An Interview with Sylvia Axt

My grandmother and great-grandmother were both born in Constantinople, Armenia. While they had both moved to the United States before the Armenian Genocide, my grandmother remembers parts of her childhood relating to this time period and how it had an affect on her family overall.

While my grandmothers family did not speak of the Armenian Genocide within their household and tried to act like it did not happen because it was too sore and deep of a subject to understand at such a young age, there are facts and events that occured that were inevitable.

For example, since most Armenian last names end in "-ian," my great-grandmothers brother's last name was Karmanian. While he was living in Turkey as a business man during the time of the genocide, he ended up changing the spelling of his last name so the Republic of Turkey would not know he was of Armenian descent in order to protect himself. At this time, most Armenians who were working in Turkey also changed the spelling of their last name so it no longer ended in "-ian," and were not treated poorly by the Republic of Turkey.

Another interesting fact my grandmother remembers was that since Armenians are Christian, and the people of Turkey are Muslim, during the time of the genocide, the Armenians had to have tattoos of a cross on their face, hands, and arms so everyone knew they were Christians, leaving them at a greater risk. My grandmother also mentioned that during this time, the Armenians who had the tattoos on their inner forearms would keep their arm bent and close to their body, only bending it to show other Armenians.


Also, a few years ago my grandmother and great-aunt went on an Armenian cruise to simply socialize and meet other Armenians. During this cruise, they actually met some affiliates of the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, who was fired in 2006 by President Bush when he publicly referred to the 1915 tragedy of about 1.5 Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as a "Genocide," which signaled a change of stance in the U.S. government's position on the sensitive issue of the time period and could have been a prompt used to further antagonize Turkey on this issue.

In stance of the U.S., there are several official documents describing this event as a "genocide," and President Reagan also described this tragedy as a "genocide" in his speech on April 22,1981. Moreover, 42 of the 50 U.S. states recognize the events of 1915-1923 as a genocide, but since not all of the states publicy regnoize this event as a "genocide," President Bush did not feel it was appropriate to have a U.S. ambassador representing our country when not all of the states recogniz this event since the statements by John Evans were biased when he referred to it was a "genocide."