According to Ermenihaber, Turkish film director Nezahat Gyundogan, who is originally from Dersim, has produced a documentary film entitled “The Children of the Monastery” (Vank’ın Çocukları) and devoted to the Armenians of Dersim who were saved during the Armenian Genocide. Most of them were massacred during the 1937-38 massacres in Dersim, while others were Turkified or Islamized.

The text of the advertisement reads that the film crew had had several meetings in Dersim, Konia, Istanbul, Izmir and Bolu to find Armenians cut off from their roots due to forceful Turkification and Islamization by the State following the Dersim massacres and to present their stories.

It is stated that the efforts helped gather numerous facts about Armenian children of Dersim who stayed alive after the massacres and whom the Turks gave names and later forced to accept Islam.

In addition to the people of Dersim cut off from their roots, the film also addresses the St. Karapet Armenian Monastery of Halvor, which was the only monastery that existed in Dersim after 1915 and the abbot of which was arrested in 1937 and killed along with the other Armenians and Alevis. In 1938, the monastery was completely demolished by the State.

The premiere of the film will be held at Beyoglu Movie Theater in Istanbul on 9 February.