InternationalRubina Peroomian explores sexual violence during the Armenian Genocide
Published: Thursday February 12, 2009
Dr. Rubina Peroomian talks about her new book, And Those Who Continued Living in Turkey after 1915. . Paul Chaderjian
AR: You mentioned an Armenian physician who worked to remove the female survivors' tattoos and restore their hymens. Tell us about him and his work.
RP: The doctor's name was Khosrov Krikorian, and my source for this information is a posting on the Internet by Mr. Maurice Kelechian.
The posting detailed his research on a carpet that was woven by Armenian orphan girls in the Ghazir orphanage in Beirut and gifted to U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, in appreciation of Near East Relief's support of the Armenian orphans. Mr. Kelechian discovered a replica of this rug, which was once owned by Dr. Krikorian. The replica was found at the home of the doctor's grandson. This is where Mr. Kelechian was informed of Dr. Krikorian's visits to the Armenian orphanages in Beirut in the aftermath of the Genocide and the surgeries he performed to remove the tattoos of the girls as well as to restore their virginity. These were young Armenian girls who were taken into Muslim homes as wives or concubines. Many of them escaped and found their way into orphanages.
The management of these orphanages, which operated on shoestring budgets and in very poor conditions, tried to marry the girls off to Armenian Genocide survivors. Most of these men, however, resented the tattooed women, knowing that they had been literally used in Muslim homes. With Dr. Krikorian's help, the girls were able to get a fresh start. Apparently, Dr. Krikorian has written an account of his experiences in the desert and the thousands of Armenian women in the Bedouin camps.
AR: Based on the memoirs and literature you researched while writing your book, did you detect a pattern of psychological trauma being passed down from the survivors of the Genocide to their children, who may or may not have been aware of their parents' true identity or survival stories? How were these traumas acted out among second- or third-generation survivors?
RP: Experiences vary, depending on the survivors' circumstances - i.e., on whether they remained Christians, were converted to Islam, or pretended to be Muslims but secretly practiced Christianity (the hidden Armenians).
Most of the Islamicized Armenian survivors, men or women, did not share their experiences of the Genocide with their offspring, out of fear or shame. Some did not even reveal that they were Armenian. Their stories and their identity are lost, and we can never be able to trace them.
There are others who trusted their stories to a member of the family. In some cases, that revelation devastated the trusted one; in others, it has become the beginning of a long journey of discovering the obscure story of their Armenian roots and thus their true identity. In many instances, the children or grandchildren of these survivors have heard their parents speak of their traumatic experiences of the past, and they, too, have learned to navigate and survive in an atmosphere of constant harassment and persecution that was the lot of minorities in Turkey.
In the final analysis, given the range of survivors' processes of living or coming to terms with the memory of the Genocide, it is hard to generalize as to the way that traumatic experiences and their unabated memory were transmitted to the next generation.
One should also take into consideration the children of those Armenian women who escaped their abductors and left their offspring behind. Imagine the psychological state of such children: they grew up hating or longing for their Armenian mothers, who for some reason had run away and left them orphans.
