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3/27
1998
98
For Reservations Now
`Vergeen: A Survivor of the Armenian Genocide'
113
Vergeen survived. Ultimately she
reached America and returned to a
normal life, despite physical and emo-
tional scars. The suspense is in how
very now and then a book
this miracle happened.
comes along that haunts the
Mae Derdarian has created a page-
reader long after the last
turner, combing Vergeen's journals and
page is turned. Vergeen: A
her own mother's recorded accounts of
Survivor of the Armenian Genocide
what both women endured as sur-
(Atmus Press; $15) is one of those sto-
vivors of the first genocide of the 20th
ries.
century.
Just as The Diary of Anne Frank
Derdarian insists that Vergeen is not
recalls the audacity of Hitler's cam-
paign to annihilate Jews, Vergeen resur- just an Armenian story; it is a woman's
story. A short, simple
rects the Turks' sense-
book, it carries a pow-
less slaughter of its
erful message: There
Armenian population.
can never be justifica-
But there is one sig-
tion for the slaughter
nificant difference
of innocent people.
between the story of
There have been
Anne Frank and that
numerous stories
of Vergeen Meghrouni:
tit of the Anfi
about Jewish survival
Vergeen (Virginia in
during the Holocaust.
English) survived.
Recently, more geno-
How she survived is
cide accounts have
the basis of this corn-
been published,
pelling memoir.
telling about the
Vergeen's childhood in
slaughter in Nanking
Turkey was idyllic:
during World War II
prosperous, loving par-
and, more recently, .
ents; good schools;
heartbreaking mas-
pleasant summers in
sacres in Bosnia,
country villages; and
40,1"Kg!:4
Africa, Cambodia,
an early betrothal to a
India, Algeria and
promising young man
Mexico.
who planned to seek his fortune in
Genocide is the plague of the 20th
America.
century. Yet the voice of Anne Frank
But this good life was doomed. In
still gives pause, and Hitler's taunt,
1915, World War I dominated the
"Who today still speaks of the annihi-
world's attention. What happened to
lation of the Armenians?" is inscribed
Vergeen and her family and most of
in exquisite irony on a wall of the U.S.
the Armenian population was virtually
Holocaust Memorial Museum in
ignored: confiscation of property;
Washington, D.C.
arrests and barbaric torture; public
Who will remember Vergeen?
humiliations and executions; exile;
Anyone who reads this remarkable
death marches; rampaging soldiers;
memoir. ❑
rape, starvation, disease, murder — all
the familiar components of genocide.
Even after a harrowing journey to
Syria, the terrified refugees found no
relief. Vergeen was sold to a Bedouin
tribesman. Bedouin life was primitive;
Vergeen, now in her early teens,
endured the unendurable.
So why read these horrors? Because
EDITH BROIDA
Special to The Jewish News
Edith Broida is a Farmington Hills
book club facilitator and freelance
writer.
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