Angela Ajemian moved from Aleppo to Armenia more than a year-and-a-half ago with her three children, Hovhannes, Meghedi and Movses. Armenia received them with open arms, but her wounds still haven’t healed. In an interview with Hayern Aysor, Angela talked about the hell that she experienced in Aleppo, Armenia the homeland and how she is continuing the story that remained incomplete.

Hayern Aysor: Angela, they say there is no Armenian family in Aleppo that doesn’t have a story linked to 1915. Where do your roots trace back to?

Angela Ajemian: Yes, the story of every Armenian family of Syria traces back to Western Armenia. My paternal grandfather was from Sasun. His family saw genocide and experienced hell. As my grandfather would say, they saw destiny written on their foreheads. When escaping, my grandfather’s mother had braided her daughters’ hair together and thrown them in the river so that the Turkish askyars wouldn’t try to touch them with even their fingers and desecrate them. They were a very brave family. My grandfather, Tigran was a soldier. He robbed weapons from the Turkish army and distributed them to Armenian soldiers so that they could defend themselves, but when the Turks found out the truth, they persecuted him. To not fall victim to the Turks, my great-grandfather drank a poison and died.

When we were little, my paternal grandfather would also tell us to not trust Muslims because he and other Armenians had undergone the trials and tribulations of the Muslims. Later, when we experienced all this, I reinterpreted my grandfather’s story in a new way.

Hayern Aysor: Angela, nevertheless, your eyes shine and you remember many things whenever you think of Aleppo. I assume that you lived a good, happy and peaceful life before the war.

A. A.: Yes, that is the case. I was working as a nanny at a kindergarten, but since my children were little, I had to quit my job to raise and take care of them. However, my husband held two jobs. He had an ice factory and was a metalworker. He would work hard to earn a living, but we were content and grateful for what we had (silent, eyes darken-ed.).

Hayern Aysor: What happened after that? How did the war invade your life?

A. A.: The war had just begun. My husband’s workplace was located a little far from the city, particularly in a nearby village since the government prohibits people from having and running factories in the city. When the Islamic army attacked that village, my husband, Minas, and his father were there. One of the neighbors, who was drunk and in an irrational state of being, betrayed them and said a Christian father and son were working at the factory, and for the Islamists, whose brains are washed, whoever is not one of them, doesn’t have the right to live. That was the reason why they kidnapped my husband and father-in-law. I didn’t receive any news for a couple of days. After that, I sent someone after them and wrote a letter since there was no phone connection, yet there was no answer.

Only a week later did I received news that one of the Armenians had managed to escape and reach the city. According to that Armenian, the Islamists had kidnapped my husband and father-in-law and were holding them in captivity “to sentence them”. We already pictured what could have happened. That’s why we sent a Muslim who followed their religion and shared their ideas (we couldn’t send an Armenian since that person would be in the same situation as my husband). Through that Muslim, we offered money and were ready to give whatever they wanted. However, the soldiers didn’t confess that they were keeping such people with them (voice shaking again-ed.).

Hayern Aysor: Were they really not with them?

A. A.: No, we were sure that they were keeping them. I could even imagine how they had suffered and how they had been left in hunger. One hour was like a century for us. A month later, I received a phone call from a Muslim, who was speaking in his language. According to him, he was a lawyer, had been captured and had stayed with my husband for one month, but had managed to escape. At first, I didn’t believe him, but he knew things that only my husband could have told him. He told me that Minas and my father-in-law Hovhannes were alive. That gave me new hope. I tried to ask him how I could save them, but he reviled and said the Islamists have money, arms and great human potential and they simply want my husband and his father to convert.

Four more months passed. It was hell, and words can’t describe it. But the call didn’t come late. I called the Muslim lawyer back so that he could check the news. A day later, he called me and said my husband and father-in-law had been killed for not converting.

They didn’t even give us the bodies, even though we did everything we could. We even contacted the Red Cross, but the armed soldiers responded that if they returned the bodies, we would bury them according to the Christian order, and that’s why they had to bury them according to the Muslim ritual. We waited five days, and we slowly lost hope of receiving the bodies (The conversation stops for a while. Meghedi enters the room and brings light to the sadness in the room. She had come to take her school notebooks).

Hayern Aysor: Angela, I imagine how hard it must have been. However, no matter how inappropriate it is, they say as long as the world is spinning, life goes on. How did your and your children’s lives continue?

A. A.: Two months later, they called me and threatened me, saying that they knew where I lived and which school my children were attending. There were many spies in the neighborhood. It was impossible to live under those conditions. I was mentally decayed, and my children were depressed. The only thing left for me to do was to do everything possible to escape the country for my children’s safety, but the government didn’t give me any paper stating my husband being dead or missing since his body didn’t exist. I had to wait three years for that paper. The government wouldn’t let the children out of the country without their father’s signature. I was forced to life that my husband is in Lebanon and that I had to go to see him quickly. That’s how I reached Beirut, and from there we arrived in Armenia, 15 days later.

Hayern Aysor: You had to start from scratch. How did you start?

A. A.: Yes, I had to start from scratch. I didn’t think I could live again, but…my children gave me strength. The lawyer who was with Minas for a month, transmitted Minas’s words to me during our first phone conversation: “I leave the children’s care up to you. Let their future be outside of this country. Educate them the way we would have educated them together.” That’s exactly what I’m doing.

The school that the children attend in Yerevan is wonderful, and the education is great as well. They learn in a healthy environment in which everyone wants to help each other. The people here helped us a lot. They are even ready to help us now. I have never felt the barrier between a Syrian-Armenian and a citizen of Armenia.

For me, Syria remains my homeland. When I was singing the Armenian national anthem during a ceremony in Aleppo in the 6^th grade, my whole body was shivering. Now, whenever I hear the Syrian national anthem, my blood freezes in my veins because of my longing. I spent the happiest days of my life in Syria. I don’t want to remember the miserable days again.

Armenia is the only homeland for my children. Their school is their second home, and the teachers are like their second mother. It wouldn’t be like that, if they didn’t understand that this is their homeland. Of course, psychologically speaking, the wounds still haven’t healed, but my children are happy here.

Hayern Aysor: Angela, your children’s future is also your future. How do you envision that future?

A. A.: You know, when Minas was alive, he would pray with the children and teach them different prayers every night. My children also pray now. My little Movses says father would go down at night, kiss him and then go back up.

We are trying to live and think about the future with the spiritual presence of Minas and with the care of the Lord. When a father lifts his little child in the air, a child rejoices and isn’t afraid of falling because he is confident that his father will catch him. My children and I lost that confidence, but we are trying to find it again. I am happy that my children don’t see their future anywhere besides Armenia.

Amalya Karapetyan

4^th year student of the Faculty of Journalism of Yerevan State University

P.S.: The photo on Angela’s table is a photo of a happy family (mother, father and three pretty children). Two years ago, life ��?reedited’ that photo a little, but for the remaining members of the happy family, it remains unedited. Even today, Angela wears her beautiful wedding ring on her ring finger, and the children only talk about their father in the present tense.