The Armenian Genocide initiated in the Ottoman Empire during the World War I in the beginning of the previous century is one of the biggest crimes against humanity. Advancing the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide the project introduced by "Armenpress" news agency is dedicated to the story of the eyewitnesses and survivors of the calamity to prove the world one more time that our demand for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide is fair and justified. This time the project is dedicated to the story of the 107-year old Mariam Grigoryan.

VANASHEN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. 107-year old Mariam Grigoryan is grieved by the news that soon her son will leave for a foreign country, but she did not refuse to recall the past with us. Mariam is the oldest resident of the Vanashen village in Armenia’s Ararat Province. She was born in 1907 in the city of Midyat in Turkey. “That’s where the massacres began. My grandmother was hit holding a child in her hands. The boy died while she was holding him in her hands, the rest of the children have been taken by others,” Mariam’s daughter Khatun told us the story of her family.

Mariam’s father was arrested by the Turks, and after he was set free, he learnt that the Turks stabbed his wife’s face with knife saying that “nothing must be left from these pretty eyes”. After stabbing the woman, they put a large stone on her and left. But later on it turned out that the woman survived.

Mariam Grigoryan had not met her relatives for about 46 years, and she left from the Soviet Union to The Netherlands to meet with her sisters, but the rest of her relatives had already died.

The fact of the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman government has been documented, recognized, and affirmed in the form of media and eyewitness reports, laws, resolutions, and statements by many states and international organizations. The complete catalogue of all documents categorizing the 1915 wholesale massacre of the Armenian population in Ottoman Empire as a premeditated and thoroughly executed act of genocide, is extensive. Uruguay was the first country to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide in 1965. The massacres of the Armenian people were officially condemned and recognized as genocide in accordance with the international law by France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Greece, Slovakia, Cyprus, Lebanon, Uruguay, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Canada, Vatican and Australia.

Article by Tatevik Grigoryan

Photos by Arevik Grigoryan