99 - all you should know about the Genocide April, 2014 | Page 65

Hripsime Haji Sargsyan | 26.02.1911, birthplace – Tavshanli village
I was small when the Turks came. My grandmother and grandfather were at home when a
Turk came and killed them right where they were sitting. He had said, “You must leave” and my
grandfather replied, “I won’t leave. I have a cow, a wife, a grandchild, a family. Where would I go?”
The Turk just fired and killed him. His wife ran out asking, “What have you done to my husband?”
He then said the same thing to my grandmother – “You must leave.” My grandmother had also not
agreed, and he killed her. They drove us out of the house, we got on a train and got to the city of
Bazarchik in Bulgaria.
On that journey, we saw thousands of people who had died on the migration trail or lost
consciousness, we saw girls who had been tortured…
When we reached Bulgaria, we received news that my father had escaped imprisonment and was
in Greece. We went to him and came to Armenia from Greece in 1946.
After my parents died in Greece, my elder brother took care of me. I can’t read or write in
Armenian because I was educated in Greece. That is where I met my husband Vagharshak. He had
nobody, he was an orphan. He saw me and liked me. We got married, lived well and had children.
I have 2 children, 6 grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren and 3 great-great-grandchildren.

A family portrait of Hripsime Haji Sargsyan (first from right), 1930s.