AFP, Pokr Vedi :
The descendants of Martiros Muradyan cherish like religious relics the few objects he was able to carry with him when he fled the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces a century ago.
The hand-made rugs and wooden spoons in their home in rural Armenia are the last physical reminders they possess of a life that was long ago torn apart.
But while the material links decay, as Armenians gear up to mark Friday 100 years since the start of what they term a genocide, memories of the tragedy are still being kept vividly alive from generation to generation.
“I know every detail of the history of the terrible slaughter,” Muradyan’s 17-year-old great-granddaughter Ruzanna tells AFP.
“About the inhuman march along the road of death and about how my great-grandfather and his friends held off some Turks so that 12 families could escape.” Guarding the stories of suffering has became a treasured task for those who survived the World War I slaughter — especially given the decades of dispute that have swirled over the issue.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart and have long sought to win international recognition of the massacres as genocide.
Turkey rejects the claims, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.
“I remember how in the evenings all the kids around would gather outside our house and listen with open mouths to grandfather’s stories about how the Turks killed the Armenians,” says Muradyan’s grandson Hovhannes.
The descendants of Martiros Muradyan cherish like religious relics the few objects he was able to carry with him when he fled the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces a century ago.
The hand-made rugs and wooden spoons in their home in rural Armenia are the last physical reminders they possess of a life that was long ago torn apart.
But while the material links decay, as Armenians gear up to mark Friday 100 years since the start of what they term a genocide, memories of the tragedy are still being kept vividly alive from generation to generation.
“I know every detail of the history of the terrible slaughter,” Muradyan’s 17-year-old great-granddaughter Ruzanna tells AFP.
“About the inhuman march along the road of death and about how my great-grandfather and his friends held off some Turks so that 12 families could escape.” Guarding the stories of suffering has became a treasured task for those who survived the World War I slaughter — especially given the decades of dispute that have swirled over the issue.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart and have long sought to win international recognition of the massacres as genocide.
Turkey rejects the claims, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.
“I remember how in the evenings all the kids around would gather outside our house and listen with open mouths to grandfather’s stories about how the Turks killed the Armenians,” says Muradyan’s grandson Hovhannes.
