LENUGHI, 8 APRIL, ARMENPRESS. There was an old photo hung on the wall, in which the Armenian Genocide survivor Ovsanna Mirkhanyan was surrounded by many grandchildren. Five children are abroad. Ovsanna lives with her great grandson in Lenughi village of Armavir province and her relative from neighboring house frequently visits her to care and feed.

She was born in Istanbul in 1915. She was connected with her birthplace only by the vague memory of the migration.

“They took the people and taking them away, everybody was picked up his “Nafari” and ran away. A lot of people got lost; I was too small, when my grandfather and grandmother took me up at night and ran away to cross the border saying: “We put you on our shoulder, crossed the border, as the Turks don’t capture us at night,” the eyewitness-survivor tells.

Khatun, the mother of heroine of our history passed away because of illness and her father married another woman. His grandmother Khanum and grandfather Hakob hadn’t left her and moved her to Aleppo from Istanbul.

“They brought me to Aleppo, where I grew up. I was a disabled person and I was operated on my leg in Aleppo," Ovsanna says. Congenital defect-born woman points out that she was able to stand up in Aleppo and was healed due to the efforts of her grandmother and grandfather efforts.

By her assessment everything was Armenian in Aleppo. Communicating with her neighbors she understands Turkish and Kurdish. Wheat pilaf, harissa, spas were a part of the meal prepared by grandmother. (THE FULL VERSION OF INTERVIEW IS AVAILABLE IN ARMENIAN)

Interview by Tatevik Grigoryan and Anahit Minasyan

Photos by Edward Sepetchyan