I know the story of this family not from archives or textbooks—it was told to me by my grandmother, who, in turn, received it from her mother. In these fragile retellings lives what is rarely recorded in documents. In Armenian memory, the Genocide does not exist as an abstract event: it is nearly impossible to find a family whose fate was not affected by this rupture, and therefore speaking about April 24 inevitably becomes a conversation about the personal tragedy of someone’s family.

The story of this family begins in Mush, in Western Armenia, where before 1915 life flowed in its usual rhythm and gave no sense of an impending catastrophe. Armenian and Turkish families lived side by side, shared everyday life, helped one another. In this environment lived a large Armenian family with seven children, for whom home was not only a space, but a system of stable ties that seemed unshakable.

A special place in this story belongs to the youngest son, who had a close friend from a neighboring Turkish family. Their friendship was perceived as a natural part of a shared world, where personal relationships seemed stronger than any differences. Yet it was precisely in this bond that the fracture later revealed itself, becoming a symbol of the разрушение of the entire former way of life. According to family accounts, a conflict arose between the young men over a girl whom the youngest son intended to marry, and this personal hostility, in the conditions of growing violence, took on a different, tragic scale…

By the spring of 1915, the situation in Mush had sharply deteriorated. According to recollections, troops began entering the city, setting houses on fire as they went, and Armenian resistance gradually weakened. Some residents retreated into the gorge, trying to find shelter, but the situation grew increasingly difficult: there was not enough оружие, people were dying, Armenian quarters were burning under shelling. Turkish forces were aided both by local residents and by arriving detachments, so the chances of holding out were almost nonexistent.

My grandmother said that her mother recalled another important detail: when news spread of the sultan’s decree on the extermination of Armenians, many perceived it as permission for violence. According to her, it was then that accumulated resentment, envy, and hostility surfaced in some people, because it became clear—there would be no punishment for it. She also said that denunciations were common in those days: people reported where Armenian families lived, how many women and children were in a house, who was hiding where. According to her, the family even suspected that the very same friend might have passed along such information.

Here the family’s personal story intersects with the broader tragedy: the youngest son was lured into the forest by his friend and never returned. The details of this incident have not been preserved, but the very fact of betrayal became, for the family, the final realization that the former world had been destroyed.

After this, the decision to leave the city became inevitable, but keeping the family together proved impossible. A large family with children was too visible and vulnerable, and the only chance of survival was separation. By that time, the family had already lost one of the sons, and the remaining six were forced to scatter in different directions, with no certainty about the future or the possibility of ever meeting again. On the night when part of the Armenian youth attempted to break out of the encirclement, many were killed, and only a few managed to survive…

Then, as my grandmother said, they found a way not to lose their connection completely and irreversibly: the name of the deceased brother—Arev—was turned into the surname Arevjanian.

Decades passed, and a connection that once seemed impossible became real thanks to technology: telephone communication, and later the internet. It was then that some members of the family were able to find one another; among them, my grandmother met many relatives of her now-deceased mother.

The story of each family is part of a shared memory in which loss, betrayal, and forced separation become a heavy trial and a tragic experience passed down through generations. The Genocide is not a fact of the past—it manifests in the present as well: in names, in family ties, in attempts to preserve and restore what was destroyed. Behind every family stands someone’s name and someone’s fate, which do not disappear as long as they are remembered.

Liana Aghajanyan