Aurora Mardiganian: The Anne Frank of the Armenian Genocide – New Documentary

Aurora Mardiganian: The Anne Frank of the Armenian Genocide – New Documentary –

The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute has unveiled the first official trailer of the documentary recounting the story of Aurora Mardiganian and the first Armenian Genocide movie shot in Hollywood in 1918 based on her memoirs.

 Starving, tortured, and enslaved, she endured the horrors of the Armenian Genocide. One among tens of thousands, at only 15 years old she survived to tell the story of her people and ravished homeland to the civilized world.

Arshaluys Mardikian was born to an Armenian financier in 1901in the ancient Armenian city of Chmshkadzag, named after the famous Byzantine Emperor John Tzimisces. Scarred both physically and emotionally, she mustered the courage and strength to persevere against all odds. Changing her name to Aurora Mardiganian to conceal her real identity and escape possible persecution by the Turks, she told her story and gave interviews. American papers wrote articles on her heart-wrenching odyssey; among them were the Life Magazine, New York American, and Los Angeles Examiner of the Hearst family newspapers, including 14 chapters from Sun., Aug. 18 to Nov. 24, 1918.

Unlike many survivors of the Armenian Genocide, who suppressed their memories, Aurora was among the first to tell her story. The Ravished Armenia: the Christian Girl, Who Survived the Great Massacres, based on the story of her life, was published in 1918. It served as a script for the film “Auction of Souls” that was produced in 1919 and first screened in London. Aurora not only shared her story with the world, but also courageously took a role in the movie, and even agreed to help promote the film at the expense of reliving the horrors of the genocide. This took the toll on Aurora, and consumed her in the last years of her life.

 Aurora Mardiganian is the personification of the horrors of the Armenian Genocide and what befell thousands of Armenian girls and women, in particular. She is the symbol of survival, resilience, and perseverance of a nation, triumphing over death and human evil. Her story is the story of thousands of orphaned Armenian girls, upon whose shoulders an entire nation was resurrected from the ashes of the genocide.

 Click here to watch the trailer

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa4X1Mwj3LU&list=UUrD5AtBg5MlgkTn8QiDBMmw