I received an email from Isabelle some months ago… she had written to us here and I was instantly moved by her story. Upon coming across my site, listening to the Armenian folk music I am so passionate about and reading my story, she noticed a connection and wrote to me to explain:
“The mother of my grandmother was also named Mariam Markarian…” she wrote, “Just like your grandmother…”
Of course, I was instantly intrigued… “maybe our families are connected somehow…” she continued.
Isabelle’s family history moved me deeply as do so many stories that I am honoured to hear as I meet people from all over the world. These are people I probably would have never met were it not for the powerful effect of music, a language that transcends all boundaries and draws people together in an incredible way.
I asked Isabelle if I could share parts of her story here and she was so touched and happily agreed…
Isabelle’s grandmother, Zabel, was born in Trabzon in 1912. And then in the years that followed, this helpless babe endured the horrors of the Armenian Genocide. One cannot be sure what happened to her or her family, but she was found, a young babe, maybe 2 or 3 years old, utterly alone, by people who were trying to help the victims of the Armenian Genocide.
The people who found little Zabel tried to locate members of her family, but sadly, could not. She was an orphan. Separated from her family (who were most probably massacred during the Genocide), Zabel’s life would never be the same.
She was placed in an orphanage. She was given a name (Zabel) and an identity based on the research that the orphanage workers conducted on behalf of the child who was obviously too young and probably too traumatized to remember anything. Her name might not have even been Zabel, but this is what they determined it most probably was based on the official papers that they found in the city.
After years in different orphanages, Zabel, at the age of 14 ended up in Marseille, France, in a new orphanage. And then her life completely changed once again.
A young Armenian man arrived at the orphanage looking for a young Armenian girl that he might have as his wife. He was also a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. He asked the director if there were any girls with blonde hair, if possible. And sure enough, Zabel, with blonde hair and blue eyes, was chosen. Too young by French law to be married, the orphanage director changed the date of her birth by four more years. So now, Zabel, a new 18 year old, had become a bride…
“Can you believe it!” Isabelle wrote to me as she recounted this story.
Yes, I can; I can believe this story because I know it is true.
I have heard so many like it from other survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Each story is unique and yet the commonalities are there. And sometimes, I do not want to believe these stories.
My heart is torn again and again as I read Isabelle’s message to me and as I write it out again here. I have tears in my eyes. I am thinking about this little blonde Armenian girl’s own mother, Mariam, separated from her tiny babe, massacred in the Genocide…what horrors did she endure?
I am thinking about little Zabel, too young to remember details from her short but traumatic life. Little Zabel, a witness of the Genocide, separated from her family, never to be held by her mother or father again… never to see her home again…
My heart is torn for the pain here. And at the same time, I am dancing for joy with the hope that comes.
A young babe survives.
She lives.
She begins a entirely new life in a new country with a young man who came looking for a wife… she lives life and has her own children, and grandchildren, one of them is Isabelle… the story goes on…
Isabelle wrote to tell me that her grandmother Zabel just recently passed away.
She was 98 years old.
Ah, Zabel… we remember you today… and your story lives on… thank you, Isabelle.
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