refugees.
Though I knew of the Armenian genocide, it was never openly discussed in my home.
My father’s story
My father and my maternal grandparents were born in Kharpert, (also known as Harpoot), a city built on a rocky hilltop with a castle overlooking the plains below. Historically, it was part of the Ottoman Empire, positioned near the Euphrates and Murat rivers. Once heavily inhabited by Armenians, this ancient city dates back to 2000 BC and served as a center for Armenian culture in the region. Today, the area is considered a historic district in modern-day Turkey.
Some Armenian refugees from Kharpert escaped into the mountains, as my father and his uncle did. They found their way to Marseilles, and with the help of the Red Cross, boarded a ship to Ellis Island.
My father and Uncle Hampartzoom settled first in Detroit. My father learned English and worked as a grocery store butcher. After a few years, he and his uncle reconnected with relatives in Fresno. They decided to relocate here, forming a tribe of extended family for us Armenian-American kids.
By 1930, my father had found work as a butcher at Hanoian’s Market in Fresno’s “Armenian town” on Railroad Avenue. There, he met my mother, Melania, who shopped weekly with her parents. A match was made, and they married in 1940, moved to a farm in Kerman and had me and my two siblings.
The American Dream was a reality, and my father and his uncle were forever grateful for the opportunities their new life provided. For my father, that dream was marrying, buying a vineyard and raising a family.
Armenians in Fresno
Today, recent figures suggest that approximately 30,000 residents in Fresno are of Armenian descent — the second, third and even fourth generation of genocide survivors, making it one of the most significant Armenian communities in the United States.
Though my father never talked about the horrors he witnessed, other Armenians shared accounts of young men chased by Turks on horseback with sabers drawn and struck down as they fled. I also heard stories of pregnant women killed with soldiers’ swords and of Turkish soldiers herding women and children into an Armenian church — including my father’s mother — locking the doors and setting it on fire.
Armenian families were also forced to march into the desert, dying from starvation, some choosing suicide. The primary destination of these death marches was Deir ez-Zor, a city in the heart of the Syrian Desert. It served as the central hub for concentration and annihilation camps, and where deportees were left to die of starvation, dehydration and disease.
No discussion of the past
No one in my family talked about the past, about living in the “old country.” It was as if their lives began when they arrived in America and earned their citizenship, something my father was most proud of and which I became aware of when he helped me study for my eighth-grade Constitution test.
My father and uncle built a new community of near and distant relatives, though I’ll never know whether we were bound by blood or by the overwhelming grief born of the mass killings of 1915–1916 and the broader campaign of persecution and violence that continued through 1923.
Being the child of a survivor — of one who escaped but forever felt the loss of his mother, father, brothers and sisters — I carry his sadness with me to this day.
Now retired, Pauline Sahakian taught AP English at Clovis and Buchanan high schools as well as composition and teacher education at Fresno State. She was the founding director of the UC Merced Writing Project.
