YEREVAN, 23 APRIL, ARMENPRESS. April 24, the 114th day of the year, has a special importance in the calendar for the Armenians worldwide. The Armenian Genocide survivor Rosa Khondkaryan also was waiting a lot for that day. The eyewitness of the crime, unfortunately, passed away on 23 March of this year, a month before the hundredth anniversary. According to her daughter Rima, for her, the commemorative day of the Armenian Genocide victims was an opportunity to see Igdir once again on TV, to move mentally to homeland, which was an unconcealed and unfulfilled hope.

“My family emigrated from Igdir, Surmalu. My father, Hakob G. Khondkaryan, married my mother Lusaber M. Avagyan in 1910. My father was a rich men of Igdrir. He had some stores and mainly engaged in the sale of rugs. 5 children were born in our family, my brothers Hrant, Amasia, and Arsen, my sister Hermine and me. Hrant was the oldest son, who was born in 1911 and the youngest Arsen in 1922," Rosa Khondkaryan before dying had told her memories to the world.

“We lived full of fear in Igdir for two years. During the entire way to Armenia, the Russian army was accompanying and protecting us from the Turks. When our food finished, they secretly fed us. Along the way, unable to resist the difficulties, we had been moved by van. At that time, my sister Hermine died. Crossing the bridge over the river, we reached Etchmiadzin, then we arrived in Yerevan. They accepted us very well in Armenia, gave us a shelter, two-room apartment two-store houses, which was located in Kond at Amiryan Street” Mrs. Roza noted.

She conveyed to her children and grandchildren that episode of the history of the Armenian people, which will be delivered for generations as a sign of struggle and rebirth. And today, her grandchildren by their grandmother’s example tell the world about the people, which were subjected to the genocide, but resurrected from the ashes. Her grandchildren Aramayis Mirzoyan has prepared a book about the memories of his grandmother and will represent it to the public on April 24. (FULL VERSION OF INTERVIEW IS AVAILABLE IN ARMENIAN)

Tatevik Grigoryan

Photos by the personal archive of Rosa Khondkaryan famiily