Excerpt from Ravished Armenia: The Story of Aurora Mardiganian, the Christian Girl Who Lived Through the Great Massacres (Classic Reprint)
At only 14, Aurora Maridigian learned the hard languages of torture and abuse in the custody of the Turkish officials and Kurdish fighters that had taken control of her native Armenia. The list of things she lost is too long for this whole volume, but chief amongst her losses were her family, who had their lives savagely cut short in front of her. Bodies, gunfire and fear became the air she breathed and captivity offered scarcely any respite.
Under pressure to convert and after two years in captivity, Aurora decided to escape her Turkish Lord Efendi’s harem. She held on to her faith and after long wandering in the hostile desert her home had come to resemble for her, she came to Ezrum, a Russian stronghold.
In Ezrum, Aurora found temporary safety with American missionaries. Her journey did not the end there however, and some time later with the assistance of the Allied American and Armenian forces she moved to Petrograd, and from there to New York.
Aurora eventually found a home in the United States and made her life there. A life that she has used to tell the world about the atrocities committed in Armenia against her people. In the process, the world fell in love with their Armenian Joan of Arc through these pages. Allow yourself to feel your spine straightened by her tenacity and daring in trying to hold on to her last link to her family and honour her by reading the message she fought to get out. No one can read Ravished Armenia and remain unmoved.