... let my soul die so that my body can live on

Arshaluys Mardigian was born in 1901 in eastern Armenia, the daughter of a successful businessman and farmer. Mardigian's father and brother were killed in a massacre of Armenian Christians. During the death marches she lost the remaining family members. In 1917 she was able to escape to the United States, where she took the first name Aurora. There, as one of the few survivors, she began to report on her experiences during the genocide.

My story begins on the morning of Easter Sunday in April 1915. In our parents' house we were preparing for a joyful celebration of Easter, and our joy was heightened by news from Constantinople. The Turkish government had just expressed its gratitude to the Armenian troops for their loyal and honorable service in the Great War. About six months before the Turks entered the war, great fear had spread throughout Armenia because without the protective influence of England and France, it was feared that the Turks would take the opportunity to oppress their Christian subjects, as had happened so often. The young Armenian men who would have preferred to fight against the Sultan had hastily enlisted in the Ottoman army as a sign of their loyalty to the state. Now that the Sultan had publicly acknowledged their sacrifice, fears of renewed persecution by our Muslim rulers had gradually subsided. In our town of Chemshkadsag, twenty miles north of Kharput, the capital of Mamuret-ul-Aziz Province, no one was more grateful for the prospect of lasting peace in Armenia than I was Father and my mother, my older sister Lusanne and me. I was only fourteen years old and Lusanne was not quite seventeen, but in Armenia even little girls are always afraid. This morning I was particularly excited. Father had surprised me with an Easter present: his promise that I would soon be able to attend high school at a high school in Europe - as was fitting for a banker's daughter.

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